Academic Hubris (78)
Andrés Duany
5. “Zago vehemently attacked Dunham-Jones and New Urbanism for not having produced a single piece of ‘significant’ architecture, asking when they would give up in failure.”
Andrew Zago has achieved a new level of ignorance regarding the New Urbanism. I searched the net for a picture of him and was surprised to find that he does not look quite as slack-jawed stupid as he sounds, even though appearance is apparently how he judges substance.
Now (LORD grant me patience!), “significant” architecture is not really how New Urbanists keep score. We do so in many other ways: how many cars not bought; how many vehicle miles reduced; how much transit supported; how much carbon not spewed into the atmosphere; how many children and old folk walk to their daily needs; how much infrastructure cost saved; how much less expended on the delivery of municipal services; how many HOPE VI houses cherished by their residents; how much real estate value created; how many total acres under design (either as New Urbanist communities or through form-based codes); how many downtowns revitalized; how much choice available regionally to those whom suburbia does not serve well; and so on.
But Architect Zago keeps score by other means — like securing the good opinion of about a half-dozen critics in Los Angeles and New York. Indeed, he operates in a world so marginal that I need to be reminded of its existence, monthly, by Metropolis.
That his statement was thoroughly engaged by Director Martin, rather than being ignored as the antics of a simpleton, shows what kind of emissions pass for discourse in academia these days.
But let’s have a look at it from Architect Zago’s point of view. It turns out that even by the tight little standards of his world, and within just one little project (Seaside), there might be as much “significant” architecture as Architect Zago himself might hope to achieve in a lifetime. Seaside has Steve Holl’s first large building. Machado/Silvetti’s first large building. The first buildings (at least three each, and darn good, too) of Deborah Berke, Alex Gorlin, and Walter Chatham. The only building of Roger Ferri. The first building of Leon Krier. The only American house by Aldo Rossi. A wonderfully melancholic house by Sam Mockbee. Clever and charming pavilions by Michael McDonough, Stuart Cohen and Jersey Devil. A national AIA award-winning and gorgeous church by Scott Merrill. And those are only some of the modernism by the “names,” not all the best buildings.
Architect Zago is doubly ignorant: first of what New Urbanism intends to achieve on its own terms, and then of what it has achieved even on his terms.
Am I to understand that he teaches somewhere?
May 26, 2011, @ 2:49 pm
Andrew Zago has achieved a new level of ignorance regarding the New Urbanism. I searched the net for a picture of him and was surprised to find that he does not look quite as slack-jawed stupid as he sounds, even though appearance is apparently how he judges substance.
Now (LORD grant me patience!), “significant” architecture is not really how New Urbanists keep score. We do so in many other ways: how many cars not bought; how many vehicle miles reduced; how much transit supported; how much carbon not spewed into the atmosphere; how many children and old folk walk to their daily needs; how much infrastructure cost saved; how much less expended on the delivery of municipal services; how many HOPE VI houses cherished by their residents; how much real estate value created; how many total acres under design (either as New Urbanist communities or through form-based codes); how many downtowns revitalized; how much choice available regionally to those whom suburbia does not serve well; and so on.
But Architect Zago keeps score by other means — like securing the good opinion of about a half-dozen critics in Los Angeles and New York. Indeed, he operates in a world so marginal that I need to be reminded of its existence, monthly, by Metropolis.
That his statement was thoroughly engaged by Director Martin, rather than being ignored as the antics of a simpleton, shows what kind of emissions pass for discourse in academia these days.
But let’s have a look at it from Architect Zago’s point of view. It turns out that even by the tight little standards of his world, and within just one little project (Seaside), there might be as much “significant” architecture as Architect Zago himself might hope to achieve in a lifetime. Seaside has Steve Holl’s first large building. Machado/Silvetti’s first large building. The first buildings (at least three each, and darn good, too) of Deborah Berke, Alex Gorlin, and Walter Chatham. The only building of Roger Ferri. The first building of Leon Krier. The only American house by Aldo Rossi. A wonderfully melancholic house by Sam Mockbee. Clever and charming pavilions by Michael McDonough, Stuart Cohen and Jersey Devil. A national AIA award-winning and gorgeous church by Scott Merrill. And those are only some of the modernism by the “names,” not all the best buildings.
Architect Zago is doubly ignorant: first of what New Urbanism intends to achieve on its own terms, and then of what it has achieved even on his terms.
Am I to understand that he teaches somewhere?
May 26, 2011, @ 2:49 pm
James
3. We’ve been trying to put ourselves in the center of the debate for how many years now? Ever seen “He’s Just Not That Into You”?Get over it, girl.
May 25, 2011, @ 9:27 am
May 25, 2011, @ 9:27 am
Martin, the historian, illustrated his role by reframing the vitriol of team leader Andrew Zago with historical precision. Zago vehemently attacked Dunham-Jones and New Urbanism for not having produced a single piece of “significant” architecture, asking when they would give up in failure. Martin illustrated the false polarization of Zago’s argument – which pitted avant-garde or “significant” architecture against the kitsch that often results from New Urbanist ideology – redirecting the attack to Yale faculty member Leon Krier and making explicit the historical embroilment of the “significant” Ivy Leagues with suburban detritus.
Architect Harry Cobb, of Pei Cobb Freed and Partners, briefly introduced a discussion with the architects. In asking, in his words, an “innocent question”, Cobb gave form to the latent idea in the room, “putting the architect back in the center”. This simple idea formalized and infected the discussion over the remainder of the afternoon. The idea immediately took purchase with the architects in the room, who spend much of their professional and academic lives arguing for a place at the table, let alone the poll position. Recognizing its infectiousness, Martin reminded the audience in his subsequent address, that there is “no such thing as an innocent question from Harry Cobb.” I can only speculate on Martin’s remarks, but a promising point of entry is that Cobb’s challenge begs a further question: the center of what?
Innovation and Collaboration
Educational institutions are particularly well placed to accelerating these new forms of intervention — not only to seeing where the opportunities lie but also to encouraging their development in the demanding but very needy environment that exists today for designers. The current generation of teachers who are exploring diverse new structures for the delivery of design in the digital age, and the increasing focus on strengthening interdisciplinary connections between landscape and architecture, between regional planning and economic analysis, between design and the current demographic crisis — these trends make universities the most interesting laboratories of design potential in the world. If one thing is clear, it is that the various professions taught in design schools will prosper, and develop the transformative power that is their potential, only when practiced in ongoing dialogue and collaboration, in intensive feedback with one another.
Educational institutions are particularly well placed to accelerating these new forms of intervention — not only to seeing where the opportunities lie but also to encouraging their development in the demanding but very needy environment that exists today for designers. The current generation of teachers who are exploring diverse new structures for the delivery of design in the digital age, and the increasing focus on strengthening interdisciplinary connections between landscape and architecture, between regional planning and economic analysis, between design and the current demographic crisis — these trends make universities the most interesting laboratories of design potential in the world. If one thing is clear, it is that the various professions taught in design schools will prosper, and develop the transformative power that is their potential, only when practiced in ongoing dialogue and collaboration, in intensive feedback with one another.
estosage
September 18, 2011 at 12:46PM
This sounds like a lot of over paid elitists trying to decide how everyone else should live. My suggestion is that all members of this elite team be required to move their families to this new development and reside there for at least five years as part of their contract. The most troubling is, as Fairfield Fox points out, the use of taxpayer dollars to fund this boodoggle. Who are they to declare that suburban living is dead? Then the usual outlandish lie: " many long-standing critics of the American suburb — who see it as environmentally toxic, energy wasteful and just too expensive (especially because it’s paid for by taxing the cities) " All evidence points to the suburban taxpayer as supporting the urban ghettos so your analysis is an ouit right lie. Abbot schools and other urban renewal activities are primarily supported by taxpayers from the suburbs.
This sounds like a lot of over paid elitists trying to decide how everyone else should live. My suggestion is that all members of this elite team be required to move their families to this new development and reside there for at least five years as part of their contract. The most troubling is, as Fairfield Fox points out, the use of taxpayer dollars to fund this boodoggle. Who are they to declare that suburban living is dead? Then the usual outlandish lie: " many long-standing critics of the American suburb — who see it as environmentally toxic, energy wasteful and just too expensive (especially because it’s paid for by taxing the cities) " All evidence points to the suburban taxpayer as supporting the urban ghettos so your analysis is an ouit right lie. Abbot schools and other urban renewal activities are primarily supported by taxpayers from the suburbs.
“We know that we are not experts,” says Gaspar, “but we work closely with the advocacy groups that are.” In contrast, curators and architects are expected to be authorities. “We have no idea what we are doing!” joked MOS Architects partner MichaelMeredith, who is tackling the redesign of the “Oranges” townships in New Jersey for MoMA’s “Foreclosed”. The pressure of being an outside expert stems, in part, from having to assimilate all known data for a region in order to, presumably, improve it.
Speculating about ideas for the urban environment has become a new parlor game for the college-educated elite. At a certain point there are only so many of these festivals of ideas you need. Someone needs to go and do the socially valuable work itself.
Keith Bowers
DECEMBER 27, 2011, 10:35 A.M.
Thank you for critiquing the collaboration process. As President of the Board of Directors for The Wildlands Network, we applaud your efforts in attempting to include ‘rewilding’ into this concept. And while it is encouraging that the design team included an ecologist, it is most unfortunate that the execution did not respect your input. We see this time and again, where some sort of abstract design aesthetic is forced onto the landscape, marginalizing or worse yet, ignoring the basic tenants of ecology, and then championed in the name of ‘sustainability’. Once again, it goes to show that many architects (and landscape architects) talk a good talk about ecological issues but rarely understand the science and almost certainly don’t know how to fully integrate sound ecological principles into their work. The two are not mutually exclusive.
Thank you for critiquing the collaboration process. As President of the Board of Directors for The Wildlands Network, we applaud your efforts in attempting to include ‘rewilding’ into this concept. And while it is encouraging that the design team included an ecologist, it is most unfortunate that the execution did not respect your input. We see this time and again, where some sort of abstract design aesthetic is forced onto the landscape, marginalizing or worse yet, ignoring the basic tenants of ecology, and then championed in the name of ‘sustainability’. Once again, it goes to show that many architects (and landscape architects) talk a good talk about ecological issues but rarely understand the science and almost certainly don’t know how to fully integrate sound ecological principles into their work. The two are not mutually exclusive.
Here are thoughts from Alexander Felson, a member of Andrew Zago’s team.
What is most interesting, and hauntingly familiar, is the ecologist’s critique of the final proposal:
“However, in the course of the translation of these strategies into a design aesthetic, a sustained process for facilitating input from the ecologist was never fully developed or attempted, with mixed results in the extent to which the architect was able to effectively capture the ecological concepts. Consequently, while the final proposal of misregistration provides a compelling aesthetic, its actual ecological functionality remains open to question.”
We see this time and again, where some sort of abstract design aesthetic is forced onto the landscape, marginalizing or worse yet, ignoring the basic tenants of ecology, and then championed in the name of ‘sustainability’. Once again, it goes to show that many architects (and landscape architects) talk a good talk about ecological issues but rarely understand the science and almost certainly don’t know how to fully integrate sound ecological principles into their work. The two are not mutually exclusive.
What is most interesting, and hauntingly familiar, is the ecologist’s critique of the final proposal:
“However, in the course of the translation of these strategies into a design aesthetic, a sustained process for facilitating input from the ecologist was never fully developed or attempted, with mixed results in the extent to which the architect was able to effectively capture the ecological concepts. Consequently, while the final proposal of misregistration provides a compelling aesthetic, its actual ecological functionality remains open to question.”
We see this time and again, where some sort of abstract design aesthetic is forced onto the landscape, marginalizing or worse yet, ignoring the basic tenants of ecology, and then championed in the name of ‘sustainability’. Once again, it goes to show that many architects (and landscape architects) talk a good talk about ecological issues but rarely understand the science and almost certainly don’t know how to fully integrate sound ecological principles into their work. The two are not mutually exclusive.
CYBEROID
I heard this exhibition announced on Pasadena, CA NPR station KPCC. The announcer was reading a press release from MOMA that began, something about pioneering design "in the wake of the foreclosure crisis."
We are not in a wake following a concluded foreclosure crisis -- we are in a foreclosure crisis! For MOMA to pass this off as the creative residue of a situation now resolved is not only stupidly Pollyanna, it is disingenuous and spreads false hope that the worst is behind us. No, the worst is ahead of us. More, many more homeowners are underwater or nearly so and as the economy continues basically moribund, the situation will only get worse. That is, if no one does anything dramatic to help homeowners as much as the bankers. Two Administrations of supposedly different ideologies have conspired to let the banks off the hook and throw the deadbeats -- the newly poor -- out of their homes.
MOMA's characterization of the exhibition as post facto is blatantly ignorant of the situation as it is. MOMA should be made to address the realities of home loss, not its own fantasy of what may have occurred.
BTW, the ridiculous solutions to the suburban crisis proposed in the exhibition are not clever, they are insulting to the people who made it possible: the foreclosed. Really in poor taste.
6 Months Ago
We are not in a wake following a concluded foreclosure crisis -- we are in a foreclosure crisis! For MOMA to pass this off as the creative residue of a situation now resolved is not only stupidly Pollyanna, it is disingenuous and spreads false hope that the worst is behind us. No, the worst is ahead of us. More, many more homeowners are underwater or nearly so and as the economy continues basically moribund, the situation will only get worse. That is, if no one does anything dramatic to help homeowners as much as the bankers. Two Administrations of supposedly different ideologies have conspired to let the banks off the hook and throw the deadbeats -- the newly poor -- out of their homes.
MOMA's characterization of the exhibition as post facto is blatantly ignorant of the situation as it is. MOMA should be made to address the realities of home loss, not its own fantasy of what may have occurred.
BTW, the ridiculous solutions to the suburban crisis proposed in the exhibition are not clever, they are insulting to the people who made it possible: the foreclosed. Really in poor taste.
6 Months Ago
“Foreclosed” does a fine job of analyzing these changes and of offering tentative, provocative solutions. For all its thoughtfulness and rigor, though, a whiff of colonialism blows through the project, with its corps of city-based experts venturing into suburbia with maps and modern technology and plans for reforming the indigenous culture. The visions they come up with have a familiar urban feel, and the show replaces old conventional wisdom with the only slightly fresher dogma of density, a word that irritates millions. Packing people close together has virtues that don’t need to be spelled out to most readers of this magazine, and dispersing the population as wantonly and deliberately as we have in the last 70 years has been a colossal environmental blunder. We need more variety of settlement types. But suburbanites like the suburbs. To dismiss the deeply ingrained desire for a buffer zone between one household and another is to turn potential allies into a hostile cul-de-sac army. You can’t wish the ’burbs away, and you can’t turn them into imitation cities.
JAKE_WEGMANN
I totally agree with Kazooguy.
I was about to write this piece off, but then I read the absolutely spot-on dose of skepticism at the end, and then I was OK with it.
For starters, couldn't the architects have deigned to live "in residence" in, I dunno, a blue collar suburb like Brentwood, Long Island rather than Long Island City, Queens? Would it really have killed them to go and look at a (GASP) actual suburb and talk to some people who actually live in one?
On a more fundamental level, I question whether architects come from the right profession to address the undeniable problems that suburbs face. Design is the easy part. The hard part has to do with politics, infrastructure, taxes, race, class, regulations, and so forth.
And on a still more fundamental level, I question whether the term "suburb" is even useful at all. Are Claremont and Riverside both "suburbs" of Los Angeles? Well, I guess so. Do they even remotely have anything in common with each other, apart from the fact that they are in the LA region but not part of the City of LA? Not really. In fact, not at all. I think the very framing of this exhibit is outdated, and was put together by people who do not get out of their bougie, 24-hour city enclaves enough to have a whole lot that's interesting to say about the "real America" (the REAL real America, full of racial, ethnic and other kinds of diversity, not Sarah Palin's 1950s-era small town fantasy) and what problems it faces.
6 Months Ago
I was about to write this piece off, but then I read the absolutely spot-on dose of skepticism at the end, and then I was OK with it.
For starters, couldn't the architects have deigned to live "in residence" in, I dunno, a blue collar suburb like Brentwood, Long Island rather than Long Island City, Queens? Would it really have killed them to go and look at a (GASP) actual suburb and talk to some people who actually live in one?
On a more fundamental level, I question whether architects come from the right profession to address the undeniable problems that suburbs face. Design is the easy part. The hard part has to do with politics, infrastructure, taxes, race, class, regulations, and so forth.
And on a still more fundamental level, I question whether the term "suburb" is even useful at all. Are Claremont and Riverside both "suburbs" of Los Angeles? Well, I guess so. Do they even remotely have anything in common with each other, apart from the fact that they are in the LA region but not part of the City of LA? Not really. In fact, not at all. I think the very framing of this exhibit is outdated, and was put together by people who do not get out of their bougie, 24-hour city enclaves enough to have a whole lot that's interesting to say about the "real America" (the REAL real America, full of racial, ethnic and other kinds of diversity, not Sarah Palin's 1950s-era small town fantasy) and what problems it faces.
6 Months Ago
Anonymous
The act or threat of foreclosure is a tragedy for many Americans today. Secure in the comfort of arty-farty notoriety, the self-idulgent naval gazing displayed by these architects is a slap in the face to the very real problems these people are facing. I'm insulted that Barry Bergdoll and MoMA could be so oblivious to the real world concerns that this show mocks with its distance and comfortable remove. They should be ashamed of themselves.
2/16/2012 10:34 PM CST
2/16/2012 10:34 PM CST
Anonymous
There's ample evidence that these ill-informed speculations lead nowhere. Not anywhere useful anyway. But speculation is easier than dealing with hard facts and the practical exigencies of real design for real people. (There's nothing a liberal academic hates more than a fact. Acknowledging facts undermines the whole basis for their existence in the fantasy land that is architectural academia.) So let's stop humoring these self-serving, compost-dome loving con artists. There's more newsworthy architecture out there if Record would get some sense and seek it out.
2/16/2012 6:23 PM CST
2/16/2012 6:23 PM CST
Anonymous
Theory-based architects consider themselves the vanguard of civilization, leading mere mortals towards a better world where untested ideas are more relevant than facts. The vision and superior attitude of these self-anointed guardians of our future lacks respect for the wisdom inherent in experience and common opinion. Its practitioners value abstractions—dreams for an egalitarian world where conflicts and the preferences rooted in individuality do not exist. The cold urban wastelands that result from this approach are to be seen all over Eastern Europe. Why would anyone want to repeat these mistakes now?
2/16/2012 12:40 PM CST
2/16/2012 12:40 PM CST
Anonymous
How do things like this keep getting published? It seriously degrades the integrity of the profession of architecture when the public sees projects like this and assumes that since these firms are well known, this is what every architect is striving towards. No wonder we are becoming increasingly marginalized.
2/16/2012 11:43 AM CST
2/16/2012 11:43 AM CST
Anonymous
- MOS' propose to starve the city of circulation by building in the streets.
- The focus of WALKac's urbanism is a giant compost heap anchoring their plan.
- Studio Gang envisions a world where residences look like scaleless shipping containers.
- Andrew Zago thinks the future rests in a childish vision of LegoLand with skewed walls.
I’m surprised Barry Bergdoll let his name be associated with such obvious rot. No doubt pretentious architects will buy into this. It fulfills their idea of themselves as intellectuals even as it highlights the degree to which they have not fully developed as sentient human beings.
2/16/2012 10:56 AM CST
- The focus of WALKac's urbanism is a giant compost heap anchoring their plan.
- Studio Gang envisions a world where residences look like scaleless shipping containers.
- Andrew Zago thinks the future rests in a childish vision of LegoLand with skewed walls.
I’m surprised Barry Bergdoll let his name be associated with such obvious rot. No doubt pretentious architects will buy into this. It fulfills their idea of themselves as intellectuals even as it highlights the degree to which they have not fully developed as sentient human beings.
2/16/2012 10:56 AM CST
Anonymous
Once again, the self annointed cognoscenti propose using fellow humans as the guinea pigs to test ideas that are blatantly backrupt. As George Orwell said, "There are some ideas so stupid only an intellectual could believe in them."
2/15/2012 10:05 PM CST
2/15/2012 10:05 PM CST
Anonymous
To the post several lines down comparing these elitist idealogues to Steve Jobs: I'm still laughing. Steve jobs didn't create a "trend" as you say. He created great products that people want to buy. Therein is the lesson Architects should learn. Is there room for expressionism and "rethinking the box" in architecture. Pehaps. And if one wants to build there practice on such, go for it. If one does it well enough that people buy-in, then they will have achieved the real American Dream - not one contrived for them by others who "know better" as seems to be the intent of this show.
2/15/2012 6:44 PM CST
2/15/2012 6:44 PM CST
Anonymous
The article claims - "The theme of the show is the disconnect between the housing Americans need and the housing America offers."
I think you mean - "The theme of the show is the disconnect between the housing Americans need and the half-baked elitist ideas that pretentious liberal academics would like to impose on them."
R.D. Caldora, New York City
2/15/2012 5:58 PM CST
I think you mean - "The theme of the show is the disconnect between the housing Americans need and the half-baked elitist ideas that pretentious liberal academics would like to impose on them."
R.D. Caldora, New York City
2/15/2012 5:58 PM CST
Anonymous
How do you comment on the human condition in drawings?
2/15/2012 4:53 PM CST
2/15/2012 4:53 PM CST
Anonymous
How do you test design theories then?
2/15/2012 4:51 PM CST
2/15/2012 4:51 PM CST
Anonymous
These proposals are shockingly superficial. They are all rooted in slick but meaningless graphics that bear no relationship to the human condition they are intended to adress. There's a huge gap between the abstraction of misguided and untested "theories" and the reality of "shelter".
2/15/2012 4:48 PM CST
2/15/2012 4:48 PM CST
I can assure you that the typical American family threatened with eviction and foreclosure is not fantasizing about the sort of solutions proposed by these very delusional and self-indulgent architects. They would laugh at Andrew Zago's childish scheme of deformed and cartoonish boxes. And they'd be right to do so. The work is ridiculous. - The regimented and joyless schemes proposed here seem more like the slums of the future rather than the solution to the problem as posed.
2/15/2012 3:18 PM CST
2/15/2012 3:18 PM CST
Anonymous
There are many real examples where former "fringe" industrial areas have been reappropriated for residential use. London's Canary Wharf (docklands) and New York's SoHo and Williamsburg areas (warehousing), are good examples. Often it was artists and students seeking low-cost housing at the perifery that created the beach head for the later urban development. But Free Market forces drove these initiatives both at the begining (students) and at the end (yuppies).
Quasi-intellectual architect-driven initiatives have rarely had the same positive result. Almost a century of bombastic architectural "visions' from Corb's plan to level Paris, to Pruitt-Igoe and beyond have repeatedly shown that many architects know less about how people really want to live than do the developers they so easily criticize. So much for the fruits of half-baked liberal thinking rooted in "speculation" rather than informed analysis. Typically, the more theoretically driven the project, the worse were the results. - QED "Foreclosure".
2/15/2012 12:50 PM CST
Quasi-intellectual architect-driven initiatives have rarely had the same positive result. Almost a century of bombastic architectural "visions' from Corb's plan to level Paris, to Pruitt-Igoe and beyond have repeatedly shown that many architects know less about how people really want to live than do the developers they so easily criticize. So much for the fruits of half-baked liberal thinking rooted in "speculation" rather than informed analysis. Typically, the more theoretically driven the project, the worse were the results. - QED "Foreclosure".
2/15/2012 12:50 PM CST
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Ill give you libeskind, im not a fan of his either, but just because an idea isn't popular doesn't automatically make it incorrect...this is a lesson that has been repeated through the course of history. People are resistant to change, we like the status quo. People hated the eiffel tower, now they love it. The same holds true for the pompidou center. People's like or dislike of things really does not prove whether or not it is inherently wrong or bad design or anything. It just proves that they are unfamiliar with it, nothing more. Give these ideas a chance and they might actually have some worth. And I wouldn't dismiss the education of today and compare it to the ecole. Most of the study of ecole revolved around tirelessly perfecting the Orders, today's education (at certain schools) deals more with complex building systems and the human interaction with the space.
2/14/2012 4:12 PM CST
Ill give you libeskind, im not a fan of his either, but just because an idea isn't popular doesn't automatically make it incorrect...this is a lesson that has been repeated through the course of history. People are resistant to change, we like the status quo. People hated the eiffel tower, now they love it. The same holds true for the pompidou center. People's like or dislike of things really does not prove whether or not it is inherently wrong or bad design or anything. It just proves that they are unfamiliar with it, nothing more. Give these ideas a chance and they might actually have some worth. And I wouldn't dismiss the education of today and compare it to the ecole. Most of the study of ecole revolved around tirelessly perfecting the Orders, today's education (at certain schools) deals more with complex building systems and the human interaction with the space.
2/14/2012 4:12 PM CST
Anonymous
To the poster below: - The education received by an architect in the Beaux Arts era is very different from the course of study that passes for an architectural education today. I don't think anyone can find too much fault with the work produced in that earlier period. Not so with the work of most architects in the last 50 years where a relatively small number of architectural works are really appreciated by the public. (Daniel Libeskind's Crystal' ... anyone?) - So is it fair to say that today's architects are really educated enough to lead the rest of society? A better question would be to ask outselves why the public dislikes so much of what our profession creates today. Therein lies the way forward. Ignoring your audience is not the solution to anything.
2/14/2012 3:23 PM CST
2/14/2012 3:23 PM CST
Anonymous
In response to the commenter who responded to my earlier post about people being stupid, good one. You can disagree with me all you like and call my intelligence into question, but the simple fact remains that most people don't have a clue about architecture, how can they?The education we go through (in school and the professional world) is some of the toughest. It is up to the architect to educate. I don't know what happened in this country to make people so resentful of others. The kind of discourse people have with architecture resembles that of monkeys and their habitual poo throwing...
2/14/2012 3:14 PM CST
2/14/2012 3:14 PM CST
Anonymous
To the commenter below who said "BTW, people are stupid ..." - Just because you lack intelligence, don't assume everyone else is in the same boat. The comparison with Steve Jobs and Apple is highly selective. For every Apple there has been a slew of failures. The projects shown here seem more likely to be in the failure category. We've seen this stuff before. It didn't work then, it won't work now. - But it's a free country. If these architects chose to be pretentious, who am I to stop them. It's their mind to waste revisiting dead end speculations.
2/14/2012 2:42 PM CST
2/14/2012 2:42 PM CST
Anonymous
BTW people are stupid- they don't know what they want. It takes people like Steve Jobs to create trends and others will follow. Architecture is no different. The apple of architecture is here, it just takes a while for people to catch on (the amoebae effect). Remember apple was the butt of many jokes from pc users. Now look who's laughing.
2/14/2012 2:24 PM CST
2/14/2012 2:24 PM CST
Anonymous
There's a reason the general public prefer New Urbanism to the quasi-intellectual fantasies proposed here. The former adresses the real needs of the end users in a way that has stood the test of time, even as it evolves stylistically and functionally. As evidenced in the elitist and out-of-touch works shown here, the latter approach is at best a disconnected abstration that responds only to the imposed program of its creator. It has no basis in the world we as architects are supposed to service. Using trumped up jargon like "investigations" or "speculations" cannot hide the intellectual abyss from which this work emanates.
2/14/2012 12:58 PM CST
2/14/2012 12:58 PM CST
Anonymous
This is what architecture would be like if there weren't all those pesky humans running around.
2/14/2012 12:27 PM CST
2/14/2012 12:27 PM CST
Anonymous
So much spin and hate on the “Architectural Record”? It looks like student Occupiers have broadened their opinions to include architecture/planning!! I actually feel sorry for them and agree with those who believe that even misplaced, but uncorrupted, passion is better than apathy. But your view of our future is sadly UnAmerican and something that will handicap your life until you wise up.
“Anti Socialists”, “healthy cities” – hilarious! “Eggheady liberal architects”!? LOL Oh how you flatter yourselves! Inexperienced, academic, myopic, global warming eco hustlers who don’t understand the environment, fossil fuels/energy economy, national defense, US economy, our history or American Exceptionalism means that you are incapable of comprehending our future, which robs you of any basis for design. …so as a result we get vanity nonsense like this. ..and wishes for socialism as Athens burns in the wake of spastic entitlement class withdrawal.
Americans were not “given” anything; planning is not a socialist activity in the United States; and the diversity of planning across the country varies from tragic to excellent – something some writing here are obviously unaware of, living in a generation of under-educated, arrogant skepticism of forces you don’t understand.
Market forces drive change, a natural process arrogant socialists have no patience for. You are confused and angry because of the lies you tell yourselves and the turmoil that results. For example: there is no place for over-priced boutique wind/solar power (creates a job killing prosperity tax); oil is cheap and plentiful for hundreds of years; electric cars have already been rejected by the market; human controlled global weather is nonsense (global warming); landfills are a business like any other; recycling is, with few exceptions, just more manufacturing; and you have been betrayed by those who have taught you much of your lives. No matter what eco fantasy world you want to inhabit, everything I’ve written is dead on and there’s not a thing your hatful confusion can do about it.
Take some comfort in knowing that, for better or worse, you are not wise enough to begin to understand our future.
2/14/2012 11:29 AM CST
“Anti Socialists”, “healthy cities” – hilarious! “Eggheady liberal architects”!? LOL Oh how you flatter yourselves! Inexperienced, academic, myopic, global warming eco hustlers who don’t understand the environment, fossil fuels/energy economy, national defense, US economy, our history or American Exceptionalism means that you are incapable of comprehending our future, which robs you of any basis for design. …so as a result we get vanity nonsense like this. ..and wishes for socialism as Athens burns in the wake of spastic entitlement class withdrawal.
Americans were not “given” anything; planning is not a socialist activity in the United States; and the diversity of planning across the country varies from tragic to excellent – something some writing here are obviously unaware of, living in a generation of under-educated, arrogant skepticism of forces you don’t understand.
Market forces drive change, a natural process arrogant socialists have no patience for. You are confused and angry because of the lies you tell yourselves and the turmoil that results. For example: there is no place for over-priced boutique wind/solar power (creates a job killing prosperity tax); oil is cheap and plentiful for hundreds of years; electric cars have already been rejected by the market; human controlled global weather is nonsense (global warming); landfills are a business like any other; recycling is, with few exceptions, just more manufacturing; and you have been betrayed by those who have taught you much of your lives. No matter what eco fantasy world you want to inhabit, everything I’ve written is dead on and there’s not a thing your hatful confusion can do about it.
Take some comfort in knowing that, for better or worse, you are not wise enough to begin to understand our future.
2/14/2012 11:29 AM CST
Anonymous
The problem: Americans were given what they wanted in terms of market economy-based city planning for decades, and "eggheady" liberal architects and planners were ignored.
The solution (according to the people responding to this article): Ignore the "eggheady" liberal architects and do what the American people want: ie more of the same.
No wonder America is so incompetent when it comes to healthy cities. Only a small minority of intelligent liberal green architects and planners embrace a healthy productive path forward, and an overwhelming majority of ignorant architects and free market thinkers couldn't care less or think the solution to the problem is to ignore the solutions and embrace the problem as the only answer - I guess because Ronald Reagan told them to (during a period in his life when he had a debilitating mental illness I might add).
2/13/2012 5:40 PM CST
The solution (according to the people responding to this article): Ignore the "eggheady" liberal architects and do what the American people want: ie more of the same.
No wonder America is so incompetent when it comes to healthy cities. Only a small minority of intelligent liberal green architects and planners embrace a healthy productive path forward, and an overwhelming majority of ignorant architects and free market thinkers couldn't care less or think the solution to the problem is to ignore the solutions and embrace the problem as the only answer - I guess because Ronald Reagan told them to (during a period in his life when he had a debilitating mental illness I might add).
2/13/2012 5:40 PM CST
Anonymous
This is a terrific question for the design community but “Academics” are not equipped to address it because by definition they are insulated from the market forces that drive these questions.
Their design responses always seem to find answers in central planning socialism (or communism) where the lord in charge decrees how the little people shall live. In the context of the greatest economy on earth, these solutions always vary from amusing and trendy to useless. Ironically and predictably, the housing solutions generated by real world socialists and communists are among the worst on the planet!
Two years ago I outlined a grant project to design and build "the next American Home" using an award winning, very expensive, AE design and development team that no market rate home owner could ever afford. My local region's weather, utility rates, standard of living, aesthetic sensibilities and real estate market would all form the basis for this project. Once constructed, it would be leased and its overall performance measured over years – including elements like comfort, pride of ownership and livability in addition to the boring engineering stuff like energy performance.
The goal would be to offer a platform for the next generation of America’s homebuilders to reference when that industry recovers. I will not give away all the beans because I may resurrect it someday but needless to say, even in this economy I became too busy to fuss around with it.
2/13/2012 4:12 PM CST
Their design responses always seem to find answers in central planning socialism (or communism) where the lord in charge decrees how the little people shall live. In the context of the greatest economy on earth, these solutions always vary from amusing and trendy to useless. Ironically and predictably, the housing solutions generated by real world socialists and communists are among the worst on the planet!
Two years ago I outlined a grant project to design and build "the next American Home" using an award winning, very expensive, AE design and development team that no market rate home owner could ever afford. My local region's weather, utility rates, standard of living, aesthetic sensibilities and real estate market would all form the basis for this project. Once constructed, it would be leased and its overall performance measured over years – including elements like comfort, pride of ownership and livability in addition to the boring engineering stuff like energy performance.
The goal would be to offer a platform for the next generation of America’s homebuilders to reference when that industry recovers. I will not give away all the beans because I may resurrect it someday but needless to say, even in this economy I became too busy to fuss around with it.
2/13/2012 4:12 PM CST
Anonymous
Has anyone asked the people who need housing what they need? Suburbia has always been wasteful and dehumanizing, but when I see ivory tower intellectuals and "community activists" trying to redefine our culture I cringe.
What people need is the liberty to pursue their dreams and the educational and intellectual means to obtain it. Then they can buy whatever housing they like, even a McMansion.
2/13/2012 3:13 PM CST
What people need is the liberty to pursue their dreams and the educational and intellectual means to obtain it. Then they can buy whatever housing they like, even a McMansion.
2/13/2012 3:13 PM CST
Anonymous
Central Planning in Beijing might be a better place for this exhibit. Are these Utopians sure we are all too anti-social and numb to survive as a species? Are we dummies so brainwashed by the old-fashioned we just can't let go of streets, fences, single family homes and going to the store for produce? Clientless design imposed on the "masses" is not the answer to fixing the world that embarrasses these folks...the answer is not to answer the unasked question....and I am sure none of the pathetic low incomers that I know asked to live in a decommissioned pile of box cars. Architecture is evolving at a nice evolutionary rate; leave it to do so. Fix federal regulation and banking and leave this type of "creativity" in North Korea where it works so well.
2/13/2012 2:27 PM CST
2/13/2012 2:27 PM CST
Anonymous
The term "intellectual" is a self-imposed occupational description rather than a qualitative label or an honorific title. One of the surprising privileges of intellectuals is that they are free to be scandalously asinine without harming their reputation. By comparison, no one judged Vince Lombardi's ideas about football by their plausibility a priori or by whether they were more complex or less complex than the ideas of other football coaches, or by whether they represented new or old conceptions of how the game should be played. Vince Lombardi was judged by what happened when his ideas were put to the test on the football field.
2/17/2012 4:50 PM CST
2/17/2012 4:50 PM CST
Anonymous
The New Urbanists have already addressed this issue and produced workable, walkable models that achieved popular and professional respect. So why does MoMA see fit to waste time and money "investigating" pretentious schemes like these? Ill-concieved, wrong-headed abstractions are the problem, not the solution. Let's move on from this self-indulgent posturing by people with little real work experience.
2/25/2012 2:22 PM CST
2/25/2012 2:22 PM CST
Anonymous
I think all of these poseurs should be forced to live together in a project designed by a theorist of comparably limited experience. A year or more sharing each other's company and experiencing at first hand the sort of BS that comes out of academia might wake them up to the potential of an architecture which is beautiful, practical and based on people rather than on empty-headed ideas plucked from the ether.
2/29/2012 5:47 AM CST
2/29/2012 5:47 AM CST
Anonymous
As long as the architectural media continues its wrong-headed fascination with "speculation" conducted in a vacuum, we'll continue to see vapid presentations like these. The best architecture has always come from a clear examination of real problems. Post-facto selection of only the particular information that suits the pre-conceived thesis is best left in the pretentious world of psuedo intellectuals where it belongs. Just don't foist this nonsense on the public who deserve better.
2/29/2012 9:03 AM CST
2/29/2012 9:03 AM CST
Come see what these luminaries have in store for America.
Kevin W.
Feb 16, 12 1:30 pm
Builders, developers and real estate people have been telling people how to live for years....it's obvious now, more than ever, thats how things are done....people don't know what they want...Architects stopped telling people what they want in the 1960's....see what we have now? I think as far as far as something develor driven, the Eichler approach today would be a good start....Developer, hiring good and great Architects, offering something different that makes sense.
Builders, developers and real estate people have been telling people how to live for years....it's obvious now, more than ever, thats how things are done....people don't know what they want...Architects stopped telling people what they want in the 1960's....see what we have now? I think as far as far as something develor driven, the Eichler approach today would be a good start....Developer, hiring good and great Architects, offering something different that makes sense.
jla-x
Feb 16, 12 11:27 am
Why does innovation from Architects always have to come in the form of telling people how to live their lives?
You hit the nail on the head. This goes back the the FLW broad acre city idea, that we can reinvent society in totality to fit a certain utopian vision. The problem is that every architect wants to invent the big cure not the gradual remedy, because the glory lies in being Jonas Salk not the guy who invented Robatusin. The problem with any utopian model is that it usually works in theory, but is completely unrealisable due to the given societal constraints with regard to culture and economy. I have been arguing on threads here that we need to become developers and offer realistic alternatives to crap suburbia. Once again, architects are thinking of top down solutions to what can only be achieved with bottom up models. We live in a free market society whether we like it or not. We need to create demand by building better stuff. "if you build it they will come" We can't just dictate our solutions and hope for society to demand our service. The suburban model is not going away because it is deeply part of the american culture. Rather than get rid of it, lets start by building more sustainable and enriching suburaban communities that are affordable. Look at the way the auto industry copes with these constraints...Sure a small electric car that weighs 1000 lbs. may be the best solution, but they recognise that society will not change so quick, so they focus on hybrid suv's and 4 door sedans. We need to build the "civic hybrid" equivelent of architecture right now (transitionary projects) not the electric smart car, because unfortunatly many people out there still have steel testicles hanging from the back of their pick-up trucks. If we can't even do that, how the hell are we going to do anything more radical. While I wish society was easy to change and would love to see such grand projects, it just ain't gonna happen yet.
Why does innovation from Architects always have to come in the form of telling people how to live their lives?
You hit the nail on the head. This goes back the the FLW broad acre city idea, that we can reinvent society in totality to fit a certain utopian vision. The problem is that every architect wants to invent the big cure not the gradual remedy, because the glory lies in being Jonas Salk not the guy who invented Robatusin. The problem with any utopian model is that it usually works in theory, but is completely unrealisable due to the given societal constraints with regard to culture and economy. I have been arguing on threads here that we need to become developers and offer realistic alternatives to crap suburbia. Once again, architects are thinking of top down solutions to what can only be achieved with bottom up models. We live in a free market society whether we like it or not. We need to create demand by building better stuff. "if you build it they will come" We can't just dictate our solutions and hope for society to demand our service. The suburban model is not going away because it is deeply part of the american culture. Rather than get rid of it, lets start by building more sustainable and enriching suburaban communities that are affordable. Look at the way the auto industry copes with these constraints...Sure a small electric car that weighs 1000 lbs. may be the best solution, but they recognise that society will not change so quick, so they focus on hybrid suv's and 4 door sedans. We need to build the "civic hybrid" equivelent of architecture right now (transitionary projects) not the electric smart car, because unfortunatly many people out there still have steel testicles hanging from the back of their pick-up trucks. If we can't even do that, how the hell are we going to do anything more radical. While I wish society was easy to change and would love to see such grand projects, it just ain't gonna happen yet.
wurdan freo
Feb 16, 12 10:06 am
Is this guy suggesting Condos are the solution to the real estate crisis? Or does everyone become a renter? Seems like another utopian community to me. And of course... he's going to tell me that if I have ONE child, I only get a two bedroom unit. No thanks. Why does innovation from Architects always have to come in the form of telling people how to live their lives? Maybe innovation could be a business model that allows Architects to incorporate all these good ideas and give the customer what they want instead of telling them what they want?
Some good ideas lost in translation, reducing cost of utilities. Simple solution there. Smaller footprint, better insulation and higher efficiency systems. Hmmm.... looks to be the kind of home that the home builders are putting out right now. Wonder why they're still in business?
Is this guy suggesting Condos are the solution to the real estate crisis? Or does everyone become a renter? Seems like another utopian community to me. And of course... he's going to tell me that if I have ONE child, I only get a two bedroom unit. No thanks. Why does innovation from Architects always have to come in the form of telling people how to live their lives? Maybe innovation could be a business model that allows Architects to incorporate all these good ideas and give the customer what they want instead of telling them what they want?
Some good ideas lost in translation, reducing cost of utilities. Simple solution there. Smaller footprint, better insulation and higher efficiency systems. Hmmm.... looks to be the kind of home that the home builders are putting out right now. Wonder why they're still in business?
Raphael Sperry
1. Right on, Brian. It’s a real shame that MoMA went from understanding something about community work to the idea that architects can magically help reverse decades of community disinvestment and financial industry assault through the use of digital design tools and esoteric philosophy. People facing foreclosure and the designers who want to help them (who may be one and the same) deserve better when our leading institutions investigate the situation.
February 17, 2012, @ 2:44 p.m.
February 17, 2012, @ 2:44 p.m.
Rather than just serving the top 1%, design could be as meaningful as public health and public interest law in serving the people. In fact, the architectural profession now sees an opportunity for a needed rebirth. Faced with the highest unemployment of any college degree, (January 5, 2011, The New York Times, “Want a Job? Go to College, and Don’t Major in Architecture”), many architects are seeking nontraditional uses of their talents.
One of the best of these was (ironically) another MoMA show, “Small Scale, Big Change,” presented just last year. Curator Andres Lepik selected projects in which the architects maintained a sustained relationship with the communities they served. The projects were developed and carried out with the involvement of the communities, not invented in a museum for distant “beneficiaries”. Rather than being esoteric ideas proposed for whole “mega-regions” of the country, these projects were site-specific and actually built, in cooperation with the people who benefited.
MOMA, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY is getting into the act with art concerning the great American Housing foreclosure crisis. With all their ecological and environmentalist talk, their solutions may be a bit on the Pol Pot side of things. Oh well, what do you expect.
Reinventing the American dream is quite a daunting task and I really wanted to check what the MoMA had to say about this. Do these elite architects have a real alternative to what took us to the mess we are in today? We are talking about the MoMA here, so I was really expecting to be blown away by at least some of the 5 design projects. Well instead I kind of felt like I was at some 1950's World's fair show (The Jetsons even came to mind) Why this sensation of deja vu?
These radical visions that are so insensitive to the suburbs remind me of the Modernist public housing projects that were once foisted on inner cities. Created by well-intentioned but essentially ignorant architects and planners, those buildings made sense in theory but not in practice. They didn’t respond to the rhythms and needs of the people who would be housed there, because the architects didn’t really respect or understand the lives of poor people. MoMA should have found some architects who could love and live in the suburbs, showing us the way to make the most of suburban housing instead of wishing it didn’t exist.
Who better to realize those alternatives than architects? According to Bergdoll, the mandate of Foreclosed is “to reveal that design is central to solving” America’s housing crisis. The architects he and Martin chose—three of them Columbia faculty members—formed teams with economists, ecologists, activists and engineers to develop new ideas for America’s declining suburbs.
The show at MoMA responds to demographic and economic trends that were exacerbated by the foreclosure crisis. “Architects are repositioning to undo this violent work that we as architects and planners have undertaken,” said Rich. “The built environment helped create the crisis.” Rich also addressed criticism that Forclosed show was too theoretical. “It takes a theory to makes something happen,” he said. Later when the discussion opened to the floor, the general consensus was that theoretical work done at the architecture school often gets dismissed by the schools of economics, business and international studies—the very audiences architects need to engage. “How do we hitch them so that we do connect reality to theory,” he asked.
III. Public Outcry!
The provocations lived up to their name. The show was widely praised in the media for its ambition, vision, and social and environmental engagement, but there has also been some dust raising on the architectural blogs. Dissenters called the proposals out of touch, self-indulgent, elitist, esoteric. Some saw a cabal of ivory-tower types imposing their social-engineering fantasies upon a constituency they don’t know or understand. Others confused a theoretical exercise meant to incite discussion with a shovel-ready project.
The provocations lived up to their name. The show was widely praised in the media for its ambition, vision, and social and environmental engagement, but there has also been some dust raising on the architectural blogs. Dissenters called the proposals out of touch, self-indulgent, elitist, esoteric. Some saw a cabal of ivory-tower types imposing their social-engineering fantasies upon a constituency they don’t know or understand. Others confused a theoretical exercise meant to incite discussion with a shovel-ready project.
The economic and demographic factors at hand may seem emense but I am not sure that a revised American Dream could not have an equally great influence. Guy Horton of author on Archinect comments that he does not believe architects have the power to dictate a solution to the crisis, ” To them, this is further evidence of the irrelevance of what architects have to offer in terms of solving real problems. “ I am afraid to say that manny others feel the same that architects are along for the ride as much as anyone else, architects are not problem solvers. Really? Of anyone who has been trained day in and day out to make something out of nothing. To merge the gap between reality and imaginary we are the innovators those with visions of a different future. Yes we may not be able to single handedly solve major issues but we are in a great position to express our thoughts on a global scale. I think we are selling ourselves short over humbling our potential to make an impact on the future. ” In architecture we have become inured to the special effects of formal bigness and dramatic constructs. “ but isnt this not a perception stemming form those ideas burried in the American dream. This maybe exactly where we need to start initiating a shift, why BIG, why More? In the end the architects apart of the workshop are just adding to something already dead. This unsustainable template has been passed down as a ritual and we are blind to its presence.
Of course, for an idea to be sustainable, it also has to be realistic. Much of the MoMA show fails that criterion miserably. Orange, N.J., is not going to build long strings of apartments in the middle of its streets, as suggested by MOS Architects’ Michael Meredith, AIA, and Hilary Sample, AIA. Neither is Keizer, Ore., going to bite on huge towers of three-story homes teetering atop each other—complete with indoor waterfalls—as put forward by Amale Andraos and Dan Wood, AIA, of Work AC. And are those elephants that Andrew Zago dropped in the backyards of Rialto, Calif.? Yes, they really are.
Jon Blehar
134 days ago
Yes, finally someone who realizes; as soon as most Americans have 2 kids, it's off to the suburbs to stay most of their lives. Also the gentleman points out that the two coasts (and that big city in between) have the greatest access to publications, so the two coasts produce most of the noise about what should be done to improve our built environment.
Yes, finally someone who realizes; as soon as most Americans have 2 kids, it's off to the suburbs to stay most of their lives. Also the gentleman points out that the two coasts (and that big city in between) have the greatest access to publications, so the two coasts produce most of the noise about what should be done to improve our built environment.
Jeremiah Eck FAIA
134 days ago
Felix, thank you. Over the last four decades over half of all the single family homes were built in this country, most of them in the suburbs, through a production system that is inextricably bound up with bankers, builders and brokers. The good news is we will need the same number again over the next four decades, but we must offer a viable alternative to the suburban status quo, just as we have done with the IPad or the Hybird car. The current system in bankrupt-- physically, psychologically, and financially--but America has the capacity to constantly reinvent itself. Unfortunately, academic exercises like "Foreclosed" only put those off who can make the changes and need our help the most.
Felix, thank you. Over the last four decades over half of all the single family homes were built in this country, most of them in the suburbs, through a production system that is inextricably bound up with bankers, builders and brokers. The good news is we will need the same number again over the next four decades, but we must offer a viable alternative to the suburban status quo, just as we have done with the IPad or the Hybird car. The current system in bankrupt-- physically, psychologically, and financially--but America has the capacity to constantly reinvent itself. Unfortunately, academic exercises like "Foreclosed" only put those off who can make the changes and need our help the most.
Robert
133 days ago
Here we go again - architects attempting to be the deciders on who lives in a cooked up utopian paradise. I agree with Dee - didn't we go through this before - actually several times before - go back to Lutyens and others pre-Victorian UK for other references. This argument is as old as time in architecture circles and frankly something I believe in my bones architects need to stay way far away from.
The problems associated with the current debacle in housing goes way beyond just cooking up alternatives to a model that for decades had worked pretty well until the restraints of the banking system and the policy makers in DEE CEE were unshackled. Thank you Barney Frank, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Sarbanes / Oxley, CRA, Derivatives, MBS, CDO's, Wall Street, Glass Steagle (no more), FHA, HMA, Phil Gramm, Rudman, Fannie, Freddie, National Assoc. of Realtors, Mortgage Banking Association, TARP, QE whatever, Helicopter Ben, HARP, HAMP, Obama and the porkulus - the list of imposters posing as statesmen and policy wonks and their attendant fixes goes on and on. To just read this article on the surface and agree would be in my humble opinion horribly misguided and naive.
Wake up architects - putting the design blinders on only will not serve you nor your clients well. A much broader and active view is needed - bone up on economics, finance, politics, local government, proper spheres of authority, the scriptures - you name it. Without a broader and DEEPER view of the market the profession will continue to wallow in the ditch it finds itself in, unable to provide any added value to projects and their sponsoring clients. Clients want value - not just ideas!!! And one final thing......
I LIKE LIVING IN THE SUBURBS!!!
Here we go again - architects attempting to be the deciders on who lives in a cooked up utopian paradise. I agree with Dee - didn't we go through this before - actually several times before - go back to Lutyens and others pre-Victorian UK for other references. This argument is as old as time in architecture circles and frankly something I believe in my bones architects need to stay way far away from.
The problems associated with the current debacle in housing goes way beyond just cooking up alternatives to a model that for decades had worked pretty well until the restraints of the banking system and the policy makers in DEE CEE were unshackled. Thank you Barney Frank, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Sarbanes / Oxley, CRA, Derivatives, MBS, CDO's, Wall Street, Glass Steagle (no more), FHA, HMA, Phil Gramm, Rudman, Fannie, Freddie, National Assoc. of Realtors, Mortgage Banking Association, TARP, QE whatever, Helicopter Ben, HARP, HAMP, Obama and the porkulus - the list of imposters posing as statesmen and policy wonks and their attendant fixes goes on and on. To just read this article on the surface and agree would be in my humble opinion horribly misguided and naive.
Wake up architects - putting the design blinders on only will not serve you nor your clients well. A much broader and active view is needed - bone up on economics, finance, politics, local government, proper spheres of authority, the scriptures - you name it. Without a broader and DEEPER view of the market the profession will continue to wallow in the ditch it finds itself in, unable to provide any added value to projects and their sponsoring clients. Clients want value - not just ideas!!! And one final thing......
I LIKE LIVING IN THE SUBURBS!!!
Anonymous
In a world with an ever diminishing attention span, notoriety is best achieved with one-liner gimmicks featuring a calculated mix of simplistic graphics, pseudo-intellectual pretension and the requisite shock value that appeals primarily to adolescents. Fashionable nonsense and superficiality trumps substance every time. We’ve seen it from Ville Radieuse to Pruitt Igoe and to other slums designed by self-styled “intellectuals” lacking the compassion and talent to create meaningful places and homes. ‘Foreclosed’, the latest incarnation of ill-informed ideas rooted in the abstract ruminations of amateurs with (mostly) little or no real world building experience, fits this sad mold exactly. Remarkable principally for its lack of insight in the research and dignity on the end products, it comes across as the work of self-indulgent poseurs proposing novelty for novelty’s sake as though ‘invention’ is somehow synonymous with ‘solution’. Candy-colored shape-making is offered in lieu of sincerity.
The use of charged buzzwords words and phrases like “activist” and “socially or environmentally conscious dimension” suggests some serious import where none is evident in the work itself. It is a common liberal ploy to distract from any more intuitive thought processes that would likely conclude that these ill-conceived experiments will almost certainly be the slums of tomorrow.
Dr. D.S. Abrams
New York City
3/23/2012 12:31 PM CDT
The use of charged buzzwords words and phrases like “activist” and “socially or environmentally conscious dimension” suggests some serious import where none is evident in the work itself. It is a common liberal ploy to distract from any more intuitive thought processes that would likely conclude that these ill-conceived experiments will almost certainly be the slums of tomorrow.
Dr. D.S. Abrams
New York City
3/23/2012 12:31 PM CDT
Mad Hatter
Mar 6th 2012, 13:29
Architects/Urban planners often suffer from the same level of hubris as religious and political zealots. They “believe” they know how humanity should behave and think.
When presenting they will say. “One walls along this avenue, and feels a sense of…” Huh? The world abounds with architectural and urban planning disasters. Look at a park where instead of following some meandering walkway, there is a muddy path straight across the grass.
Le Corbusier was amongst the worst, and subsequent generations not much better. A case of the “Emperor’s Clothes”.
Throw in a little anti-capitalist, anti-car, eco looniness, and you end up with Milton Keynes, or worse, Bracknell where I am spending too much time. I need Sat-Nav to get in and out of town and contribute to muddy paths straight across roundabouts.
Now we have computers, curves and angles thrive, simply because they can be designed, not because they make sense,
Why reinvent the wheel? We have spent thousands of years evolving buildings and spaces that work.
Essential reading. Jane Jacobs : “The Death and Life of Great American Cities”, Peter Collins: “Changing Ideals in Modern Architecture”, John Summerson, “Heavenly Mansions”. All classic texts on modern architecture and urban design. And anything by Colin Davies.
Classic examples of Urban planning disasters caused by hubris? Brasilia along with Chandigarh in India. Loved by the acolytes of modern architecture, a failure by everybody else’s standards.
Architects/Urban planners often suffer from the same level of hubris as religious and political zealots. They “believe” they know how humanity should behave and think.
When presenting they will say. “One walls along this avenue, and feels a sense of…” Huh? The world abounds with architectural and urban planning disasters. Look at a park where instead of following some meandering walkway, there is a muddy path straight across the grass.
Le Corbusier was amongst the worst, and subsequent generations not much better. A case of the “Emperor’s Clothes”.
Throw in a little anti-capitalist, anti-car, eco looniness, and you end up with Milton Keynes, or worse, Bracknell where I am spending too much time. I need Sat-Nav to get in and out of town and contribute to muddy paths straight across roundabouts.
Now we have computers, curves and angles thrive, simply because they can be designed, not because they make sense,
Why reinvent the wheel? We have spent thousands of years evolving buildings and spaces that work.
Essential reading. Jane Jacobs : “The Death and Life of Great American Cities”, Peter Collins: “Changing Ideals in Modern Architecture”, John Summerson, “Heavenly Mansions”. All classic texts on modern architecture and urban design. And anything by Colin Davies.
Classic examples of Urban planning disasters caused by hubris? Brasilia along with Chandigarh in India. Loved by the acolytes of modern architecture, a failure by everybody else’s standards.
lapin229
Mar 5th 2012, 14:55
Architects (some) have always had an over-evolved sense of their own importance. At least Paulo Soleri had style, these guys are recycling stuff we did in the 70's, just not as well. The big design solutions and Urban planning of the past don't work for the future. The next step will be devolution, self sustaining, smaller, less susceptible to economic changes and power failures. I think you call them villages in europe. We don't have that concept in the USA. The curator screwed the pooch on this one, there's lot of interesting alternate work out there.
Architects (some) have always had an over-evolved sense of their own importance. At least Paulo Soleri had style, these guys are recycling stuff we did in the 70's, just not as well. The big design solutions and Urban planning of the past don't work for the future. The next step will be devolution, self sustaining, smaller, less susceptible to economic changes and power failures. I think you call them villages in europe. We don't have that concept in the USA. The curator screwed the pooch on this one, there's lot of interesting alternate work out there.
pluktv, nova scotia
3/3/2012 15:47
The ghettos of the future. I wonder how many of these visionaries would actually like to live there.
The ghettos of the future. I wonder how many of these visionaries would actually like to live there.
Al Foster, ex-Londoner
3/3/2012 10:55
Usual soulless and inhuman "solutions" from those desperate-for-attention, anti-social egoists we call Architects. Horrible rubbish really - but if there's profit enough developers might build this garbage - pity the inhabitants.
Usual soulless and inhuman "solutions" from those desperate-for-attention, anti-social egoists we call Architects. Horrible rubbish really - but if there's profit enough developers might build this garbage - pity the inhabitants.
But a latent theme of the project, made clear in a video rife with doubts about architecture’s claims to power, seemed to be the challenge of using architectural techniques to resolve larger and more complex behavioral and biological problems. Could architecture really achieve all that was asked of it by the show? MOS’s skepticism provided an important counterpoint to enthusiasm of the other projects.
“Change the dream and you change the city.” The maxim at the heart of the Buell Hypothesis and the thesis driving Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream sets up a difficult goal to achieve. Changing the city is hard. It takes vision, power, cooperation, planning and, in most cases, the forces that drive urban change are outside the control of designers or citizens. Changing the dream, however, may be harder still: amending a national subconscious is a grand, maybe hubristic task, with no clear mode of address. Conversations that complement and take inspiration from design strategies offer a potentially productive model for new dreams, and most importantly serve as a reminder that “What is Foreclosed?” is not at its heart a question for architects. It is a question that implicates many disciplines, and many people, most importantly those who answer that question with “my house.” In the face of a housing crisis, however, it would be irresponsible for architects and planners not to be asking this question. The next step, it seems, is to move the conversation outside the design sphere and instead of trying to change the dream, try to understand what American’s dreams really are.
Nullcorp
MAR 16, 2012 11:47 AM EDT
There’s the publishing world of architecture – propagated by academics and starchitects – and then there’s the people with offices in almost every town doing the best they can. The former develop illustrious careers, building reputations instead of structures. The latter do the best they can, which is rarely enough.
Some architects (including me) want to be artists, and you don’t get into a show at MoMA by proposing moderate, affordable, pragmatic solutions to housing problems. And despite prevailing sterotypes, architects don’t really have that much control over the final outcome. It takes good taste and good money to create good buildings, and since the first two are in short supply these days, so is the third.
There’s the publishing world of architecture – propagated by academics and starchitects – and then there’s the people with offices in almost every town doing the best they can. The former develop illustrious careers, building reputations instead of structures. The latter do the best they can, which is rarely enough.
Some architects (including me) want to be artists, and you don’t get into a show at MoMA by proposing moderate, affordable, pragmatic solutions to housing problems. And despite prevailing sterotypes, architects don’t really have that much control over the final outcome. It takes good taste and good money to create good buildings, and since the first two are in short supply these days, so is the third.
Among the questions on the table is that of the role of architecture (and architecture within the museum) in the search for workable solutions, to which the stock answer within the field is something about synthetic problem solving and visionary thought leadership. The first step may simply be the difficult and contentious public identification of where the problems actually lie in order to move beyond top/bottom and toward throughout/within, a step architects and the MoMA have taken before. In 1934, the museum exhibited America Can’t Have Housing aimed at “show[ing] why America needs housing and yet is so backward at filling this need.”[1] That was several architectural lifetimes ago and the specifics of the housing problem were different, but it seems much of the conversation was the same. In the museum’s Bulletin, Carol Aronovici (chairman of the committee responsible for that exhibition) refers to the rationalized plans of Modernism when he writes, “Impatient with the confusion of our cities and unable to find a solution which would provide for the essential human needs, many of these innovators have presented radical schemes for city planning as fantastic as they are inconsistent with the structure of modern society.” He continues, “This is perhaps not the fault of these innovators, but rather of the social order under which our cities have grown up…We cannot hope to rebuild our cities without changing our social and economic structure…”
SV: What is MoMA doing putting on such an obviously political exhibit? What are they doing?
AU: The Museum of Modern Art has a tradition of putting on---
Sandra Smith [blonde]: I was going to say, artists are never political.
SV: It's always the elite telling the rest of us how we should live, isn't it?
AU: No, it's---
SV: Always.
AU: No, in fact, the state of California is enacting zoning policies to make suburbs more dense. You know, and the Wall Street Journal just pointed out last week that they are trying to, instead of having four houses per acre, they're going to have twenty houses per acre.
AU: The Museum of Modern Art has a tradition of putting on---
Sandra Smith [blonde]: I was going to say, artists are never political.
SV: It's always the elite telling the rest of us how we should live, isn't it?
AU: No, it's---
SV: Always.
AU: No, in fact, the state of California is enacting zoning policies to make suburbs more dense. You know, and the Wall Street Journal just pointed out last week that they are trying to, instead of having four houses per acre, they're going to have twenty houses per acre.
SV: So there's now an exhibit pointing out that the current way we live, the kind of houses that we live in, where we group together, that is unsustainable. And we, the highly intelligent people show you how to live. Notably, like that [Visible Weather's model] on the screen. Isn't that rather elitist, Alex, really?
Stuart Varney (SV): It seems to me that this exhibit is from the elites telling us how we should live. We should all live in cities, and if we don't live in cities we should turn our suburbs into cities. That's the way we should live. Isn't that the elites going at us and telling us how we mere mortals should live?
Alex Ulam (AU): No, it's not the elite. It's the way our tax...It's the way our housing policy has been oriented for the last twenty or thirty years. It's unsustainable---
SV: We should not be organizing ourselves and where to live. Now the elites are telling us how we should be doing it.
AU: They are making some suggestions, but -- listen -- it's unsustainable for people to live in suburbs.
SV: Who says?
AU: Well most Americans actually spend more money on transportation than they do on medical care or on taxes. The average family of four that makes $50,000 spends somewhere between $7,900 and---
Alex Ulam (AU): No, it's not the elite. It's the way our tax...It's the way our housing policy has been oriented for the last twenty or thirty years. It's unsustainable---
SV: We should not be organizing ourselves and where to live. Now the elites are telling us how we should be doing it.
AU: They are making some suggestions, but -- listen -- it's unsustainable for people to live in suburbs.
SV: Who says?
AU: Well most Americans actually spend more money on transportation than they do on medical care or on taxes. The average family of four that makes $50,000 spends somewhere between $7,900 and---
MOMA has a new show called Foreclosed which is four architects who tackle the problem of that great disaster environment the American suburb. This show is so much better than MOMA’s lame 2008 Housing for New Orleans show in which a half dozen architects proposed designer suburban homes for the newly dried out city in the gulf – baptism by hubris: ’you still have to drive to get your milk, but at least you live in a hip little house,’ that show seemed to be saying.
Four American architects confronting face on the debacle of the suburb is a rare thing – we’ve seen lots addressing, but few confronting. Perhaps this show establishes a watershed moment in which more and more begin to speak out. Is it good news for architects everywhere, who may now speak openly about urban ideas and planning and government involvement in development etc? They now have at least some precedent to defend against recrimination. The sphere of the built environment has become as politicized as the many other hot button issues of our time – health, education etc, but it rarely gets air time, in great part because of fear of recrimination.
The response to this show has been almost overwhelmingly negative, which is unfortunate. The projects, so speculative in nature, have com in for a good deal of criticism, some of it valid, as to their practicability and humanity. More broadly, however, they have been attacked as condescending visions imposed on the suburbs by urban-dwelling architectural elites. The idea was to drum up discussion, not to breed polarisation.
These models are examples of the type of communities we should be demanding! Furthermore the designers, and capable minds like them, should be in positions to make decisions in regards to planning. With great talent and intelligence SHOULD come great responsibility.
Brian Loughlin (BL): I want to thank the Museum for reengaging the issue of housing after what has been a long and notable absence. I think we can argue that also absent, from this never-ending conversation about the public’s role in the provision of housing to its citizens—as it continues in media and budget hearings and courtrooms and in community meetings— have been the contributions of academic institutions like the Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture. In fact, I would go so far as to say that in large part, Architecture (with a big A) has pulled back from the discourse on social housing in this country since the proclaimed death of modern architecture with the fall of Yamasaki’s buildings in ’72. Even the Congress for New Urbanism, coauthors of this fine document here, through their involvement with HOPE VI, have inserted themselves into the void where traditional public housing and modern architecture reportedly failed, by quietly steering its supposed cure. But, they’ve sought to do so without the appearance of Architecture (again, big A) or authorship, relying instead on the stylistics of nostalgia and the will of the public as apparently expressed in community charrettes.
Affordable Housing (103)
Andrés Duany
5. “Zago vehemently attacked Dunham-Jones and New Urbanism for not having produced a single piece of ‘significant’ architecture, asking when they would give up in failure.”
Andrew Zago has achieved a new level of ignorance regarding the New Urbanism. I searched the net for a picture of him and was surprised to find that he does not look quite as slack-jawed stupid as he sounds, even though appearance is apparently how he judges substance.
Now (LORD grant me patience!), “significant” architecture is not really how New Urbanists keep score. We do so in many other ways: how many cars not bought; how many vehicle miles reduced; how much transit supported; how much carbon not spewed into the atmosphere; how many children and old folk walk to their daily needs; how much infrastructure cost saved; how much less expended on the delivery of municipal services; how many HOPE VI houses cherished by their residents; how much real estate value created; how many total acres under design (either as New Urbanist communities or through form-based codes); how many downtowns revitalized; how much choice available regionally to those whom suburbia does not serve well; and so on.
But Architect Zago keeps score by other means — like securing the good opinion of about a half-dozen critics in Los Angeles and New York. Indeed, he operates in a world so marginal that I need to be reminded of its existence, monthly, by Metropolis.
That his statement was thoroughly engaged by Director Martin, rather than being ignored as the antics of a simpleton, shows what kind of emissions pass for discourse in academia these days.
But let’s have a look at it from Architect Zago’s point of view. It turns out that even by the tight little standards of his world, and within just one little project (Seaside), there might be as much “significant” architecture as Architect Zago himself might hope to achieve in a lifetime. Seaside has Steve Holl’s first large building. Machado/Silvetti’s first large building. The first buildings (at least three each, and darn good, too) of Deborah Berke, Alex Gorlin, and Walter Chatham. The only building of Roger Ferri. The first building of Leon Krier. The only American house by Aldo Rossi. A wonderfully melancholic house by Sam Mockbee. Clever and charming pavilions by Michael McDonough, Stuart Cohen and Jersey Devil. A national AIA award-winning and gorgeous church by Scott Merrill. And those are only some of the modernism by the “names,” not all the best buildings.
Architect Zago is doubly ignorant: first of what New Urbanism intends to achieve on its own terms, and then of what it has achieved even on his terms.
Am I to understand that he teaches somewhere?
May 26, 2011, @ 2:49 pm
Andrew Zago has achieved a new level of ignorance regarding the New Urbanism. I searched the net for a picture of him and was surprised to find that he does not look quite as slack-jawed stupid as he sounds, even though appearance is apparently how he judges substance.
Now (LORD grant me patience!), “significant” architecture is not really how New Urbanists keep score. We do so in many other ways: how many cars not bought; how many vehicle miles reduced; how much transit supported; how much carbon not spewed into the atmosphere; how many children and old folk walk to their daily needs; how much infrastructure cost saved; how much less expended on the delivery of municipal services; how many HOPE VI houses cherished by their residents; how much real estate value created; how many total acres under design (either as New Urbanist communities or through form-based codes); how many downtowns revitalized; how much choice available regionally to those whom suburbia does not serve well; and so on.
But Architect Zago keeps score by other means — like securing the good opinion of about a half-dozen critics in Los Angeles and New York. Indeed, he operates in a world so marginal that I need to be reminded of its existence, monthly, by Metropolis.
That his statement was thoroughly engaged by Director Martin, rather than being ignored as the antics of a simpleton, shows what kind of emissions pass for discourse in academia these days.
But let’s have a look at it from Architect Zago’s point of view. It turns out that even by the tight little standards of his world, and within just one little project (Seaside), there might be as much “significant” architecture as Architect Zago himself might hope to achieve in a lifetime. Seaside has Steve Holl’s first large building. Machado/Silvetti’s first large building. The first buildings (at least three each, and darn good, too) of Deborah Berke, Alex Gorlin, and Walter Chatham. The only building of Roger Ferri. The first building of Leon Krier. The only American house by Aldo Rossi. A wonderfully melancholic house by Sam Mockbee. Clever and charming pavilions by Michael McDonough, Stuart Cohen and Jersey Devil. A national AIA award-winning and gorgeous church by Scott Merrill. And those are only some of the modernism by the “names,” not all the best buildings.
Architect Zago is doubly ignorant: first of what New Urbanism intends to achieve on its own terms, and then of what it has achieved even on his terms.
Am I to understand that he teaches somewhere?
May 26, 2011, @ 2:49 pm
matthew allen
DECEMBER 29, 2011, 1:40 P.M.
yes i was wondering how i go about not lossing my house it has been in my wifes famlily for over a hundred years my wife was layed off the morgage company wouldnt talk to us because she was layed off and now we are so far behind we cant get cought up so now we are loosing our home is there help out there for me
yes i was wondering how i go about not lossing my house it has been in my wifes famlily for over a hundred years my wife was layed off the morgage company wouldnt talk to us because she was layed off and now we are so far behind we cant get cought up so now we are loosing our home is there help out there for me
24 Jun, 2011 - (@rtkersh)
Cool #MOMAcompetition on affordable-housing design/production, esp in developing world: http://bit.ly/kARHd9. #NYUWagnerMUPs, go get 'em!
About four years ago, a latent pattern of unethical, self-interested and surreptitious decision-making reared its head to wreak havoc in the American housing market. Americans were living on a dream buoyed by false hope: we thought we could have it all. But as millions defaulted on mortgages with unmanageable interest rates, made on credit they couldn’t afford to pay off, the country was exposed to the networks of mistrust and corruption that came to define the zeitgeist of today’s financial system.
Shirley Fisk
04:13 PM on 08/10/2011
8/10/11
4:12pm
Brooklyn, NY
Arianna, it's nice that you worry about the middle class and the recently unemployed. I worry about them, too. I worry that they won't be able to handle it when they become homeless.
Low-income/no-income housing is needed now!!!
8/10/11
4:12pm
Brooklyn, NY
Arianna, it's nice that you worry about the middle class and the recently unemployed. I worry about them, too. I worry that they won't be able to handle it when they become homeless.
Low-income/no-income housing is needed now!!!
carolgregor, 104 Fans
04:39 PM on 08/10/2011
The challenge now is not in our ability to solve problems but in our core values as fellow human beings. The American Dream is gone as we knew it. Homes have become unhealthy physically, spiritually and soulfully. Our families are broken, medications are excessive and stress has filled our lives. Homes used to be our sacred space but today it is the cause of of distress.
How did this happen?
After a career in home design and building I became acutely aware of the pressure to have bigger and bigger homes. At the same time we have lost millions of acres of land to sprawl and the reports are in that sprawl causes heart attack and stroke because people are not moving enough. On top of this, our water is disappearing and our air is heavy because corporate builders are profit driven and have no concern for the health of the homeowner. Joined with unethical bankers, the US homeowner has poorly built expensive homes. 1/4 of homes are under water financially as poorly built ones depreciate faster than people can afford to maintain.
There are a couple of solutions that can recapture our dream. By taking personal responsibility in what we purchase we can regain control. In home design and building, choose smaller, better built homes. Buy on an existing grid and use local builders and materials. Smaller, infill homes will immediately change the quality of life we experience and we recapture the sacred core of our homesteads.
The challenge now is not in our ability to solve problems but in our core values as fellow human beings. The American Dream is gone as we knew it. Homes have become unhealthy physically, spiritually and soulfully. Our families are broken, medications are excessive and stress has filled our lives. Homes used to be our sacred space but today it is the cause of of distress.
How did this happen?
After a career in home design and building I became acutely aware of the pressure to have bigger and bigger homes. At the same time we have lost millions of acres of land to sprawl and the reports are in that sprawl causes heart attack and stroke because people are not moving enough. On top of this, our water is disappearing and our air is heavy because corporate builders are profit driven and have no concern for the health of the homeowner. Joined with unethical bankers, the US homeowner has poorly built expensive homes. 1/4 of homes are under water financially as poorly built ones depreciate faster than people can afford to maintain.
There are a couple of solutions that can recapture our dream. By taking personal responsibility in what we purchase we can regain control. In home design and building, choose smaller, better built homes. Buy on an existing grid and use local builders and materials. Smaller, infill homes will immediately change the quality of life we experience and we recapture the sacred core of our homesteads.
Well, here we are, eight years after the increasing value of our houses was supposed to make up for decades of declining wages and growing debt. More than $7.8 trillion in middle-class home equity was erased by the crash at the end of Bush’s two terms, 30 percent of homeowners now owe more than their houses are worth, and many of our suburbs are a checkerboard of occupied and empty houses. And that has made many long-standing critics of the American suburb — who see it as environmentally toxic, energy wasteful and just too expensive (especially because it’s paid for by taxing the cities) — call for another major rethink of the way we house our dream.
George Vallone
JANUARY 8, 2012, 7:24 A.M.
This is important work but keep the focus on energy demand reduction. Affordable Housing that is inexpensive to build but costs too much to operate is a cruel joke on the residents. Encourage Mass Wall enclosure technology (using light weight Autoclaved Aerated Concrete is the best starting point), then ERV (Energy Recovery Ventilation), and then alternative energies (solar HW and Geo-Thermal)make economic sense because you don’t need to produce that much.
This is important work but keep the focus on energy demand reduction. Affordable Housing that is inexpensive to build but costs too much to operate is a cruel joke on the residents. Encourage Mass Wall enclosure technology (using light weight Autoclaved Aerated Concrete is the best starting point), then ERV (Energy Recovery Ventilation), and then alternative energies (solar HW and Geo-Thermal)make economic sense because you don’t need to produce that much.
The nonprofit’s creation of affordable live/work spaces has attracted artists, further stimulating growth and development. Now, a world-renowned arts organization has validated HANDS vision. The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) has selected Orange; the only one of the five cities chosen that is on the east coast, to be part of “Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream,” an exhibition opening in January 2012 that examines possibilities for American cities and suburbs.
“Our affordable housing strategy,” said Donovan, “was effectively: ‘If you cannot afford a house near a job or public transportation, just keep on driving.’”
Donovan told the audience that the foreclosure crisis disproportionately hit low- income and minority households in the suburbs. He noted how in some of these communities the majority of people receiving mortgages during the housing bubble were given subprime loans when many of them qualified for prime ones. And he cited a study that showed that Latinos in this country lost two-thirds of their wealth between 2005 and 2009.
Some mortgage industry analysts are now predicting that one out of five mortgages will eventually end in default if our elected officials don’t take action. The surge in Occupy Wall Street demonstrations is a powerful signal that growing numbers of people want radical change to the status quo. And four years into the crisis, government officials have been unable to effectively deal with the extensive blight in communities afflicted with high rates of foreclosure.
19 Dec, 2011 - (@MargaretNYC)
Heartbreaking story on foreclosed homes on #60Minutes. #MoMAenlisting arch. teams to find solutions in 5 U.S. regions. http://bit.ly/oez2hm
antiplanner
Levittown wasn't even the first fully planned suburb. Try Llewellyn Park in 1857. Or Riverside in 1868. Or Country Club Estates in about 1910. Levittown became famous mainly because its low prices made it affordable to a new class of homebuyers, not because it was first in anything.
December 22, 2011 at 11:22 am
December 22, 2011 at 11:22 am
Ken B
Levittown was the first fully planned suburban community – it was by no means, the first suburb. Not by a long shot.
December 21, 2011 at 2:43 pm
December 21, 2011 at 2:43 pm
Levittown2011
It does not appear that anyone who has posted what has happened in Levittown or the current decaying condition that will lead to it's future death. The average taxes of a home in Levittown is currently 12,000 a year in 2011. The taxes of a Levittown home will be 20,000 a year in 2020. There are 17,286 homes in Levittown and over 2,000 of them are in some form of foreclosure today the highest of any town on Long Island. The town has lost most of it's retail business due to the high Levittown School District taxes which are currently a average of 8,500 of the 12,000 2011 taxes. The Levittown School District Teachers Union is currently in the 10th year of a average 7.5% raise each year which has or will double all their salaries in just 9 years. You hear about how teachers do not get a fair salary across america, that is true for every teacher that does not work in Levittown. The community asked the teachers union to take a pay freeze for the last 2 years and the teachers union only statement was that " They did not cause the economic crisis in America, why should we take a pay freeze? " The current yearly school budget is 200 Million a year. Of the 600 current teachers employed in Levittown 375 are paid a least 135,000 a year. The condition of the homes has declined over the last couple years due to the high cost of the taxes and you can drive down any street and view the homes that are falling apart before your eyes. The american dream is dead in Levittown and it has turned into the american nightmare. The fraud has been revealed that the school district does match up to exceed other surrounding school districts that have better education provided at lower cost to the homeowners in their towns. The teachers salaries make up 80% of the yearly school budget and as a current board member stated this year " I had to explain to my children that they will not have the same education that other children had in the past, they will has less and the community will pay more for it due to the teachers salaries that will always be increasing due to what has been done in the past." The teachers salaries and retirement add a 4% increase to the school budget each year. The new New York state law of a 2% school tax cap may save other school districts, but it came 10 years too late for Levittown. People have posted what the current price of a Levitt home is it is between 250,000 and 300,000 today but it was over 500,000 just 6 years ago when the real estate market was at it's peak.
December 22, 2011 at 12:28 am
December 22, 2011 at 12:28 am
John
you people need to stop making a massive political deal out of this article. the suburbs were just something that emerged from the american need for more housing. suburbs helped kick off the baby boom. at the time, it was a great opportunity for these people. if you had told them before the suburbs became a common place to live, that they could own their own home, a lot of them would laugh at the concept. It was a pretty sweet deal for a lot of the WWII vets and their growing families.
December 20, 2011 at 11:02 pm
December 20, 2011 at 11:02 pm
Urban History
Actually, I think the a major part of the whole Levitt phenomenom was that they invented this easy, fast way to build inexpensive homes. There was a huge housing shortage in the country at that time, and that problem could have been solved, and houses would have been less expensive today, had the concept been allowed to expand. However, the building industry was horrified at the idea of "prefabs," since 'it didn't want to have its profit margin cut, and worked to stifle the Levitt building concept by lobbying the government to enact legislation against "prefabricated".
December 25, 2011 at 2:05 am
December 25, 2011 at 2:05 am
guest
actually, you are wrong about who can afford these houses. i live in another central long island suburb and i can tell you that the only people who can afford houses now are plumbers, electricians, any other skilled blue collar workers, and central american or south asian immigrants who are shopkeepers. most "white collar" people are earning far less money and can't afford to move here
December 20, 2011 at 2:21 pm
December 20, 2011 at 2:21 pm
Will
Want to know why young people aren't buying houses any more?
"They put $100 down on the $8,500 house (about $75,000 in today's currency)."
What house can you buy that'd even be habitable, and that's not in a slum or 50 miles away from the nearest city, for $75000? How much would a comparable house sell for on Long Island now, $350000? Forget buying a house if you have anything less than a graduate degree, much less if you're a blue collar worker. If you aren't a doctor/stock broker/lawyer/engineer, you're f(#*ked, no matter how hard you work..
December 20, 2011 at 12:46 pm
"They put $100 down on the $8,500 house (about $75,000 in today's currency)."
What house can you buy that'd even be habitable, and that's not in a slum or 50 miles away from the nearest city, for $75000? How much would a comparable house sell for on Long Island now, $350000? Forget buying a house if you have anything less than a graduate degree, much less if you're a blue collar worker. If you aren't a doctor/stock broker/lawyer/engineer, you're f(#*ked, no matter how hard you work..
December 20, 2011 at 12:46 pm
Siobhán Ó Mócháin B.
JANUARY 24, 2012, 7:12 P.M.
For A Regular Guy(Written after reading the story in L.A. Times of a dead man found in a foreclosed home in Westchester, CA on 7/20/2009 by a real estate agent preparing to show the house to a prospect.)
Three bedroom 2 bath
garage backyard lawn
rambling family style
home for kids pets. 1957.
Needs work
refinancing available
forbearance provided
for small fee.
A sunny southern Cal
kind of Monday
in Westchester.
Realty Modern
shows same home
once bestowed
with bank notes
loans interest rates
derivatives
credit-default swaps.
Brokered down by
adjustable rates
pre-payment penalties.
Now liberated by the
free market.
Lien holders
mean holder
sof bankrupt dreams.
FORECLOSED.
Ready to buy
best terms
and cheap!
But oh dear!
What’s a 45-year-old
dead man doing here?
Didn’t we clean this
property up?
Who could
miss the odor
of late payments ?
The gruesome smell
of maxed out credit?
The stench of the
unemployed?
What’s an agent to do?
Come back later.
This regular guy
Laid off. Laid out cold
in the family room.
Second mortgage borrowerr
avaged by pyramid
schemes. No modification
no public offering
for him. No gold man of stocks
no Fed unreserved no inside track
no parachute for this everyday chump.
Lien holdersmean holders
of bankrupt dreams.
FORECLOSED.
For A Regular Guy(Written after reading the story in L.A. Times of a dead man found in a foreclosed home in Westchester, CA on 7/20/2009 by a real estate agent preparing to show the house to a prospect.)
Three bedroom 2 bath
garage backyard lawn
rambling family style
home for kids pets. 1957.
Needs work
refinancing available
forbearance provided
for small fee.
A sunny southern Cal
kind of Monday
in Westchester.
Realty Modern
shows same home
once bestowed
with bank notes
loans interest rates
derivatives
credit-default swaps.
Brokered down by
adjustable rates
pre-payment penalties.
Now liberated by the
free market.
Lien holders
mean holder
sof bankrupt dreams.
FORECLOSED.
Ready to buy
best terms
and cheap!
But oh dear!
What’s a 45-year-old
dead man doing here?
Didn’t we clean this
property up?
Who could
miss the odor
of late payments ?
The gruesome smell
of maxed out credit?
The stench of the
unemployed?
What’s an agent to do?
Come back later.
This regular guy
Laid off. Laid out cold
in the family room.
Second mortgage borrowerr
avaged by pyramid
schemes. No modification
no public offering
for him. No gold man of stocks
no Fed unreserved no inside track
no parachute for this everyday chump.
Lien holdersmean holders
of bankrupt dreams.
FORECLOSED.
Thus for example, would people really favor cooperative over individual ownership, or is that being proposed because one proposal assumes the American Dream is already gone? Is the detached dwelling on a postage stamp lot to be done away with for sustainability reasons or is it simply a case of detached homes being conceived of and sited in the wrong ways? Should we all be farming, riding bikes, and taking light rail? This doesn’t take into account patterns of employment and assumes people can afford to live close to where they work. One of the dominant forces that drove the suburbs was affordability, not just a flight from urban congestion, pollution, and crime. People keep moving further and further out because of the lure of ownership that is affordable, not because they are necessarily escaping something. To make any of these proposals tenable the economic system that has been eroded for the last thirty years has to be re-built. That dirty word, socialism, could get them off the ground!
“yes i was wondering how i go about not lossing my house it has been in my wifes famlily for over a hundred years my wife was layed off the morgage company wouldnt talk to us because she was layed off and now we are so far behind we cant get cought up so now we are loosing our home is there help out there for me”— unedited comment from MoMA workshop blog (2011)
The team discovered that the town's stately bungalows of the 20th Century were being cut up into various smaller apartments for multiple residents. This casual yet effective process helped create affordable housing with easy transit access to Chicago that was within the grasp of first generation immigrants.
In addition, the team also discovered the importance of organic brownfield remediation in Cicero, even if it meant the land would remain underdeveloped. Through commonplace planting, the toxic industrial sites scattered across the residential fabric would change into safer cleaner zones for future community use. Finally, within certain regions of each parcel, the once zoned industrial land could be converted into a dense collection of affordable modular beds, baths, and public space by using the existing industrial structures and materials on each site such as truss frames and brick partition walls. The new clusters would become and important blend of adaptive reuse and new construction that utilized a sizable amount of Cicero's historical past while creating a new 21st century anchor that can accommodate thousands immediately adjacent to one of Chicago's commuter rail corridors.
In addition, the team also discovered the importance of organic brownfield remediation in Cicero, even if it meant the land would remain underdeveloped. Through commonplace planting, the toxic industrial sites scattered across the residential fabric would change into safer cleaner zones for future community use. Finally, within certain regions of each parcel, the once zoned industrial land could be converted into a dense collection of affordable modular beds, baths, and public space by using the existing industrial structures and materials on each site such as truss frames and brick partition walls. The new clusters would become and important blend of adaptive reuse and new construction that utilized a sizable amount of Cicero's historical past while creating a new 21st century anchor that can accommodate thousands immediately adjacent to one of Chicago's commuter rail corridors.
Reinventing British urbanist Ebenezer Howard's classic term "Town-Country," WORKac's proposal Nature City integrates a wide variety of housing types-across a range of affordability-with publicly accessible nature, including ecological infrastructure, sky gardens, urban farms, and large swaths of restored native habitats. Bringing a higher density and more sustainable living to the metropolitan edge, where the greatest development pressures have long existed, the proposal also provides larger economic growth for the city and the site.
Despite being well served by a regional transit system that includes both trains and buses, there is still a significant rate of foreclosure and a high rate of unemployment in Orange, a suburb of individual bungalows and single-family structures between New York City and Newark, New Jersey. An in-depth analysis of the suburb has sparked MOS Architects and their team to create a proposal suggesting a new form of urbanism and architectural occupation of the street. The proposal considers aspects of municipal budget and infrastructure, public health, and new models of ownership to promote flexibility and diversity-a range of issues that extends far beyond those generally considered in isolated development plans.
In 2011 and 2012, Gang Architects and MoMA shined a spotlight on the Chicago suburb of Cicero alongside a widely overlooked programming need, small affordable housing units in American suburbia. The structured bungalow homes and factories of Cicero’s decaying industrial fabric morphed over time into a new affordable gateway city in Chicagoland for first generation Hispanics. The bungalow was cut up to accommodate the new individuals and families who initially tried to purchase the entire home but would quickly fall into foreclosure. The changing role of the suburban residential fabric from blue collar factory town to a modern day Ellis Island had to be addressed in the wake of Cicero’s local housing crisis. Compared to the town’s past, Cicero was now a community of individuals and small families just starting out in America who simply strive for a small bed and bath that allows for a strong stable foundation in the United States. Through their research and design, Jeanne Gang and her team hit on this vital suburban issue and carried the line of the MoMA exhibit, showing the distinct importance of new inner suburb density in the United States.
One long-term solution would be a type of co-op in which residents buy and sell shares according to their changing needs and circumstances. Unlike traditional co-ops, residents could purchase shares corresponding only to the units they occupy, not the land beneath, which remains in the hands of a “community land trust.” Such a structure would keep housing costs down while limiting residents’ exposure to the market. It would also provide a backstop for struggling homeowners, since the trust would have the legal right to step in and assist residents in the event of foreclosure.
There’s one problem with such a plan: it’s illegal under Cicero’s zoning code. The town’s rules are typical of most suburbs, including the segregation of residential, commercial and industrial facilities; prohibitions on expanding and reusing buildings for new homes and businesses; and tight restrictions on mixed-use properties. Cicero’s code also defines “family” in a way that excludes the large, multigenerational groupings now common across the country.
Here’s where design comes in. Most of Cicero’s housing is detached, single-family homes. But these are too expensive for many immigrants, so five or six families often squeeze into one of Cicero’s brick bungalows. This creates unstable financial situations, neighborhood tensions and falling real estate values.
RECENT efforts to fix the housing market — including Thursday’s $26 billion settlement with five of the nation’s biggest banks — have focused purely on the financial aspects of the slump. A permanent solution, however, must go further than money to address issues that have been at the core of the crisis but have been wholly ignored: design and urban planning.
Anonymous
The act or threat of foreclosure is a tragedy for many Americans today. Secure in the comfort of arty-farty notoriety, the self-idulgent naval gazing displayed by these architects is a slap in the face to the very real problems these people are facing. I'm insulted that Barry Bergdoll and MoMA could be so oblivious to the real world concerns that this show mocks with its distance and comfortable remove. They should be ashamed of themselves.
2/16/2012 10:34 PM CST
2/16/2012 10:34 PM CST
I can assure you that the typical American family threatened with eviction and foreclosure is not fantasizing about the sort of solutions proposed by these very delusional and self-indulgent architects. They would laugh at Andrew Zago's childish scheme of deformed and cartoonish boxes. And they'd be right to do so. The work is ridiculous. - The regimented and joyless schemes proposed here seem more like the slums of the future rather than the solution to the problem as posed.
2/15/2012 3:18 PM CST
2/15/2012 3:18 PM CST
Many of the town's families are crammed into bungalows and two-flats (left), doubling and tripling up as they struggle to pay mortgages taken on during the boom years. They have converted basements and attics into bedrooms or, in a further attempt to make ends meet, transformed garages into makeshift workspaces for car repairs and other odd jobs. Technically, such arrangements violate the thrust of the town's zoning code, which calls for a strict separation of homes and businesses.
The town turns out to be an ideal venue for clarifying the scope and impact of the foreclosure crisis.
The poster child for the crisis is the exurban home in the unfinished subdivision, yet the crisis has hit equally hard at older, close-in suburbs like Cicero. According to the Woodstock Institute, the town had 1,066 new foreclosures in 2010, an increase of 8.6 percent over the previous year. While foreclosures declined slightly in the first half of 2011, no one in Cicero expects the problem to go away anytime soon.
The poster child for the crisis is the exurban home in the unfinished subdivision, yet the crisis has hit equally hard at older, close-in suburbs like Cicero. According to the Woodstock Institute, the town had 1,066 new foreclosures in 2010, an increase of 8.6 percent over the previous year. While foreclosures declined slightly in the first half of 2011, no one in Cicero expects the problem to go away anytime soon.
While the too-big-to-fail banks and government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have received substantial support in the form of low-cost loans, guarantees and toxic asset purchases, defaulting homeowners have received comparatively little government assistance.
The 2008 financial collapse sent shock waves all over the world—there is no question as to how devastating the recession has been, in regards to families exiled due to mortgage default, stagnant high unemployment rates, and the hopeless shellacking of the idea of a quick recovery. But for a few certain architects, the past three years has wiped the national slate clean, leaving a country that is ready to be rebuilt and reworked for the modern era.
FS: Essentially you’re creating public housing here, which doesn’t have great connotations. Historically speaking, it hasn’t worked out that well.
MB: The big issue I would get across here is that all housing is financially constructed. And in the United States, the single-family house for purchase with a mortgage is public. The mortgage deduction on your annual taxes means that everybody in this country has subsidized housing.
FS: Well, the homeowners do anyway.
MB: The big issue I would get across here is that all housing is financially constructed. And in the United States, the single-family house for purchase with a mortgage is public. The mortgage deduction on your annual taxes means that everybody in this country has subsidized housing.
FS: Well, the homeowners do anyway.
15 Feb, 2012 - (@CourierMolseed)
#MoMAexhibit, "Foreclosed" shows gap between housing available in U.S. and housing Americans need http://bit.ly/zk1dJ2
J. James R.
Feb 22, 12 5:26 pm
Builders, developers and real estate people have been telling people how to live for years....it's obvious now, more than ever, thats how things are done....people don't know what they want...
If you think it's just builders and developers telling people how to live, you're clearly missing a larger picture. Retailers are a huge factor here too. The problem with suburbia is the lack of "real job" creation.
The problem comes from the concept that many retailers sell products that more-or-less require single-unit, single-family housing units— lawnmowers, automobiles, chest freezers, full-sized appliances, furniture et cetera. The code for this word is "durable goods." And anytime you hear the government, planners or business-types talking about the increase in the purchase of durable goods or stimulating the durable goods market... they're clearly talking about suburbia.
And many of the companies that sell the tools of suburbia actively influence policy development by funding various non-profit and non-governmental organizations. We don't know who does what but there are fair examples.
Cato Insitute, a supporter of laissez-faire capitalism, is quite a staunch critic of urban planning is or has been supported by the likes of General Motors, ExxonMobile, Toyota, Visa, Wal-mart, Volkswagon, Honda, FedEx and Time Warner. None of these companies want to see functioning cities.
And we end up the paradox of...
If most of the jobs are low-wage, who's buying goods and services?
And where do the armies of wage workers live if new suburban development is too expensive?
Builders, developers and real estate people have been telling people how to live for years....it's obvious now, more than ever, thats how things are done....people don't know what they want...
If you think it's just builders and developers telling people how to live, you're clearly missing a larger picture. Retailers are a huge factor here too. The problem with suburbia is the lack of "real job" creation.
The problem comes from the concept that many retailers sell products that more-or-less require single-unit, single-family housing units— lawnmowers, automobiles, chest freezers, full-sized appliances, furniture et cetera. The code for this word is "durable goods." And anytime you hear the government, planners or business-types talking about the increase in the purchase of durable goods or stimulating the durable goods market... they're clearly talking about suburbia.
And many of the companies that sell the tools of suburbia actively influence policy development by funding various non-profit and non-governmental organizations. We don't know who does what but there are fair examples.
Cato Insitute, a supporter of laissez-faire capitalism, is quite a staunch critic of urban planning is or has been supported by the likes of General Motors, ExxonMobile, Toyota, Visa, Wal-mart, Volkswagon, Honda, FedEx and Time Warner. None of these companies want to see functioning cities.
And we end up the paradox of...
If most of the jobs are low-wage, who's buying goods and services?
And where do the armies of wage workers live if new suburban development is too expensive?
The newly opened show at the Museum of Modern Art, Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream, through July 30, fails to accomplish what it claims: to address one of the most critical issues facing the public today – foreclosures. The result is a disservice to the people the show’s organizers set out to help. What ‘s worse, the exhibit takes design back ten years, attempting to re-aim design in a failed direction of the past.
Bob Herbert (BH): What’s going to inevitably happen is that the American Dream is going to get redefined if it survives. But we’re moving ahead into a landscape where standards of living in general in this country are just going to be lower, and then I assume that housing becomes an integral part of that. And it seems to me that more people are going to rent. It seems to me that houses are going to have to be smaller. They’re going to have to at some point become more affordable, I assume. So, the question becomes what does that look like ten, fifteen years from now?
CH: The future of the American home and the American Dream which are sort of married together, I think. One of the things this exhibition makes you think about is the underlying financial structure and policy structure that gives rise to the American suburb and the single-family home, because we all think of it as “They grow like corn in cornfields, right?” Particularly during the housing bubble, where I was living in Chicago, you’d go eighty miles west, and they are. They’re just being built, and it’s almost like an organic process. No one said, “Oh. Let there be McMansions. Let there be sub-developments.” But actually there is a structure underneath. There is a public policy structure, particularly the mortgage interest deduction that helps produce this.
MB: […] One of the big points of the show for anyone who deals with housing issues academically is, yeah, that deduction makes basically a
huge amount of American housing public housing at some level. It’s a far
bigger expenditure on the federal level than, for example, funding for HUD
for homelessness.
TS: It’s about $80 billion or something, right?
MB: It’s about $80 billion. Low-income housing tax credits, I think, are
probably $30 billion. So, the federal government at this point in time really
does not build directly public housing any longer. It incentivizes it through
tax credits.
CH: And it incentivizes for people to purchase their own homes and take
out a lot of debt, the interest of which they can then take off against their
taxes.
MB: […] One of the big points of the show for anyone who deals with housing issues academically is, yeah, that deduction makes basically a
huge amount of American housing public housing at some level. It’s a far
bigger expenditure on the federal level than, for example, funding for HUD
for homelessness.
TS: It’s about $80 billion or something, right?
MB: It’s about $80 billion. Low-income housing tax credits, I think, are
probably $30 billion. So, the federal government at this point in time really
does not build directly public housing any longer. It incentivizes it through
tax credits.
CH: And it incentivizes for people to purchase their own homes and take
out a lot of debt, the interest of which they can then take off against their
taxes.
Thomas Schaller (TS): Are you envisioning a resuburbanization of America in the next twenty or thirty years? At its peak, houses got gluttonous and big, and the physical footprints that those houses were sitting on got really big. So, I’m wondering if it’s going to be smaller plots? Smaller homes? A little bit of both?
CH: Increased density?
MB: All five projects in the show deal with density, and they also deal with trying to find housing that is probably more financially and size-wise appropriate to its user, but also that would use dramatically less energy to basically dramatically lower carrying costs. But I think many of the people, including ourselves, we were looking at ways to take underutilized property, publicly held or publicly controlled, and increase density around infrastructure because the public has already paid for all of that infrastructure and isn’t using it.
CH: Increased density?
MB: All five projects in the show deal with density, and they also deal with trying to find housing that is probably more financially and size-wise appropriate to its user, but also that would use dramatically less energy to basically dramatically lower carrying costs. But I think many of the people, including ourselves, we were looking at ways to take underutilized property, publicly held or publicly controlled, and increase density around infrastructure because the public has already paid for all of that infrastructure and isn’t using it.
CH: What does that mean? I think we sort of have a sense of the automobile, the sort of oil-fueled world of post-World War II America and suburban sprawl as these kinds of the things that have conspired to build the great sprawling American suburban landscape. What does rethinking that involve from a design perspective? From a policy perspective?
MB: […] In the 1990s you had a booming economy, you had a kind ofpush to alter, if not end, the welfare state. By the 2000s, you have a real estate bubble. And today you have a foreclosure crisis. But in all of these situations, there are a couple things that have been consistent. The amount of money people spend on housing and transportation is immense. They can’t afford it. You don’t want to tell people they can’t afford something and say that’s the reason to change. You want to be more positive than that. But there are many, many factors about affordability, about energy consumption, and frankly about the role of design in any of it. The American single-family house is a commodity product that has virtually no research and development, no design. Architects, in a spec house in Houston in the late 1990s—their fee was about twelve dollars per house. These are mass-produced commodities. There is no professional engagement. […] I think most of the people in this exhibition are quite
positive and excited about the suburbs. We know it’s a deeply, deeply important part of the American ethos, if not just everyday life of course. But, they’re not inevitable. And the financial underpinnings of them have really dramatically shifted in the last five, ten, fifteen years—not just the last two.
CH: Talk about that R&D thing. You made a point in the video in the exhibition that blew my mind about the comparison between how much money in R&D goes into your iPhone or anti-lock brakes versus an American home.
MB: I did mention anti-lock brakes. For many commodities, before they hit the market, there are billions of dollars that might precede it, whether it’s Clorox or whether it’s an iPhone or a Honda Civic which is quite an ingenious product. Housing as we know it has kind of ironed all of that
out of it, and it did it a long time ago. […] They are paying Mercedes Benz prices for a twenty-year-old used car. The single-family house market atomizes out all of the financial processes, and you still are spending large sums of money, but you’re not getting the sophisticated product. It’s not that it’s not a nice product or something people love, but it could be much, much better in energy and everything else.
MB: […] In the 1990s you had a booming economy, you had a kind ofpush to alter, if not end, the welfare state. By the 2000s, you have a real estate bubble. And today you have a foreclosure crisis. But in all of these situations, there are a couple things that have been consistent. The amount of money people spend on housing and transportation is immense. They can’t afford it. You don’t want to tell people they can’t afford something and say that’s the reason to change. You want to be more positive than that. But there are many, many factors about affordability, about energy consumption, and frankly about the role of design in any of it. The American single-family house is a commodity product that has virtually no research and development, no design. Architects, in a spec house in Houston in the late 1990s—their fee was about twelve dollars per house. These are mass-produced commodities. There is no professional engagement. […] I think most of the people in this exhibition are quite
positive and excited about the suburbs. We know it’s a deeply, deeply important part of the American ethos, if not just everyday life of course. But, they’re not inevitable. And the financial underpinnings of them have really dramatically shifted in the last five, ten, fifteen years—not just the last two.
CH: Talk about that R&D thing. You made a point in the video in the exhibition that blew my mind about the comparison between how much money in R&D goes into your iPhone or anti-lock brakes versus an American home.
MB: I did mention anti-lock brakes. For many commodities, before they hit the market, there are billions of dollars that might precede it, whether it’s Clorox or whether it’s an iPhone or a Honda Civic which is quite an ingenious product. Housing as we know it has kind of ironed all of that
out of it, and it did it a long time ago. […] They are paying Mercedes Benz prices for a twenty-year-old used car. The single-family house market atomizes out all of the financial processes, and you still are spending large sums of money, but you’re not getting the sophisticated product. It’s not that it’s not a nice product or something people love, but it could be much, much better in energy and everything else.
For Martin, the vitriol on the Internet illustrates how public discourse on housing crumbles at its foundation. “What hasn’t been asked is, what is the role of the government in addressing the housing crisis?” Martin says. “Again, that’s a question we’re barely able to enunciate in public because of the stigmas associated with public housing and the durability of the fetish of the single-family home. You can see from some of the reactions that we were denounced for asking that. There was a certain amount of name-calling. That is not surprising, but it’s interesting; event though these are hypothetical projects, they draw out the political contours of the country. They draw out different strategies: more activist strategies that consider this to be fiddling while Rome burns, purely academic speculation that doesn’t take into account the voices of the people who would actually live in these places.
If the housing crisis taught us anything, it’s that we can’t go on like this anymore. Today, the average American family spends 52 cents of every earned dollar on housing and transportation, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). That’s a fixable problem, and for “Foreclosed,” five different groups came up with conceptual plans for five different suburbs around the country—all of which attempt to create something more sustainable going forward.
There’s something almost colonialist about this exhibition: Witness five architectural practices hailing from New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago parachute into relatively poor suburbs, spend very little time actually talking to the people who live there, and pitch projects that only a city-dweller could love, and that only a socialist state could finance. “City-building does not necessarily have to take the path laid out by the markets,” writes co-curator Reinhold Martin, who set the terms of the teams’ engagement with The Buell Hypothesis—an eclectic text (it is in part a screenplay) that quite explicitly proposes “unapologetically public housing models on government land.”
Even though "Foreclosed" has been open for just a few weeks, critics are already questioning the practicality of the plans and noting that trying to redesign troubled communities does little for people living in a foreclosed home or who can't afford to pay their mortgage.
Affordability is also an important aspect of Nature-City with 30 percent of the 4,850 units designated as affordable housing (20 percent middle-income and 10 percent low-income). It’s also worth noting that Nature-City’s apartments, both market-rate and affordable, measure an average of 1,300 square feet which is 10 percent larger than the national average.
Hates Idiots
8th Mar
Do not get me started.
On the refi problems I have encountered because of rules changes made by the Dodd/Frank law.
The bottom line is simple.
Old refi rules = $120 a month savings.
New refi rules = $230 a month increase in mortgage.
And I am being forced into a refi because of circumstances beyond my control. Show Less -
Do not get me started.
On the refi problems I have encountered because of rules changes made by the Dodd/Frank law.
The bottom line is simple.
Old refi rules = $120 a month savings.
New refi rules = $230 a month increase in mortgage.
And I am being forced into a refi because of circumstances beyond my control. Show Less -
Gang suggests that people who can’t afford suburban single-family houses might instead occupy adaptively reused factories on remediated brownfields. It’s one thing for artists to choose to occupy potentially noxious former factories, as they did in SoHo in the ’70s, but another to imagine that Cicero’s poorer residents trade health for square footage.
It is not new to suggest that density can provide the opportunity for many to access services—but what is new is to be able to show that complex programming with diverse constituencies can not only stabilize a community socially but can also bring more financial stability to every stakeholder. The divides that are often set between social or aesthetic goals have not taken into account that housing never stands apart from the wider sense of need; program issues lay a critical foundation for architecture, and the response to specific program elements (or the lack thereof) will be the true test of the success or failure of developments that attempt to address our housing crisis. The crisis we are facing needs a holistic, practical approach to create thriving communities with policies that support these developments. Only then will we see the sea change we need.
The idea is to create more housing and more diverse housing for the city. The critical focus is to make the cost of housing smaller to allow people to use their personal budget for other more productive purposes like education.
GRRR
MAR 14, 2012 8:40 AM EDT
I don’t know how you can say that the housing crisis was mostly a suburban thing. In downtown Portland all of the condo projects that were completed between 2007 and 2009 were subsequently turned into apartments or turned over to banks. Unsold units in bank possession were auctioned off or otherwise sold at a 40% discount. This reversed the trend of the prior decade of apartment buildings being converted into condos. Look around and the cranes are building new apartment buildings, not condos.
To the point of suburban architectural solutions to making housing affordable. You know that museum-curated shows are always ‘think big or don’t come’. When was the last time you saw a curated show present pragmatic proposals that could be installed in real life, the next day?
Real life solutions are already being played out in the burbs of Portland, and undoubtedly in hundreds of other burbs in the nation.
Orenco Station is supposed to be a New Urbanism project, although its growth has been driven by the big-box strip mall (a blend between the traditional strip mall and the single lot big box store).
A twist on Jane Jacobs romanticism connected to mass transit rail is discerned from stop after stop along the TriMet MAX, with tracts of townhomes and pocket parks within 1000′ of a MAX stop.
Not two weeks ago, the Portland Home Show unveiled the IKEA House. A collaboration between IKEA and a local company – Ideabox – that designs and builds prefab structures. It turns out, the solution to making housing affordable is to downsize the McMansion and make it practical inside.
In any case, the solution is either to expand suburbia outward or increase density — move out or move up.
I don’t know how you can say that the housing crisis was mostly a suburban thing. In downtown Portland all of the condo projects that were completed between 2007 and 2009 were subsequently turned into apartments or turned over to banks. Unsold units in bank possession were auctioned off or otherwise sold at a 40% discount. This reversed the trend of the prior decade of apartment buildings being converted into condos. Look around and the cranes are building new apartment buildings, not condos.
To the point of suburban architectural solutions to making housing affordable. You know that museum-curated shows are always ‘think big or don’t come’. When was the last time you saw a curated show present pragmatic proposals that could be installed in real life, the next day?
Real life solutions are already being played out in the burbs of Portland, and undoubtedly in hundreds of other burbs in the nation.
Orenco Station is supposed to be a New Urbanism project, although its growth has been driven by the big-box strip mall (a blend between the traditional strip mall and the single lot big box store).
A twist on Jane Jacobs romanticism connected to mass transit rail is discerned from stop after stop along the TriMet MAX, with tracts of townhomes and pocket parks within 1000′ of a MAX stop.
Not two weeks ago, the Portland Home Show unveiled the IKEA House. A collaboration between IKEA and a local company – Ideabox – that designs and builds prefab structures. It turns out, the solution to making housing affordable is to downsize the McMansion and make it practical inside.
In any case, the solution is either to expand suburbia outward or increase density — move out or move up.
One at a time, we must try to save homes from foreclosure and save communities from collapse, but we must also recognize that these are band-aid measures unless they include long-term sustainable strategies and policies for sheltering Americans in homes they can afford within communities where they can work. Acknowledging this epidemic scale, it is relevant to note that the Occupy movement is not merely a grassroots initiative; it is a network from the bottom calling for action at the top.
Of course large-scale, system-wide, policy-based approaches to the crisis of foreclosure and housing affordability should require and enable local participatory processes, community input, and context specificity.
Neil Padukone
I haven't seen it yet, but I'm looking forward to the Museum of the City of NY exhibit about the grid. You summarize the issue of the grid pretty well here. But one thing that many reviews of the exhibit seem to neglect is what Robert Neuwirth writes about in "Shadow Cities": the power dynamic that was central to the creation of the New York City grid. By laying out the land in blocks, the city was better able to define and allocate plots of land (usually coterminous with building numbers) to landowners. They were better able to assign and keep track of the values and prices of those plots. This inherently favored landowners in what was, at the time, a city largely inhabited by squatters.
In places like Mumbai, where arguably a majority of the city is inhabited---and much of it was literally developed---by squatters in slums and shanties, this commodification of land is very risky. Shutting (poor) squatters out of land is precisely what governments in Mumbai and Beijing are doing now, by bulldozing slums. And this is harmful not just for reasons of justice and equity, but also because the urban poor contribute a great deal of labor and economic activity to the city.
Blocks and grid systems would facilitate that process by specifically defining plots of land and putting a price on them, which would then be an "opportunity cost" of housing the poor.
In places like Mumbai, where arguably a majority of the city is inhabited---and much of it was literally developed---by squatters in slums and shanties, this commodification of land is very risky. Shutting (poor) squatters out of land is precisely what governments in Mumbai and Beijing are doing now, by bulldozing slums. And this is harmful not just for reasons of justice and equity, but also because the urban poor contribute a great deal of labor and economic activity to the city.
Blocks and grid systems would facilitate that process by specifically defining plots of land and putting a price on them, which would then be an "opportunity cost" of housing the poor.
Much of the increase in consumption was tied to the growth in sprawl. To find more affordable homes, families have moved to suburbs farther and farther from their workplaces. But for every dollar saved by living in more affordable neighborhoods, Americans were spending 77 cents more on transportation, according to a 2005 study by the nonprofit Center for Housing Policy. And commuting time lost to congestion has increased fivefold in the past quarter-century. As Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan put it in his keynote speech for the workshop phase of the exhibit, "Our affordable housing strategy was effectively; 'If you can't afford a home near a job or transportation, just keep driving. Drive until you find a home you can afford.'"
We tried to use structural engineering to extend space. We tried to use environmental engineering to make space not only more comfortable but also to greatly diminish the cost of living there. Our housing units are about 30% of the energy cost of an existing house.
29 May, 2012 - (@MrCotain)
Thoughts on MoMA`s Foreclosed:... http://tinyurl.com/6u6ypzx #adaptablere-use #affordable#architecture#design#green#sustainable
21 Jun, 2012 - (@donscalos)
MrCotain: Thoughts on MoMA`s Foreclosed:... http://tinyurl.com/6u6ypzx #adaptablere-use #affordable#architecture#design#green#sustainableI...
It is important to acknowledge that housing is a tool of political power. Just as high jobless rates work to drive down wages (thus hurting workers and helping employers), so too high rates of homelessness, as well as overcrowding and substandard housing, serve to inflate the profits of real estate developers and mortgage bankers. At this most fundamental level, the threat of homelessness gives the 1% greater leverage over the 99%. If we guarantee that as a nation we will uphold the right to housing codified in Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, then we will empower the poor — a class which these days is expanding to include many who once felt secure in the middle.
The ongoing assault on the public sector relies upon a chorus of hackneyed themes: government is the problem, not the solution; welfare is socialism, etc. Reinhold Martin is advocating a direct response: strengthen the public sector in order to stand in solidarity with the poor and dispossessed. We would like to reframe the debate with a related but different emphasis: the public sector is essential to the protection of human rights, and housing is a human right.
Too often public and private are positioned as opposites, as extremes that lead to nothing less than different systems. (The right-wing rhetoric that's branded President Obama as "socialist" is only the latest example.) In this schema, high public good is equated with high government spending, high public debt, and ultimately low private value; likewise high private value is equated with high profit and minimal public good. But no matter its political uses, this sort of either/or thinking is unproductive; the rise of both the corporate social responsibility movement and the non-profit social enterprise sector underscore that public good and private value not only can coexist but can also be mutually reinforcing.
So I believe the hybrid approach is the likeliest way to achieve real innovation in housing as well as in real estate development practices. What might be the role of architects in this effort? The South African architect Iain Low has described a building as a manifesto, a declaration of what is possible. (“I work within the possibility of significantly transforming reality, as opposed to reinventing it," he said.) And indeed, the five projects in Foreclosed show us the possibilities of dreaming big.
So I believe the hybrid approach is the likeliest way to achieve real innovation in housing as well as in real estate development practices. What might be the role of architects in this effort? The South African architect Iain Low has described a building as a manifesto, a declaration of what is possible. (“I work within the possibility of significantly transforming reality, as opposed to reinventing it," he said.) And indeed, the five projects in Foreclosed show us the possibilities of dreaming big.
One of the largest visions is housing for all. From WORKac’s attempt to bring a five-fold increase in densification through high-rise building to MOS’s decoupling of ownership and place through the mechanism of portable mortgages, the projects in Foreclosed seek to meet this goal through various new strategies. But what about small-scale strategies that have already proven successful? Here's one example: Accessory Dwelling Unit programs, which flourished in the last decade, have added density, diversity and connectivity to existing communities, and in the process made them more sustainable. In 2006 Santa Cruz, California, started one of the most progressive ADU programs in the U.S., largely to enhance housing affordability in an affluent city where less than 10 percent of the population could afford to buy even a median-priced home. The program included loan financing and technical assistance, and it hired design firms to create prototypes for likely "accessory" conditions. Today it's one of the city’s most popular programs, with an average of 50 new units every year.
As a robust player in the housing market, public housing would not only ensure that everyone has adequate housing; it might also spur other housing sectors to better performance. In other words, if the private sector cannot meet the large social goal, then public agencies will develop housing and in this way make the market more competitive.
Prof. Martin argues that these kinds of strategies are often limited and even defined by the "now-dominant paradigm of privatization." But many of these housing strategies are effective in creating low-cost housing and in fact are tightly linked to government action. For example, "affordable housing" — with or without the scare quotes — would not exist without the federal Low Income Housing Tax Credit program, which was created in 1986. Similarly, inclusionary zoning puts private resources to explicitly public purposes, requiring developers to provide a fraction of newly-built units to low-income residents on or off site. In California, until recently, tax increment financing (generated by private businesses) allowed redevelopment agencies to provide the pre-development and gap funding that led to the creation of thousands of units of high-quality affordable housing.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights — which the newly founded United Nations adopted in 1948 — affirms that everyone has the right to housing, among other "necessary social services." Within the framework of international law, the ultimate responsibility for the protection of human rights rests with the public sector. But if it is the responsibility of the state to ensure that housing is universally provided, it is not necessarily the role of the state to build and operate housing directly. As with food aid (including food stamps), government-run programs implement the right to food, but do not require the state to own land and farm it. Similarly, government programs could implement the right to housing by strengthening existing mandates or incentives for inclusionary zoning, collective ownership, rent subsidies and regional housing plans — none of which requires public-built housing on public-owned land.
At ADPSR we agree with much of Prof. Martin’s analysis. As an organization — and also as individual practitioners — we too are dismayed by the unceasing rollback of social welfare programs (to cite just one example: here in cash-strapped California, the epicenter of the taxpayers revolt in the 1970s, legislators have recently eliminated all of the state's almost 400 redevelopment agencies) and by the right-wing and libertarian attack on the idea that government can be a locus of collective action and shared values. The steady and intensifying dismantling of American public housing — as exemplified not just by the demolition of Pruitt-Igoe but also by the wholesale destruction in the past decade of Chicago's postwar high-rise public housing — is certainly part of this rollback. And we would go even further: we believe it’s important to restore the perceived worth of public housing in order to validate and implement the fundamental human right to housing. Understanding the project of public housing within the larger human rights framework will advance Prof. Martin's position and help architects (and civilians) appreciate the value of Foreclosed as well. It will also expose the misbegotten faith in "individualism," which has distorted the politics of human rights.
More specifically they were asked, gently but persistently, to design public housing on publicly owned or supported land identified in The Buell Hypothesis: not "affordable housing," or housing provided by "public-private partnerships," but genuinely public housing that learns even from notorious precedents like the Pruitt-Igoe and Cabrini-Green "experiments," as well as from far more successful examples that still endure in cities and suburbs across the country and around the world.
It is a sign of the times that this exhortation has proved controversial not because it reminds us of the economic inequity, the structural racism, and the gender violence that has marked every stage of so much welfare-state public housing, from inception to management, even as it challenges the apparent inevitability of such results. It is controversial because it suggests that the state, or the public sector — conceived along with civil society in terms of multiple, overlapping, virtual and actual publics — might play a more active, direct and enlightened role in the provision of housing and, by extension, of education, health care and other infrastructures of daily life in the United States. In other words, it is a direct challenge to the now-dominant paradigm of privatization. That the design teams did not entirely take up this challenge is, in my view, at least as interesting as what they actually did propose, and is perhaps symptomatic of how deeply the politics of privatization has shaped design culture. Simply put, can we no longer imagine architecture without developers?
It is a sign of the times that this exhortation has proved controversial not because it reminds us of the economic inequity, the structural racism, and the gender violence that has marked every stage of so much welfare-state public housing, from inception to management, even as it challenges the apparent inevitability of such results. It is controversial because it suggests that the state, or the public sector — conceived along with civil society in terms of multiple, overlapping, virtual and actual publics — might play a more active, direct and enlightened role in the provision of housing and, by extension, of education, health care and other infrastructures of daily life in the United States. In other words, it is a direct challenge to the now-dominant paradigm of privatization. That the design teams did not entirely take up this challenge is, in my view, at least as interesting as what they actually did propose, and is perhaps symptomatic of how deeply the politics of privatization has shaped design culture. Simply put, can we no longer imagine architecture without developers?
First, we need to struggle to establish a basic right to housing and a right to the city for all. Eviction and displacement should never be allowed as solutions — they are “solutions” only for landlords and bankers, and they invariably happen at the expense of tenants and homeowners. As amply defined by UN-Habitat and in international covenants, the right to housing is much more than a roof over one’s head; it is a right to a decent quality of life in a viable, sustainable community. Groups like the New York City-based National Economic and Social Rights Initiative and the Habitat International Coalition, which has members and allies worldwide, are strongly advocating for this expanded definition of rights.
Mark Hogan
I posted this article on Facebook, and a friend who is not involved in planning or architecture commented on the theme of forgetting history, and how it is similar to the themes of the book "1984". The theatrical erasure of Pruitt Igoe has become a stand-in for the failure of modernism and public housing- I remember taking undergraduate planning classes at a very liberal university where public housing was being taught as being synonymous with failure. Everyone has bought into this fabricated history, and also to the new reality of public-private partnerships. That being said, I commend Amit Price Patel for taking a nuanced stance and recognizing that the fundamental goal is to provide housing and to recognize it as a right, rather than to quibble over the funding and ownership mechanisms.
We need more effective ways to build housing quickly and cheaply, and this requires both a design solution and a policy solution. Even in cities like San Francisco where there is a push by the local government to create housing for people at all income levels, the process works too slowly and leaves too many people out. Housing policy is a failure when there are thousands of people waiting for a home that they can afford.
06.26.12 at 02:51
We need more effective ways to build housing quickly and cheaply, and this requires both a design solution and a policy solution. Even in cities like San Francisco where there is a push by the local government to create housing for people at all income levels, the process works too slowly and leaves too many people out. Housing policy is a failure when there are thousands of people waiting for a home that they can afford.
06.26.12 at 02:51
These are some big issues to tackle: the impact of neoliberal capitalism on housing, providing housing for all, marrying design and social design, and long-range planning that doesn’t just cater to developers. One exhibit can’t solve all of these concerns but they are important ones that more people should be discussing.
19 Jul, 2012 - (@emilyjlow)
I attended this exhibition - some innovative ideas for delivering infrastructure and financing housing projects....... http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/ …
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
Of the proposed new 4,850 residential units housing 13,000 people, half are ownership units and half are rental. Thirty percent of all units are income restricted, with 10% affordable to families earning up to $45,000, and another 20% affordable to families earning approximately $45–80,000 annually.
HUFFPOST SUPER USER, revolution7153, Stupidity has a knack for getting its way..., 68 Fans
08:07 AM on 07/23/2012
Of course. Most of the huge old Victorian homes were broken up into apartments because no one could afford to heat or maintain them. The same thing will happen with the plague of McMansions that have cropped up in the past 15 years or so.
Of course. Most of the huge old Victorian homes were broken up into apartments because no one could afford to heat or maintain them. The same thing will happen with the plague of McMansions that have cropped up in the past 15 years or so.
AmoreenaHogarth, 7 Fans
12:41 AM on 07/23/2012
I've never understood why anyone ever thought to pay so much to live in grids of look-alike homes... They look exactly like low income housing developments, really.
And the idea of criticizing people who use mass transit bus systems, but think it's not government to use the highways...
There's such a disconnect... I think a lot of people anymore don't connect how community & civilization aspects interact, and don't really understand how we have a civilization.
I've never understood why anyone ever thought to pay so much to live in grids of look-alike homes... They look exactly like low income housing developments, really.
And the idea of criticizing people who use mass transit bus systems, but think it's not government to use the highways...
There's such a disconnect... I think a lot of people anymore don't connect how community & civilization aspects interact, and don't really understand how we have a civilization.
Mattshaw1, 12 Fans
05:43 AM on 07/23/2012
There are still a lot of post Katrina trailers available in New Orleans and they come permeated with formaldehyde at no extra cost.
There are still a lot of post Katrina trailers available in New Orleans and they come permeated with formaldehyde at no extra cost.
HUFFPOST SUPER USER, realitytrumpsbull, two 'alves of coconut!, 1330 Fans
12:23 AM on 07/23/2012
Since the mexican drug lords and international high-dollar real estate speculators have pretty much cornered the market on having a roof overhead, when can we expect The Government/associated business entities to start setting up the low-cost campsites and RV/trailer parks, or the high-capacity public confinement facilities/gas chambers/whatever?
Since the mexican drug lords and international high-dollar real estate speculators have pretty much cornered the market on having a roof overhead, when can we expect The Government/associated business entities to start setting up the low-cost campsites and RV/trailer parks, or the high-capacity public confinement facilities/gas chambers/whatever?
Audience Member: I used to be a homeowner in Fort Lee, but the taxes got to be too high. As you know in New Jersey the taxes for homes are among the highest in the country. So, I sold the home at a loss in this economy and received a HUD voucher to get a rental space. In my town, I was told there is a lack of public housing. If I were to go into a HUD building, I could move in but not move out. It would be better for someone of my age to get a HUD voucher and just try to find affordable housing with that voucher. Now that new development is not taking into consideration affordable housing, so my question to you is since the housing authority in my town said they cannot approach the developer, and the town that is making the deal with the developers cannot request affordable housing, can gentlemen like you make any suggestions? I understand that Governor Christie of New Jersey has the idea that affordable housing, the HUD program, is something where the developers that have put in money into the fund for these things, the funds have not been used, and that money he wants the government to take. So, the affordable housing in New Jersey is stagnant and looks like it’s going away. Can you make any suggestion how affordable housing can have a future and how there can be better communication with developers that are getting a great deal for people like me?
BL: What you essentially did in maybe two minutes is cut a broad swath right through just about every problem that we kind of touched upon up here and hopefully to some extent a lot of these projects started to poke at. I would, with all due respect to my colleagues, suggest they didn’t really get into that cut. And, when Barry said this would be a little more nuts and bolts, I didn’t realize we were talking this nuts and bolts, but you’re absolutely right. You point out a whole series of problems starting from the fact that you’ve been displaced, put in a position where you could no longer afford your house because of the taxes on that house. Now you’re being left with very few options. I would hope on a really basic level that your voucher is portable, so that you aren’t stuck just looking for housing in Fort Lee which I know can be somewhat challenging. […] The whole Affordable Housing Trust Fund is a problem because it’s like the old George Bernard Shaw play Major Barbara: It allows these guys to buy their way out of providing affordable housing. […] As long as you continue to take what amounts to developers’ ransom money, you’re going to continue to have segregated neighborhoods. You’re going to continue to have folks like yourself who are stuck, getting forced out of their neighborhood…
BL: What you essentially did in maybe two minutes is cut a broad swath right through just about every problem that we kind of touched upon up here and hopefully to some extent a lot of these projects started to poke at. I would, with all due respect to my colleagues, suggest they didn’t really get into that cut. And, when Barry said this would be a little more nuts and bolts, I didn’t realize we were talking this nuts and bolts, but you’re absolutely right. You point out a whole series of problems starting from the fact that you’ve been displaced, put in a position where you could no longer afford your house because of the taxes on that house. Now you’re being left with very few options. I would hope on a really basic level that your voucher is portable, so that you aren’t stuck just looking for housing in Fort Lee which I know can be somewhat challenging. […] The whole Affordable Housing Trust Fund is a problem because it’s like the old George Bernard Shaw play Major Barbara: It allows these guys to buy their way out of providing affordable housing. […] As long as you continue to take what amounts to developers’ ransom money, you’re going to continue to have segregated neighborhoods. You’re going to continue to have folks like yourself who are stuck, getting forced out of their neighborhood…
Reinhold Martin: So it’s an election year. The question is, really, as people kind of operating around municipal and regional public sectors, what it would take to move this discussion we’re having in the big city here out into America, broadly construed whether we’re calling that “suburbia” or not. In other words, out into a space, a sphere, a site of discussion, in which the underlying values are on the table in a manner that is at least comparable to the way the practice of finance is currently on the table or the way, say, healthcare was on the table a few years ago. It’s quite striking that, during an election year after four years of this crisis, housing is still not on the table. What do you think?
BL: One of the things I thought to do in preparation for this talk was to chart, from the Bush administration through the Obama administration, the number of times the word “housing” appears in the State of the Union address. I got really depressed, so I stopped. In essence—again, because it is so polarizing, and I can’t wait to see what they said on Fox News—you’re going to have to wait until December. You’re going to have to wait until he gets reelected. You’re going to have to wait until Shaun Donovan has four more years. Then we can start to have a meaningful discussion. But until then, I don’t think anything that you put on the national political agenda that talks about “public” or “housing” other than possibly bailing out mortgages and/or bailing out more bank —I don’t know how that’s going to gain any traction or do anything other than alienate more voters. But once December comes, then it’s a different story.
MJ: I wouldn’t disagree with that. I think there’s a curious rupture between the importance of housing in our lives and the importance of it in the political discourse, if you will. I think in New York City there are two things that are important to New Yorkers: real estate and romance. And real estate inevitably trumps romance. “Who’s got the right rent-stabilized apartment? I’ll take that one!” “Ok, you’re moving in with me. I’m not moving in with you.” Here it is so central to our lives. Go to a party in a single-family house in a neighborhood or something: “So, did you hear the house down the street went for so-many dollars?” It dominates our conversation in so many ways, and yet it’s so difficult for it to enter into the discussion even in the aftermath of this colossal, this calamity that has occurred. […] In some ways, when it gets into the public policy realm, it’s like “My eyes glaze over.” I’m talking about QRMs [Qualified Residential Mortgages], and you’re falling asleep. Let’s admit it. It is hard. It’s really hard to raise this issue in an effective manner.
BL: One of the things I thought to do in preparation for this talk was to chart, from the Bush administration through the Obama administration, the number of times the word “housing” appears in the State of the Union address. I got really depressed, so I stopped. In essence—again, because it is so polarizing, and I can’t wait to see what they said on Fox News—you’re going to have to wait until December. You’re going to have to wait until he gets reelected. You’re going to have to wait until Shaun Donovan has four more years. Then we can start to have a meaningful discussion. But until then, I don’t think anything that you put on the national political agenda that talks about “public” or “housing” other than possibly bailing out mortgages and/or bailing out more bank —I don’t know how that’s going to gain any traction or do anything other than alienate more voters. But once December comes, then it’s a different story.
MJ: I wouldn’t disagree with that. I think there’s a curious rupture between the importance of housing in our lives and the importance of it in the political discourse, if you will. I think in New York City there are two things that are important to New Yorkers: real estate and romance. And real estate inevitably trumps romance. “Who’s got the right rent-stabilized apartment? I’ll take that one!” “Ok, you’re moving in with me. I’m not moving in with you.” Here it is so central to our lives. Go to a party in a single-family house in a neighborhood or something: “So, did you hear the house down the street went for so-many dollars?” It dominates our conversation in so many ways, and yet it’s so difficult for it to enter into the discussion even in the aftermath of this colossal, this calamity that has occurred. […] In some ways, when it gets into the public policy realm, it’s like “My eyes glaze over.” I’m talking about QRMs [Qualified Residential Mortgages], and you’re falling asleep. Let’s admit it. It is hard. It’s really hard to raise this issue in an effective manner.
BL: The five teams, although each one of them in their own way tried to saddle up to the issue of public housing, no one really took it dead-on. No one really looked at it square in the eyes and ran at it, because it is so controversial, or that would be my guess from being on one of the teams and watching the other four teams work closely. It still has such a stigma to it. There is still such reluctance by the architectural community to reengage this issue of public housing that everyone kind of walked up to the edge and then shied back from it.
BL: I don’t think there are too many conversations you can have in the public discourse where a term like “unwed welfare mother” is completely commonplace and assumed as being an acceptable term to throw around, but when you talk about public housing it is. In fact, it’s almost assumed. So, in a lot of ways we need to get out from our own bad image.
BL: With the second [Mt. Laurel] decision, it was one of the first states to not necessarily recognize housing as a need or as an inalienable human right, but what it did recognize was that a society or a community or a municipality has an obligation to its residents to provide low-income housing options. And so, in a way, it kind of turned the provision-of-housing argument in on itself and put that on the role of society which, in a lot of ways, is what The Buell Hypothesis argues. But the problem that New Jersey is running into—and this is an affordable housing development in Mt. Laurel—is that the infrastructure that is required to sustain that low level of density for low-income families is not really practical. That’s why COAH [Coalition on Affordable Housing] is being challenged. That’s why Mt. Laurel I and II are being challenged. That’s why a lot of this is being rethought. And I’m not saying that we should come down on one side or the other, but one thing I really enjoy about the comparison of these projects is what the issues of density mean to that debate.
BL: “Properties with Property” occupies the only site that anyone who doesn’t live in Manhattan would call a “real suburb,” which Marc alluded to, and unapologetically so. In so doing, Team Zago really brings to the fore, in the most aesthetically exciting way possible, issues of the overlaps between public and private space that are paramount to any affordable housing development since the introduction of Newman’s Defensible Space. […] But the question that automatically brings up, especially when compared against MOS’s project, is that even though the density in some places in Rialto is quadrupled from what it was or what it was proposed to be, is that still enough density to survive? Even though that density is camouflaged, would the people that want to be in a low-density area still want to be there? And would the people who need the density in order to survive, and predominantly those are low-income families, would they be able to get the supportive services that they would need in a community with that level of density?
BL: I think it’s important for us, especially within the context of this exhibition, to look at New Jersey because we’re not really talking about what we understood to be “suburbia” any more, and we’re also not really talking about what we understood to be “the city” anymore. East Orange and “Thoughts on a Walking City” are an excellent example of that. The Oranges, if they were compared to the largest cities in the United States, would be the fifth densest city in the United States. It actually has over 16,000 people per square mile. (To give you some frame of reference, New York only has 27,000 people per square mile, and the drop-off after New York is rather rapid.) So, I applaud MOS for their somewhat backhanded recognition that, despite this density, there still aren’t enough services, there still isn’t enough affordable housing, and “Oh, and by the way, you’re all fat.” The answer they came up with, which I don’t disagree with at all, is that we actually need to make it denser, what they suggest is essentially Smart Growth on steroids. […] The way Smart Growth is essentially practiced now is in very small increments, and to the extent that it’s practiced in these small increments, it’s working. But if it were practiced at a much larger scale, as MOS suggested, who knows what the implications could be? I like to think that could be very beneficial.
BL: One of the things that was perhaps a subtle component of Team Gang’s proposal was the coupling of the development of affordable housing with job opportunities.
BL: Jeanne Gang’s “Machine in the Garden” is perhaps the place to start, as the central elements of the project are so clearly and bilingually communicated. One thing I cannot overstate is the value of community participation, which this team did better than anyone else. It costs very little to hold community meetings, interview residents, paint murals, and build neighborhood gardens and playgrounds, especially when compared to the overall cost of developing affordable housing, but the dividends reaped from these efforts are invaluable in terms of achieving a sustainable community that residents want to be a part of. Pride of ownership of individual property, which is something that has been pushed for a long time—again, since ’72— is nothing compared to the pride or want to belong to one’s community.
MJ: But East Orange’s riff on transit-oriented development is a very smart proposal as well. It stretches our thinking, residing on the edge of the practical and the ideal. It proposes a politic trade: save revenue and therefore tax dollars by eliminating many of the neighborhood streets and the costs associated with maintaining them. Additionally, this approach radically diminishes the role of the automobile in the community. It treats the streets like we’ve treated vacant land in the city: as an opportunity for infill housing. It increases density in the area near an existing rail station and incorporates mixed uses enriching the area’s amenities while, again, reducing the residents’ reliance on the car to get things done. Curiously, however, while calling for the end of the ghetto enclave, its uninterrupted ribbon development results in a densely packed community that reminds me of my image of the kasbah, a true enclave, impenetrable from the outside, labyrinthine from the inside, and devoid of large, open, public spaces where people can meet and talk and relax. To relegate these opportunities, as they say in the paper, to the ground floors of new developments which might contain a variety of shops and services is to subordinate community to commerce.
It’s refreshing that the team unabashedly suggests that much of these new ribbons of housing would be developed as public housing. But if this is a serious idea, not simply a gesture or metaphor, then one must confront the fact that public housing in the United States, apart from unfortunately being in ideological disrepute, is also grossly underfunded.
It’s refreshing that the team unabashedly suggests that much of these new ribbons of housing would be developed as public housing. But if this is a serious idea, not simply a gesture or metaphor, then one must confront the fact that public housing in the United States, apart from unfortunately being in ideological disrepute, is also grossly underfunded.
myaccesiblelife
Foreclosure definitely has some good points to it for some homeowners when you find the loopholes.
Progressives_LoveAmerica
hp_blogger_Jonny Stewart, personally, I'd much prefer it if the government would EXPROPRIATE these homes & give them to the would-be victims of foreclosure, just to teach banks something about risk management.
hp_blogger_Clay Chiles
I want to see some nonprofit buy up foreclosed homes and then give them away to people who lost their homes to foreclosure after falling victim to predatory lending.
JamesPowers
look on the bright side if we end up homeless we can still get fed by the public in philly! hahaha that story really blows my mind
tlstryker
someone at my work is getting foreclosed on. as if that doesn't suck enough, she gets the runaround about living there, the buying and selling and servicing of the mortgage. its seriouslty rough for ppl.
yeswecanjane
Homeless people you cn look inside your former homes and smile at the progress:)
Luanne_Taylor
the threat of foreclosure seems to hit families REAL fast!
paulx44
yeswecanjane, And it's kinda warm if you stand outside close enough to the windows of your former home
yeswecanjane
paulx44, Yes we can look warmly at their future and not be so jealous!
Gadea268
In NYC a $200.00 a night, pet hotel has just opened up. Maybe 10 blocks from the Chelsea Pet Hotel, on the FDR drive, there are homeless families that would love to share a room in the hotel with the pet.
NoMoniker
Who is buying the foreclosed homes? Certainly not the millions who've been foreclosed on. Rich investors?
American Dream (106)
The Issue
The foreclosure crisis has led to a major loss of confidence in the suburban dream. The idea of single-family houses on private lots reachable only by car has been broken, and this new reality has hit especially hard in suburbs. It is here, rather than in the next ring of potential sprawl, where architects, landscape designers, artists, ecologists, and elected officials need to rethink reshaping urban America for the coming decades.
The foreclosure crisis has led to a major loss of confidence in the suburban dream. The idea of single-family houses on private lots reachable only by car has been broken, and this new reality has hit especially hard in suburbs. It is here, rather than in the next ring of potential sprawl, where architects, landscape designers, artists, ecologists, and elected officials need to rethink reshaping urban America for the coming decades.
Foreclosed is situated in the midst of this drama, which is also playing out around the “American Dream” of suburban home ownership. It asks, gently but firmly: What are the rules by which housing ought to be designed, produced, and made available in the United States? To whom? By whom? To what end? What ought to be the role of governments in these processes? Of markets? Of architecture? Of urbanism?
About four years ago, a latent pattern of unethical, self-interested and surreptitious decision-making reared its head to wreak havoc in the American housing market. Americans were living on a dream buoyed by false hope: we thought we could have it all. But as millions defaulted on mortgages with unmanageable interest rates, made on credit they couldn’t afford to pay off, the country was exposed to the networks of mistrust and corruption that came to define the zeitgeist of today’s financial system.
republic4all
03:04 PM on 08/10/2011
The American Dream has always been based on the freedom to pursue your dreams and the enabler for the American Dream has always been our Constitution, the rule of law, and economic liberty. Our free enterprise system lifted more people out of poverty than any other system this earth has ever known. Government exists to protect your rights and to prevent other people from interfering with your pursuit of these dreams, free of harm.
The American Dream is different for every person in this country. For some it is to own a home. For some it is to have a successful business. Whatever that Dream is to be achieved through your own personal perseverance, drive, determination and responsibility. It's not anybody else's job to deliver your American Dream to your doorstep, and that includes the government. The American government is in the business of protecting the freedom of its citizens to pursue their dreams.
The American Dream has always been based on the freedom to pursue your dreams and the enabler for the American Dream has always been our Constitution, the rule of law, and economic liberty. Our free enterprise system lifted more people out of poverty than any other system this earth has ever known. Government exists to protect your rights and to prevent other people from interfering with your pursuit of these dreams, free of harm.
The American Dream is different for every person in this country. For some it is to own a home. For some it is to have a successful business. Whatever that Dream is to be achieved through your own personal perseverance, drive, determination and responsibility. It's not anybody else's job to deliver your American Dream to your doorstep, and that includes the government. The American government is in the business of protecting the freedom of its citizens to pursue their dreams.
NJP1
06:52 AM on 08/10/2011
There is much made of the American Dream, can someone define what this American Dream is, or was, and reassure us all that it is not based on infinite consumption of finite resources? There seems to be no other way of realising that ‘dream’. We must pump more oil, find more gas, rip our planet apart to find the stuff we must have in order to perpetuate some kind of illusion into an infinity that is constantly receding. Politicians scream :’vote for me, and you can have it all when I get elected’ so the gullible masses decide which candidate offers the best sounding lies. Then find that they still can’t have what they want, because the previous incumbent ‘left such a mess’ that getting the economy straight puts back the good times for another few years. So the myth of the American Dream goes on, always that illusive future awaiting everyone that was, I fear, the creation of postwar admen: that if you always bought the newest car and bigger house further out, you would always have the means to drag 2 tons of steel 20 miles to buy your groceries, or propel yourself at 500mph to sit on beach 2000 miles away for 2 weeks. Unfortunately the ‘means’ isn’t there anymore, The dream was built on an infinity of cheap oil and the dream is turning into a nightmare because oil is now too expensive to use for dream making. http://www.yourmedievalfuture.com/
There is much made of the American Dream, can someone define what this American Dream is, or was, and reassure us all that it is not based on infinite consumption of finite resources? There seems to be no other way of realising that ‘dream’. We must pump more oil, find more gas, rip our planet apart to find the stuff we must have in order to perpetuate some kind of illusion into an infinity that is constantly receding. Politicians scream :’vote for me, and you can have it all when I get elected’ so the gullible masses decide which candidate offers the best sounding lies. Then find that they still can’t have what they want, because the previous incumbent ‘left such a mess’ that getting the economy straight puts back the good times for another few years. So the myth of the American Dream goes on, always that illusive future awaiting everyone that was, I fear, the creation of postwar admen: that if you always bought the newest car and bigger house further out, you would always have the means to drag 2 tons of steel 20 miles to buy your groceries, or propel yourself at 500mph to sit on beach 2000 miles away for 2 weeks. Unfortunately the ‘means’ isn’t there anymore, The dream was built on an infinity of cheap oil and the dream is turning into a nightmare because oil is now too expensive to use for dream making. http://www.yourmedievalfuture.com/
When architects Sam Dufaux and Michael Etzel were tasked by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) with re-envisioning Keizer Station, they came up with a scathing indictment of Keizer as it currently exists: bedroom community, not very diverse, aging, little local dynamic.
Whether or not residents agree with that assessment is beside the point because the re-envisioning is less about the specifics of the Keizer Station and more about what it means to alter the previous conceptions of the American Dream.
Whether or not residents agree with that assessment is beside the point because the re-envisioning is less about the specifics of the Keizer Station and more about what it means to alter the previous conceptions of the American Dream.
As the barriers to entry into the American Dream – interpreted as a house in the suburbs – rise, the Foreclosed project tackles the question of “what if” we could dream a bit differently. The suburb was built on the notion of the nuclear family that lived and worked within a relatively small geographic area, but, in the past 50 years, as ring upon ring of suburb spirals out into all the space zoning codes permit, residents of the suburbs are increasingly remote from the places where they work.
“The drive everywhere for cheaper and cheaper things mentality is unsustainable. It’s getting more crowded and a huge portion of the income goes into transportation,” Dufaux said.
“The drive everywhere for cheaper and cheaper things mentality is unsustainable. It’s getting more crowded and a huge portion of the income goes into transportation,” Dufaux said.
If you asked your parents (doesn’t matter how old you are) to describe the American dream, they’d sooner or later talk about a house, a yard and a picket fence — a single-family home. George W. Bush, taking a line from Margaret Thatcher, called his administration’s easy credit policies “the ownership society,” one in which we’d all have the chance to work hard, prosper and buy a home.
As New York City was coming out of its darkest years, art did not exactly lead the way. Who would have asked it to try? Now two institutions have joined forces to do just that. The Noguchi Museum, in collaboration with Socrates Sculpture Park, offers "Civic Action: A Vision for Long Island City."
"Change the dream and you change the city." The line could describe their hopes exactly. Instead, it helps introduce five other plans for suburban America, each with a commitment to cities and to dreaming. The Museum of Modern Art calls the show "Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream." Yet, the curators are not looking for new architecture to house an older ideal. Rather, they want to change thinking, the kind that brought the tangle of postwar suburban sprawl and, in their minds, the doomed housing bubble.
"Change the dream and you change the city." The line could describe their hopes exactly. Instead, it helps introduce five other plans for suburban America, each with a commitment to cities and to dreaming. The Museum of Modern Art calls the show "Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream." Yet, the curators are not looking for new architecture to house an older ideal. Rather, they want to change thinking, the kind that brought the tangle of postwar suburban sprawl and, in their minds, the doomed housing bubble.
Two interrelated claims provide the premise for "Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream," a recent workshop and forthcoming exhibition organized by the Department of Architecture and Design of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The first is that the foundation of the American dream, particularly as it has evolved over the past century, is ownership of a singlefamily suburban house; the second is that America's current foreclosure crisis should force a wholesale rethinking of this dream.
Because the goal of the exhibition is not to critique but to fundamentally reimagine suburbia, its stakes for architecture are doubly high. First, in seeking to address the underlying social and economic systems behind suburbia, the show tests architecture's capabilities and boundaries as a discipline, along with its continuing relevance as a guiding voice in the development of America's spatial and social geography. Simultaneously, because any treatment of suburbia has to address the problem of housing, the show must confront the house itself: that remarkable reminder of architecture's abilityto put something as ineffable as the American dream into specific material terms. So the show will also test architecture's capacity to symbolize, the ways in which it structures and embodies meaning.
Foreclosed calls into question the American Dream of home ownership and the way it was packaged and sold in the form of a single-family house in the suburbs. It ties the current foreclosure crisis to unsustainable trends in housing and planning that go back to the days of Frank Lloyd Wright and his Broadacre City. The exhibition also demonstrates how prevailing models for suburban development are not only environmentally unsustainable, but also financially unsound.
“Outsiders tear up things, they’ve messed up the city, they don’t want to learn.” Cicero was an immigrant enclave with proud and strong working-class people who, with opportunity, moved away and were replaced by another proud and strong working-class community of a different ethnicity and cultural need. Some things, however, were common: a desire to have their children receive the best education, to work and become American, to benefit from this strange new gateway.
sol
Yes, the government f the american dream with regulation. Thankfully, my grandfather left brooklyn in 1948 and made it overseas. Now I dont have to f worry about regulation or whine aobut 'sub-urbia'
be rational–the future is gated communities–there is not 'community' or 'society'...just a bunch of f trying to get ahead by either playing the victim card or getting elected to congress or the executive branch.
The equivalent of a bunch of mentally re-tarded third graders run america. So yea, I think thed solution is for everyone to give one big middle finger to everyone that wants to tell other people how to live, and if they keep at it, move–
THERE ARE SEVERAL PLACES AROUND THE PLANET that are looking for professionals, america is not the only happy pie-
they give you too much sh-t, you leave. GIVE ONE BIG MIDDLE FINGER to all the little angry faced third graders as the economy sours. They dont deserve your taxes. The f idiots can't get out of a cardboard box.
December 20, 2011 at 3:47 pm
be rational–the future is gated communities–there is not 'community' or 'society'...just a bunch of f trying to get ahead by either playing the victim card or getting elected to congress or the executive branch.
The equivalent of a bunch of mentally re-tarded third graders run america. So yea, I think thed solution is for everyone to give one big middle finger to everyone that wants to tell other people how to live, and if they keep at it, move–
THERE ARE SEVERAL PLACES AROUND THE PLANET that are looking for professionals, america is not the only happy pie-
they give you too much sh-t, you leave. GIVE ONE BIG MIDDLE FINGER to all the little angry faced third graders as the economy sours. They dont deserve your taxes. The f idiots can't get out of a cardboard box.
December 20, 2011 at 3:47 pm
Ziggy Stardust
Houston is a dump with the worst weather on the planet next to the miserable jungle in Vietnam. They also appear to have no zoning there, you often see a body shop or dry cleaners next to a home in what appears to be a residential neighborhood. What hicks in the rest of the country don't seem to understand about living in the Northeast is the opportunity to make big money here. I worked in Venture Capital for 15 years in NYC, made a boatload of money, had a big house in CT, cars, the dream. Then it all came crashing down in 2008. I sold everything I could and moved to Wyoming where I now work as a tile setter (my dad tought me the trade when I was a kid) I couldn't be happier. I miss all the toys, but life is good. Wyoming is breathtakingly beautiful Houston is just breathtaking (FROM THE STENCH)
December 20, 2011 at 2:26 pm
December 20, 2011 at 2:26 pm
Her son-in-law and two of her grandchildren are out of work because of the Wall Street crash a few years ago. Right now, amazingly, all of her 15 grandchildren and 27 great-grandchildren live within a 10-minute drive of her home. But she fears that will change.
The suburban dream isn't the same for them, she said.
"It'll never happen again," she said of the suburban boom.
And that's too bad: "It was a much nicer way of living."
The suburban dream isn't the same for them, she said.
"It'll never happen again," she said of the suburban boom.
And that's too bad: "It was a much nicer way of living."
From 1947 to 1951, Levitt built more than 17,000 homes in Levittown. The U.S. Federal Housing Administration encouraged the boom by backing the mortgages of returning veterans, allowing them to put virtually no money down. That let Dwyer and her husband chase a new American dream.
Siobhán Ó Mócháin B.
JANUARY 24, 2012, 7:12 P.M.
For A Regular Guy(Written after reading the story in L.A. Times of a dead man found in a foreclosed home in Westchester, CA on 7/20/2009 by a real estate agent preparing to show the house to a prospect.)
Three bedroom 2 bath
garage backyard lawn
rambling family style
home for kids pets. 1957.
Needs work
refinancing available
forbearance provided
for small fee.
A sunny southern Cal
kind of Monday
in Westchester.
Realty Modern
shows same home
once bestowed
with bank notes
loans interest rates
derivatives
credit-default swaps.
Brokered down by
adjustable rates
pre-payment penalties.
Now liberated by the
free market.
Lien holders
mean holder
sof bankrupt dreams.
FORECLOSED.
Ready to buy
best terms
and cheap!
But oh dear!
What’s a 45-year-old
dead man doing here?
Didn’t we clean this
property up?
Who could
miss the odor
of late payments ?
The gruesome smell
of maxed out credit?
The stench of the
unemployed?
What’s an agent to do?
Come back later.
This regular guy
Laid off. Laid out cold
in the family room.
Second mortgage borrowerr
avaged by pyramid
schemes. No modification
no public offering
for him. No gold man of stocks
no Fed unreserved no inside track
no parachute for this everyday chump.
Lien holdersmean holders
of bankrupt dreams.
FORECLOSED.
For A Regular Guy(Written after reading the story in L.A. Times of a dead man found in a foreclosed home in Westchester, CA on 7/20/2009 by a real estate agent preparing to show the house to a prospect.)
Three bedroom 2 bath
garage backyard lawn
rambling family style
home for kids pets. 1957.
Needs work
refinancing available
forbearance provided
for small fee.
A sunny southern Cal
kind of Monday
in Westchester.
Realty Modern
shows same home
once bestowed
with bank notes
loans interest rates
derivatives
credit-default swaps.
Brokered down by
adjustable rates
pre-payment penalties.
Now liberated by the
free market.
Lien holders
mean holder
sof bankrupt dreams.
FORECLOSED.
Ready to buy
best terms
and cheap!
But oh dear!
What’s a 45-year-old
dead man doing here?
Didn’t we clean this
property up?
Who could
miss the odor
of late payments ?
The gruesome smell
of maxed out credit?
The stench of the
unemployed?
What’s an agent to do?
Come back later.
This regular guy
Laid off. Laid out cold
in the family room.
Second mortgage borrowerr
avaged by pyramid
schemes. No modification
no public offering
for him. No gold man of stocks
no Fed unreserved no inside track
no parachute for this everyday chump.
Lien holdersmean holders
of bankrupt dreams.
FORECLOSED.
Thus for example, would people really favor cooperative over individual ownership, or is that being proposed because one proposal assumes the American Dream is already gone? Is the detached dwelling on a postage stamp lot to be done away with for sustainability reasons or is it simply a case of detached homes being conceived of and sited in the wrong ways? Should we all be farming, riding bikes, and taking light rail? This doesn’t take into account patterns of employment and assumes people can afford to live close to where they work. One of the dominant forces that drove the suburbs was affordability, not just a flight from urban congestion, pollution, and crime. People keep moving further and further out because of the lure of ownership that is affordable, not because they are necessarily escaping something. To make any of these proposals tenable the economic system that has been eroded for the last thirty years has to be re-built. That dirty word, socialism, could get them off the ground!
Foreclosure might then be viewed as a framework for re-envisioning the American Dream and architecture’s role in that dream.
"The foreclosure crisis revealed a crisis of the imagination that has delayed an urgently needed conversation about the default settings of the ‘American Dream’ and its most visible symbol, the suburban house. These projects can help start such a conversation," said Reinhold Martin, Director of Columbia University's Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture, who also co-conceived the exhibition.
The exhibit springs from the belief (fleshed out in the Buell Center report) that fewer and fewer Americans have or want the lives that suburbs were designed for. Today, we mostly live alone, or share quarters with roommates and fluid configurations of relatives. We start kitchen-table businesses with vendors in China and customers all over the world. We’re starting to think of the car not as a passport to independence but as a toxic jail cell. For decades, coveting a house you couldn’t afford was a patriotic sentiment, an essential ingredient of the American Dream.
But precisely because the groups tackled their missions from multiple angles, they maximized the number of opponents who could prevent any of these projects from getting built. That’s the paradox of trying to transform the suburbs: The only way to get it done is by rewriting laws, rationalizing markets, reforming the construction industry, and changing the culture all at once—which probably can’t be done.
Anonymous
All of these proposals are too heavy handed. They should have studied the metabolism movement. The american dream is still so rooted in the idea of a single family house with a yard. You must reflect that creatively or its just a museum exhibition.
2/16/2012 12:11 AM CST
2/16/2012 12:11 AM CST
Anonymous
To the post several lines down comparing these elitist idealogues to Steve Jobs: I'm still laughing. Steve jobs didn't create a "trend" as you say. He created great products that people want to buy. Therein is the lesson Architects should learn. Is there room for expressionism and "rethinking the box" in architecture. Pehaps. And if one wants to build there practice on such, go for it. If one does it well enough that people buy-in, then they will have achieved the real American Dream - not one contrived for them by others who "know better" as seems to be the intent of this show.
2/15/2012 6:44 PM CST
2/15/2012 6:44 PM CST
Anonymous
Taking cheap pot shots at McMansions smacks of jealousy more than anything else. Would any of these architects turn down the opportunity to design a 18,000 square foot home ... or to live in one if they could afford it?
One of the beauties of the American Dream is that people can aspire to living in a large home, or a cave if they so prefer. The unilateral imposition of small standardized homes on the masses is an idea best left to the few countries that still embrace the mistaken ideology that was Communism. If these rather naive architects are so committed to that concepts they endorse for others, then I suggest they emmigrate to a former Soviet Bloc country where they will feel more fulfilled. They should take their hypocrisy with them. It has no place in the US.
2/14/2012 6:41 PM CST
One of the beauties of the American Dream is that people can aspire to living in a large home, or a cave if they so prefer. The unilateral imposition of small standardized homes on the masses is an idea best left to the few countries that still embrace the mistaken ideology that was Communism. If these rather naive architects are so committed to that concepts they endorse for others, then I suggest they emmigrate to a former Soviet Bloc country where they will feel more fulfilled. They should take their hypocrisy with them. It has no place in the US.
2/14/2012 6:41 PM CST
Anonymous
These all seem recycled ideas, all of which have been seen at one time or other since WWII, when the suburbs were developed with full steam, and that's a long time ago.
There don't seem to be any strong critical concept in re-thinking the suburb, or the "American Dream", in the time of the "American Nightmare". Can't see the attractiveness of WORkac's proposal, one story strips and towers.....? how original.
2/13/2012 4:26 PM CST
There don't seem to be any strong critical concept in re-thinking the suburb, or the "American Dream", in the time of the "American Nightmare". Can't see the attractiveness of WORkac's proposal, one story strips and towers.....? how original.
2/13/2012 4:26 PM CST
Anonymous
Has anyone asked the people who need housing what they need? Suburbia has always been wasteful and dehumanizing, but when I see ivory tower intellectuals and "community activists" trying to redefine our culture I cringe.
What people need is the liberty to pursue their dreams and the educational and intellectual means to obtain it. Then they can buy whatever housing they like, even a McMansion.
2/13/2012 3:13 PM CST
What people need is the liberty to pursue their dreams and the educational and intellectual means to obtain it. Then they can buy whatever housing they like, even a McMansion.
2/13/2012 3:13 PM CST
While there are ample reasons to be skeptical about Gang's design for Cicero, it should help kick-start a much-needed debate about alternatives to the standard single-family house on a grassy lot. Our homes should fit the realities of how we live, not some preordained myth of the American dream. But making the right fit among form, function and finance is no simple matter, as a close look at Gang's design reveals.
"The foreclosure crisis has led to a major loss of confidence in the suburban dream. The idea of single-family houses on private lots reachable only by car has been broken, and this new reality has hit especially hard in suburbs. It is here, rather than in the next ring of potential sprawl, where architects, landscape designers, artists, ecologists, and elected officials need to rethink reshaping urban America for the coming decades.
The Buell Hypothesis imagines that the stimulus package codified in the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act had channeled federal funding into the provision of new public housing. This counterfactual provides the conceptual basis for Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream, a collaboration between the Buell Center and the Museum of Modern Art dedicated to changing the national housing conversation by projecting new imaginaries of American housing, suburbia and citizenship.
Another contributor, a man wearing glasses and black sweatshirt and standing beneath a beamed ceiling, holds up a text neatly printed in architect's block caps on a large pad of gridded paper:
I am 62 years old.
I have worked honestly & hard my whole life (since I was 14) because that is how you "realize the American Dream."
I was a home builder & designer.
In 1980, the "Savings & Loan Crisis" forced me out of work & out of business. (The gov’t helped the banks survive ...)
In 2007, the "Sub-prime Mortgage Crisis" crushed me again. I lost my home, my wife & my belief in that "American Dream." (The gov’t saved the banks again ...)
I am 62 years old.
I have worked honestly & hard my whole life (since I was 14) because that is how you "realize the American Dream."
I was a home builder & designer.
In 1980, the "Savings & Loan Crisis" forced me out of work & out of business. (The gov’t helped the banks survive ...)
In 2007, the "Sub-prime Mortgage Crisis" crushed me again. I lost my home, my wife & my belief in that "American Dream." (The gov’t saved the banks again ...)
By altering the cultural narrative that is as pervasive as it was when first introduced into mainstream society in 1931 by James Truslow Adams, we can rewrite and ultimately redesign the future of American cities. These five proposals on display at MoMA, while optimistic and idealistic in nature, do capture the spirit of change and forward thinking in both design and practice. While differing in scale and execution, all five projects address the notion of the "American Dream" as an ideal that needs to be refigured in order to reflect current needs and demands of contemporary society.
Craig Kootsillas
11 months ago
I think there's no doubt that there is a trend towards "large multigenerational groupings" given the immigrant population explosion.
It's never been part of our culture.
Our goal used to be to become an adult and get out on one's own.
I think there's no doubt that there is a trend towards "large multigenerational groupings" given the immigrant population explosion.
It's never been part of our culture.
Our goal used to be to become an adult and get out on one's own.
15 Feb, 2012 - (@Richard_Florida)
The American Dream Revised - @buttermilk1on the new MOMA "Foreclosed" exhibit - http://bit.ly/xEE6Mm via @emilybadger
15 Feb, 2012 - (@greenboxhomes)
At MoMA in NYC- what to become of foreclosed suburbs? The American Dream, Revised zite.to/ABSiJ7 via @zite
15 Feb, 2012 - (@Alysia_Bennett)
#Architects+ economists = #foreclosed: change the dream...& you change the #cityhttp://ow.ly/1GvZS7 #citiesftw#MoMA#futrchat
jla-x
Feb 23, 12 12:07 pm
Sub-urban and suburban are also two very different things. I would argue that sub-urban is not bad. A good example of this is in some parts of Brooklyn, Queens, and Nassau county NY. The density is greater than the typical suburban environment, and there is a small business walkable street scape that flanks a mix of multi and single family housing in many of these neighborhoods. There is also access to public transit in and out of the city. There is a mix of home owners and renters, and the opportunity to own a house and rent out the top floor. There is a sense of community and a feeling of being in a small town within a city. The film "Do the Right Thing" by Spike Lee so clearly expresses this. Another issue is density. More density is not the solution alone. We need to find an appropriate balance of density, production, and economy so that development can be in some sort of sustainable balance. I think that sub-urban form has the greatest potential for a sustainable development because there is enough space to support a mix of agriculture, industry,small business, housing, park space, etc...as well as enough density to support local businesses with regard to employees and consumers. Cities like manhattan will never be able to become hybrid typologies because things like urban agriculture and production will be far too expensive due to crazy high land prices. The only problem with the sub-urban typology is that it sometimes becomes gentrified over time as we see in brooklyn or the opposite happens where it becomes a ghetto due to the home values going down as density goes up like in Jamaica Queens (balance is always a thin line). On the other hand, suburban development lends itself to exploitation by corporate interests as James R. clearly articulates. The American dream of owning a single family home is not going away. It is a part of the American culture that dates back hundreds of years. We need to find a solution to the problem without ignoring the cultural mentality that led to it. This is why ideas like the ones in the MoMA exhibit never work. I believe that we need to study examples that already work like Astoria, and go from there.
Sub-urban and suburban are also two very different things. I would argue that sub-urban is not bad. A good example of this is in some parts of Brooklyn, Queens, and Nassau county NY. The density is greater than the typical suburban environment, and there is a small business walkable street scape that flanks a mix of multi and single family housing in many of these neighborhoods. There is also access to public transit in and out of the city. There is a mix of home owners and renters, and the opportunity to own a house and rent out the top floor. There is a sense of community and a feeling of being in a small town within a city. The film "Do the Right Thing" by Spike Lee so clearly expresses this. Another issue is density. More density is not the solution alone. We need to find an appropriate balance of density, production, and economy so that development can be in some sort of sustainable balance. I think that sub-urban form has the greatest potential for a sustainable development because there is enough space to support a mix of agriculture, industry,small business, housing, park space, etc...as well as enough density to support local businesses with regard to employees and consumers. Cities like manhattan will never be able to become hybrid typologies because things like urban agriculture and production will be far too expensive due to crazy high land prices. The only problem with the sub-urban typology is that it sometimes becomes gentrified over time as we see in brooklyn or the opposite happens where it becomes a ghetto due to the home values going down as density goes up like in Jamaica Queens (balance is always a thin line). On the other hand, suburban development lends itself to exploitation by corporate interests as James R. clearly articulates. The American dream of owning a single family home is not going away. It is a part of the American culture that dates back hundreds of years. We need to find a solution to the problem without ignoring the cultural mentality that led to it. This is why ideas like the ones in the MoMA exhibit never work. I believe that we need to study examples that already work like Astoria, and go from there.
jla-x
Feb 16, 12 11:27 am
Why does innovation from Architects always have to come in the form of telling people how to live their lives?
You hit the nail on the head. This goes back the the FLW broad acre city idea, that we can reinvent society in totality to fit a certain utopian vision. The problem is that every architect wants to invent the big cure not the gradual remedy, because the glory lies in being Jonas Salk not the guy who invented Robatusin. The problem with any utopian model is that it usually works in theory, but is completely unrealisable due to the given societal constraints with regard to culture and economy. I have been arguing on threads here that we need to become developers and offer realistic alternatives to crap suburbia. Once again, architects are thinking of top down solutions to what can only be achieved with bottom up models. We live in a free market society whether we like it or not. We need to create demand by building better stuff. "if you build it they will come" We can't just dictate our solutions and hope for society to demand our service. The suburban model is not going away because it is deeply part of the american culture. Rather than get rid of it, lets start by building more sustainable and enriching suburaban communities that are affordable. Look at the way the auto industry copes with these constraints...Sure a small electric car that weighs 1000 lbs. may be the best solution, but they recognise that society will not change so quick, so they focus on hybrid suv's and 4 door sedans. We need to build the "civic hybrid" equivelent of architecture right now (transitionary projects) not the electric smart car, because unfortunatly many people out there still have steel testicles hanging from the back of their pick-up trucks. If we can't even do that, how the hell are we going to do anything more radical. While I wish society was easy to change and would love to see such grand projects, it just ain't gonna happen yet.
Why does innovation from Architects always have to come in the form of telling people how to live their lives?
You hit the nail on the head. This goes back the the FLW broad acre city idea, that we can reinvent society in totality to fit a certain utopian vision. The problem is that every architect wants to invent the big cure not the gradual remedy, because the glory lies in being Jonas Salk not the guy who invented Robatusin. The problem with any utopian model is that it usually works in theory, but is completely unrealisable due to the given societal constraints with regard to culture and economy. I have been arguing on threads here that we need to become developers and offer realistic alternatives to crap suburbia. Once again, architects are thinking of top down solutions to what can only be achieved with bottom up models. We live in a free market society whether we like it or not. We need to create demand by building better stuff. "if you build it they will come" We can't just dictate our solutions and hope for society to demand our service. The suburban model is not going away because it is deeply part of the american culture. Rather than get rid of it, lets start by building more sustainable and enriching suburaban communities that are affordable. Look at the way the auto industry copes with these constraints...Sure a small electric car that weighs 1000 lbs. may be the best solution, but they recognise that society will not change so quick, so they focus on hybrid suv's and 4 door sedans. We need to build the "civic hybrid" equivelent of architecture right now (transitionary projects) not the electric smart car, because unfortunatly many people out there still have steel testicles hanging from the back of their pick-up trucks. If we can't even do that, how the hell are we going to do anything more radical. While I wish society was easy to change and would love to see such grand projects, it just ain't gonna happen yet.
toasteroven
Feb 16, 12 11:22 am
ending the subsidies that drastically lower the true cost of many aspects of the suburban lifestyle would be a very strong incentive for many people to move into apartments and denser neighborhoods. If you want urban-style services and utilities with the luxury of low density you should have to pay a premium for it. otherwise there are ways of living more "off the grid" if you're willing to do your own maintenance and pay a little more up front for these systems.
many people do have the dream of living in a detached single-family home, and I think this should be available to people if they can afford it, but I think until the crash people were pretty delusional about how much this lifestyle actually costs (i.e. taking out loans they couldn't afford), and how much it has been costing our country.
ending the subsidies that drastically lower the true cost of many aspects of the suburban lifestyle would be a very strong incentive for many people to move into apartments and denser neighborhoods. If you want urban-style services and utilities with the luxury of low density you should have to pay a premium for it. otherwise there are ways of living more "off the grid" if you're willing to do your own maintenance and pay a little more up front for these systems.
many people do have the dream of living in a detached single-family home, and I think this should be available to people if they can afford it, but I think until the crash people were pretty delusional about how much this lifestyle actually costs (i.e. taking out loans they couldn't afford), and how much it has been costing our country.
Andrew Purcell (AP) : Do you think that Americans are giving up on the suburban dream, then? Because it’s still seems quite resilient to me.
Barry Bergdoll (BB): It is astounding to what extent people’s dreams are fulfilled by images that are supplied to them by the marketplace, by advertising, by television, but I do think that that is shifting. And even some of the dream producers like movies, like television series, are beginning to address the complex realities of suburbs and are starting to show us images of suburbs which are arrival cities for immigrants which have multigenerational families living in the same house. Some of the kind of covering up of those realities in popular entertainment is itself beginning to erode. So, there are many many cracks in the dream.
Barry Bergdoll (BB): It is astounding to what extent people’s dreams are fulfilled by images that are supplied to them by the marketplace, by advertising, by television, but I do think that that is shifting. And even some of the dream producers like movies, like television series, are beginning to address the complex realities of suburbs and are starting to show us images of suburbs which are arrival cities for immigrants which have multigenerational families living in the same house. Some of the kind of covering up of those realities in popular entertainment is itself beginning to erode. So, there are many many cracks in the dream.
In order to change the narrative of the American Dream, the teams have attacked it. With the exception of Andrew Zago’s project in Rialto, California that retains a cul-de-sac structure while beefing up the housing density, these projects are aggressively anti-suburban in their form. For example, WORKac’s Nature-City replaces a neighborhood’s dominant single-family house typology with large multi-family buildings. The winding cul-de-sac roads are then met with a grid form.
Carl W. Smith
02.26.12 at 07:29
Retrofitting the American Dream in a flat world
I hate the over developed suburban wasteland, having grown up in a small town in eastern PA. Shortly after developers cut down the apple orchard at the end of my street to build more houses I escaped to art school. Ironically I grew up in a town that had a lot of history & culture — where American folk artist Edward Hicks painted the Peaceable Kingdom. In that Newtown, which is a very old American town, I learned a few things. If we combine a time for work (the lion), a time for home (the lamb) and a time for culture (the horse) we will rediscover the American Dream. Our Dream just needs a little pruning to flourish.
I agree with Ellen Dunham’s optimistic ideas for retrofitting suburbia. She touches on the idea of people having a third place to go to after the home and the workplace. We need to develop this idea. The only thing I would add to Ellen’s summary is to build equestrian centers on public land through out the American suburban landscape to add culture to the town centers. People need a place to meet and reconnect. We need to get back on the horse and rediscover our culture.
Thank you for your post
Retrofitting the American Dream in a flat world
I hate the over developed suburban wasteland, having grown up in a small town in eastern PA. Shortly after developers cut down the apple orchard at the end of my street to build more houses I escaped to art school. Ironically I grew up in a town that had a lot of history & culture — where American folk artist Edward Hicks painted the Peaceable Kingdom. In that Newtown, which is a very old American town, I learned a few things. If we combine a time for work (the lion), a time for home (the lamb) and a time for culture (the horse) we will rediscover the American Dream. Our Dream just needs a little pruning to flourish.
I agree with Ellen Dunham’s optimistic ideas for retrofitting suburbia. She touches on the idea of people having a third place to go to after the home and the workplace. We need to develop this idea. The only thing I would add to Ellen’s summary is to build equestrian centers on public land through out the American suburban landscape to add culture to the town centers. People need a place to meet and reconnect. We need to get back on the horse and rediscover our culture.
Thank you for your post
As Justin Davidson pointed out in New York Magazine, there’s still a chasm between urban architects and suburban architecture, and part of getting out of the foreclosed mess is not only creating a better checklist but one in a form people are willing to buy, rent or lease. That’s why the Wieden+Kennedy ads were so brilliant. Impossible to look away, they offered you an emotional investment in the new American dream … without having to show you the house.
22 Feb, 2012 - (@dgobel)
Some thoughts about MoMA’s exhibit on the American Dream and the “Buell Hypothesis” What do you think Socrates… fb.me/1yZab8T3M
23 Feb, 2012 - (@DetroitNation)
MoMA's new exhibit "springs from the belief that fewer and fewer Americans have or want the lives that suburbs... http://fb.me/1s7GTzCU8
23 Feb, 2012 - (@CityResearch)
Buell Hypothesis: examining cultural assumptions of the American Dream in the context of foreclosures & sprawl http://bit.ly/AnixCO #cplan
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/buell_hypothesis
24 Feb, 2012 - (@katherineloflin)
The Buell Hypothesis, at its most basic, argues as follows: Change the dream and you change the city http://ow.ly/9faRb #placemaking
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/buell_hypothesis
Bob Herbert (BH): What’s going to inevitably happen is that the American Dream is going to get redefined if it survives. But we’re moving ahead into a landscape where standards of living in general in this country are just going to be lower, and then I assume that housing becomes an integral part of that. And it seems to me that more people are going to rent. It seems to me that houses are going to have to be smaller. They’re going to have to at some point become more affordable, I assume. So, the question becomes what does that look like ten, fifteen years from now?
CH: One of the other architects, Jeanne Gang, who did a project in Cicero in the exhibit, makes this great point that I never thought about in these terms. She said that you’re sort of making a casino bet when you buy a house. You’re betting that it’s going to rise in value. That was a bet that a lot of people made, and now they’re on the wrong side of that bet. But, you’re also betting about what your life is going to look like. How many people are going to inhabit that house? You’re putting money down—you’re putting all your wealth in most cases—into this structure that says, “I am going to be married with the two kids and the dog” or whatever. And the fact is that new family members come in as immigrants possibly or you get divorced or you lose your job or your kids have to move back because they can’t get jobs. So the house is insufficiently flexible to deal with the changing American family.
MB: People have looked toward changing or improving the suburbs
for a long time. You can go back to the 1970s, and academics are often
lambasted for not being sensitive about it. But the reason I’m bringing
this up is that what is different at this point in time is everything from
globalization in terms of where is production happening, what are the
jobs. When you talk about housing, you ultimately always—even if you’re
an architect—end up talking about jobs. What will secure that loan in the
future? So, flexibility comes in. But the difference now, I think, is that
what people realize… And the foreclosure crisis is an awful thing, it is
absolutely a crisis, but it does start to create a situation where people
start to imagine that what we have is not inevitable. And, in fact, it was
produced, and it was dreamed. I think, people don’t like change in housing,
and they should worry about change in housing, but what we have is also
not terribly secure. And, so, I think that’s what you’re bringing up, and
Jeanne was bringing that up quite brilliantly.
CH: One of the things I think Detroit forces us to think of is the fact that
the things we think are natural are contingent.
MB: People have looked toward changing or improving the suburbs
for a long time. You can go back to the 1970s, and academics are often
lambasted for not being sensitive about it. But the reason I’m bringing
this up is that what is different at this point in time is everything from
globalization in terms of where is production happening, what are the
jobs. When you talk about housing, you ultimately always—even if you’re
an architect—end up talking about jobs. What will secure that loan in the
future? So, flexibility comes in. But the difference now, I think, is that
what people realize… And the foreclosure crisis is an awful thing, it is
absolutely a crisis, but it does start to create a situation where people
start to imagine that what we have is not inevitable. And, in fact, it was
produced, and it was dreamed. I think, people don’t like change in housing,
and they should worry about change in housing, but what we have is also
not terribly secure. And, so, I think that’s what you’re bringing up, and
Jeanne was bringing that up quite brilliantly.
CH: One of the things I think Detroit forces us to think of is the fact that
the things we think are natural are contingent.
Victoria Defrancesco Soto (VDS): I also think there’s the emotional part of it. How do you roll back half a century of the American Dream? I mean, what type of public service announcements are you going to put forward? “The American Dream has changed…” I mean, that’s even a bigger challenge. It’s a huge challenge.
CH: How’s this: “Embrace the Dream: Rent.” Anyone? Any takers on that?
CH: How’s this: “Embrace the Dream: Rent.” Anyone? Any takers on that?
CH: The future of the American home and the American Dream which are sort of married together, I think. One of the things this exhibition makes you think about is the underlying financial structure and policy structure that gives rise to the American suburb and the single-family home, because we all think of it as “They grow like corn in cornfields, right?” Particularly during the housing bubble, where I was living in Chicago, you’d go eighty miles west, and they are. They’re just being built, and it’s almost like an organic process. No one said, “Oh. Let there be McMansions. Let there be sub-developments.” But actually there is a structure underneath. There is a public policy structure, particularly the mortgage interest deduction that helps produce this.
MB: […] One of the big points of the show for anyone who deals with housing issues academically is, yeah, that deduction makes basically a
huge amount of American housing public housing at some level. It’s a far
bigger expenditure on the federal level than, for example, funding for HUD
for homelessness.
TS: It’s about $80 billion or something, right?
MB: It’s about $80 billion. Low-income housing tax credits, I think, are
probably $30 billion. So, the federal government at this point in time really
does not build directly public housing any longer. It incentivizes it through
tax credits.
CH: And it incentivizes for people to purchase their own homes and take
out a lot of debt, the interest of which they can then take off against their
taxes.
MB: […] One of the big points of the show for anyone who deals with housing issues academically is, yeah, that deduction makes basically a
huge amount of American housing public housing at some level. It’s a far
bigger expenditure on the federal level than, for example, funding for HUD
for homelessness.
TS: It’s about $80 billion or something, right?
MB: It’s about $80 billion. Low-income housing tax credits, I think, are
probably $30 billion. So, the federal government at this point in time really
does not build directly public housing any longer. It incentivizes it through
tax credits.
CH: And it incentivizes for people to purchase their own homes and take
out a lot of debt, the interest of which they can then take off against their
taxes.
CH: What does that mean? I think we sort of have a sense of the automobile, the sort of oil-fueled world of post-World War II America and suburban sprawl as these kinds of the things that have conspired to build the great sprawling American suburban landscape. What does rethinking that involve from a design perspective? From a policy perspective?
MB: […] In the 1990s you had a booming economy, you had a kind ofpush to alter, if not end, the welfare state. By the 2000s, you have a real estate bubble. And today you have a foreclosure crisis. But in all of these situations, there are a couple things that have been consistent. The amount of money people spend on housing and transportation is immense. They can’t afford it. You don’t want to tell people they can’t afford something and say that’s the reason to change. You want to be more positive than that. But there are many, many factors about affordability, about energy consumption, and frankly about the role of design in any of it. The American single-family house is a commodity product that has virtually no research and development, no design. Architects, in a spec house in Houston in the late 1990s—their fee was about twelve dollars per house. These are mass-produced commodities. There is no professional engagement. […] I think most of the people in this exhibition are quite
positive and excited about the suburbs. We know it’s a deeply, deeply important part of the American ethos, if not just everyday life of course. But, they’re not inevitable. And the financial underpinnings of them have really dramatically shifted in the last five, ten, fifteen years—not just the last two.
CH: Talk about that R&D thing. You made a point in the video in the exhibition that blew my mind about the comparison between how much money in R&D goes into your iPhone or anti-lock brakes versus an American home.
MB: I did mention anti-lock brakes. For many commodities, before they hit the market, there are billions of dollars that might precede it, whether it’s Clorox or whether it’s an iPhone or a Honda Civic which is quite an ingenious product. Housing as we know it has kind of ironed all of that
out of it, and it did it a long time ago. […] They are paying Mercedes Benz prices for a twenty-year-old used car. The single-family house market atomizes out all of the financial processes, and you still are spending large sums of money, but you’re not getting the sophisticated product. It’s not that it’s not a nice product or something people love, but it could be much, much better in energy and everything else.
MB: […] In the 1990s you had a booming economy, you had a kind ofpush to alter, if not end, the welfare state. By the 2000s, you have a real estate bubble. And today you have a foreclosure crisis. But in all of these situations, there are a couple things that have been consistent. The amount of money people spend on housing and transportation is immense. They can’t afford it. You don’t want to tell people they can’t afford something and say that’s the reason to change. You want to be more positive than that. But there are many, many factors about affordability, about energy consumption, and frankly about the role of design in any of it. The American single-family house is a commodity product that has virtually no research and development, no design. Architects, in a spec house in Houston in the late 1990s—their fee was about twelve dollars per house. These are mass-produced commodities. There is no professional engagement. […] I think most of the people in this exhibition are quite
positive and excited about the suburbs. We know it’s a deeply, deeply important part of the American ethos, if not just everyday life of course. But, they’re not inevitable. And the financial underpinnings of them have really dramatically shifted in the last five, ten, fifteen years—not just the last two.
CH: Talk about that R&D thing. You made a point in the video in the exhibition that blew my mind about the comparison between how much money in R&D goes into your iPhone or anti-lock brakes versus an American home.
MB: I did mention anti-lock brakes. For many commodities, before they hit the market, there are billions of dollars that might precede it, whether it’s Clorox or whether it’s an iPhone or a Honda Civic which is quite an ingenious product. Housing as we know it has kind of ironed all of that
out of it, and it did it a long time ago. […] They are paying Mercedes Benz prices for a twenty-year-old used car. The single-family house market atomizes out all of the financial processes, and you still are spending large sums of money, but you’re not getting the sophisticated product. It’s not that it’s not a nice product or something people love, but it could be much, much better in energy and everything else.
Chris Hayes (CH): Part of what makes Detroit so symbolically powerful is the fact that it is the birthplace of the American car, and the car is one of the two pillars of the American Dream. The other, of course, is the detached single-family home. Such structures make up almost two-thirds of the nation’s housing stock, but more than that, the single-family home is an essential plot point in the story of the American Dream. We all know how it goes: you spend your twenties renting, aimless. You meet someone you love. You marry, settle down, get a career, and get a mortgage on a single family home in a suburb with a good school district and enough space for children. Of course, it was this aspiration that provided fuel for the maniacal engine of destruction that was the great housing securitization machine that Wall Street built during the last decade. The trauma of the housing bubble, and then the financial crisis and the foreclosure epidemic it has left in its wake, has created a landscape of ruin and abandonment. Half-completed developments of McMansions dot exurban cornfields. Blocks of vacant, boarded-up homes blight neighborhoods in inner-ring suburbs. And all of this forces us to reassess our fundamental adherence to the single-family suburban home as the cornerstone of American life. In a brilliant new exhibition at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, five teams of architects
were each assigned a suburban community with a higher foreclosure rate than the national average and asked to imagine in the design a vision for what sustainable, vibrant, post-crisis communities could be if we rethink our most fundamental beliefs about the American house.
were each assigned a suburban community with a higher foreclosure rate than the national average and asked to imagine in the design a vision for what sustainable, vibrant, post-crisis communities could be if we rethink our most fundamental beliefs about the American house.
27 Feb, 2012 - (@PoppyHarlowCNN)
Building a "new america" after the foreclosure crisis: http://cnnmon.ie/zpertA #CNNMoney
27 Feb, 2012 - (@TravisWallerCRS)
Architects re-imagine #foreclosedcities - Video - Business News - http://goo.gl/8p7WA #realestate#fb
The firms were further informed by The Buell Hypothesis, a study published by Columbia University that argues that if you change the dream, you change the city. In other words, if private housing is no longer the goal, the process of redirecting suburban sprawl can begin.
28 Feb, 2012 - (@aigact)
@MuseumModernArt"Foreclosed" exhibition challenged designers to reexamine the American Dream. See what changed. http://bit.ly/wqFcxE
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
We live in a society for the last half of a century based on the idea of suburbia as the ‘American Dream’- the dream of owning a house with a white picket fence and the fresh green lawn. Lately this dream is either nonexistent or fading away in most Americans. The need to change the entitlements and essentially rewrite the home equity system for housing will allow the owners to ‘play’ with programming and developing types. Thus, will create a new coding system and modify what the definition of a standard lot is. People can then rent and own spaces at the same time rather than just one or the other. Cooperative housing for families to share spaces (such as kitchens, laundry room, etc) is a common thought throughout each and every design and is one of the many ways to redefine housing.
“The house is a sacred term in American public discourse,” says Martin. “But a house could just be a house, like a car, or a chair, or a computer. It doesn’t necessarily bring with it – nor should it, I think – transcendente social meaning. A house isn’t sacred: it’s just one amoung many artifacts with which we live. You could say that we have attempted to gently secularize the idea of the house.
The economic and demographic factors at hand may seem emense but I am not sure that a revised American Dream could not have an equally great influence. Guy Horton of author on Archinect comments that he does not believe architects have the power to dictate a solution to the crisis, ” To them, this is further evidence of the irrelevance of what architects have to offer in terms of solving real problems. “ I am afraid to say that manny others feel the same that architects are along for the ride as much as anyone else, architects are not problem solvers. Really? Of anyone who has been trained day in and day out to make something out of nothing. To merge the gap between reality and imaginary we are the innovators those with visions of a different future. Yes we may not be able to single handedly solve major issues but we are in a great position to express our thoughts on a global scale. I think we are selling ourselves short over humbling our potential to make an impact on the future. ” In architecture we have become inured to the special effects of formal bigness and dramatic constructs. “ but isnt this not a perception stemming form those ideas burried in the American dream. This maybe exactly where we need to start initiating a shift, why BIG, why More? In the end the architects apart of the workshop are just adding to something already dead. This unsustainable template has been passed down as a ritual and we are blind to its presence.
In conclusion, these five projects open up debates concerning a process of change, and offer some sophisticated and informed ideas about future development and new values. They understand the need for radical change and offer answers which are linked to contemporary realities, including demographic changes, new social structures and advanced economic models. But on their own, perhaps, they have not succeeded in creating a different "Dream" or a new collective idea centered on real radical change. Despite this, it is to be hoped that the progress that these projects represent is not lost in the future when we finally overcome the crisis and, as in 1973, the need for structural change is no longer seen as a priority.
Jeanne Gang's project, The Garden in The Machine, is perhaps the project which deals most directly with a redefinition of the American Dream and with how the market needs to change in order to create a new set of ideas lined to the real demands created by new demographic groups (immigrants, new kinds of families) and with the mixed and simultaneous use of spaces for work and living. Gang argues that a redefinition of "The Dream" is not only a question of housing, but also involves a transformation of economic systems linked to work and education
The central question today, in particular in the USA where this crisis began, is linked to the rethinking of an entire economic model, the very idea of property and the role of politics in terms of its global governance. More generally, this crisis has led to a rethinking of the myth of the American Dream and its implications in today's world.
typingmonkey
Mar 2nd 2012, 19:31
It looks to me like the Orange NJ proposal is to place buildings in the centers of certain street segments to create
1 - density
2 - mixed use (neighborhood retail/commercial services)
3 - capillary cul-de-sacs (where kids can play without through traffic)
These could put services close to residents, and make walking/biking to them more attractive at the same time. This, in turn, could reinvigorate the local economy and sense of community. Not an easy task in existing grids, so we must begin thinking of unconventional solutions. Fire engines, by the way, routinely serve cul-de-sacs.
I have also long championed flexibility in housing to better accomodate the diverse life paths taken in modern times and other cultures. The American Dream/white picket fence/Mayberry suburb fails badly at this, making your Cicero concept another valuable exercise. In 2012 America, we have a working class that may marry 3 times or not at all. We are all step-this and step-that. College kids might need to return home for years. Grandma might need closer care. Families aren't really nuclear, they are fissile, fusile, orbital and subatomic. So bring back the courtyard, with apartments around it.
The reintegration of nature into our communities is another worthy goal. I think creek daylighting, community gardens, and village greens are all good ideas. The cougar idea must be whimsy, but it helps us avoid getting trapped in the fallacy that land is a purely human medium.
CH, I advise you to spend more time off the island of Manhattan. Go to Alaska. Go to Detroit. Go to a hutong. And go to a desolate American suburb. Then go back to MoMA and tell me what you see.
It looks to me like the Orange NJ proposal is to place buildings in the centers of certain street segments to create
1 - density
2 - mixed use (neighborhood retail/commercial services)
3 - capillary cul-de-sacs (where kids can play without through traffic)
These could put services close to residents, and make walking/biking to them more attractive at the same time. This, in turn, could reinvigorate the local economy and sense of community. Not an easy task in existing grids, so we must begin thinking of unconventional solutions. Fire engines, by the way, routinely serve cul-de-sacs.
I have also long championed flexibility in housing to better accomodate the diverse life paths taken in modern times and other cultures. The American Dream/white picket fence/Mayberry suburb fails badly at this, making your Cicero concept another valuable exercise. In 2012 America, we have a working class that may marry 3 times or not at all. We are all step-this and step-that. College kids might need to return home for years. Grandma might need closer care. Families aren't really nuclear, they are fissile, fusile, orbital and subatomic. So bring back the courtyard, with apartments around it.
The reintegration of nature into our communities is another worthy goal. I think creek daylighting, community gardens, and village greens are all good ideas. The cougar idea must be whimsy, but it helps us avoid getting trapped in the fallacy that land is a purely human medium.
CH, I advise you to spend more time off the island of Manhattan. Go to Alaska. Go to Detroit. Go to a hutong. And go to a desolate American suburb. Then go back to MoMA and tell me what you see.
Tom, Wy.,
4/3/2012 15:05
What American dream? Looks like a nightmare!!!!!
What American dream? Looks like a nightmare!!!!!
Floridian, USA
4/3/2012 12:24
Owning your own home is the American dream. That is never going to change. Those architects need a wake up call
Owning your own home is the American dream. That is never going to change. Those architects need a wake up call
The financial crisis left large swathes of the the US derelict and decimated, leading many to question the pursuit of the American Dream.
And with the problem of widespread foreclosures embodying the issues faced by families and communities across the county, leading designers have now offered a new vision of the future.
And with the problem of widespread foreclosures embodying the issues faced by families and communities across the county, leading designers have now offered a new vision of the future.
The American Dream, which for many Americans is the prospect of owning your own home, is dying. Or, at the very least, it is in danger of being lost to a sea of forces, which include overbuilding, overbuying and the economic downturn.
This challenge is cultural as much as it is architectural or economic. Thus the proposals must be judged by how profoundly they address and encourage a modification—even an upending—of the so-called American dream. Actually, instead of “Rehousing the American Dream” a more accurate subtitle would have been “Redreaming the American Home.” To want to live in such reimagined communities, people would have to disabuse themselves of commonly held archetypes of house and neighborhood, deeply ingrained feelings about privacy and ownership, unquestioned measures of success and even selfhood. This would amount to a massive societal shift in expectations and values. But big changes in cultural norms do occur when people feel threatened. Vast numbers of us have eschewed tobacco, for example, and sprawl is arguably even more dangerous. So what the hell? Let’s dream.
Ara Hovnanian set the stage by exploring his own company’s strategy for adapting new homes to a post-crisis reality: by building multi-generational, multi-household homes for boomerang children, aging parents, and older siblings. Joe Rose followed, arguing the Buell Hypothesis of “Change the dream and you change the city” might be better adapted to “Respect the dream and you change the city,” suggesting that dismissing the suburban dream would never lead to a suburban makeover.
11 Mar, 2012 - (@gabavenue)
'Change the dream & you change the city' - food for thought at 'Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream' exhibit, MoMA http://bit.ly/wqFcxE
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
In a spirited dialogue that took on the American Dream, the words of Socrates, Glaucon, Jay–Z and Clipse filled the rotunda of Columbia University’s Low Library on Saturday, February 18th. The intent of the day of discussion was to consider “What is Foreclosed?” As part of the Temple Hoyne Buell Center and Museum of Modern Art exhibition Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream, a panel of anthropologists, architects, planners and institution leaders gathered to assess how the American Dream was brought to a breaking point, and considered ways to reshape our collective housing desires
“Change the dream and you change the city.” The maxim at the heart of the Buell Hypothesis and the thesis driving Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream sets up a difficult goal to achieve. Changing the city is hard. It takes vision, power, cooperation, planning and, in most cases, the forces that drive urban change are outside the control of designers or citizens. Changing the dream, however, may be harder still: amending a national subconscious is a grand, maybe hubristic task, with no clear mode of address. Conversations that complement and take inspiration from design strategies offer a potentially productive model for new dreams, and most importantly serve as a reminder that “What is Foreclosed?” is not at its heart a question for architects. It is a question that implicates many disciplines, and many people, most importantly those who answer that question with “my house.” In the face of a housing crisis, however, it would be irresponsible for architects and planners not to be asking this question. The next step, it seems, is to move the conversation outside the design sphere and instead of trying to change the dream, try to understand what American’s dreams really are.
rjchicago
MAR 14, 2012 4:46 PM EDT
Felix:
One other point – the interview with Mr. Bell in essence points out his socialization of housing and thereby negates one of the big principles that sets our nation apart – Property Rights!!! Somehow this fact is getting lost in these utopian schemes. Just food for thought!
Felix:
One other point – the interview with Mr. Bell in essence points out his socialization of housing and thereby negates one of the big principles that sets our nation apart – Property Rights!!! Somehow this fact is getting lost in these utopian schemes. Just food for thought!
14 Mar, 2012 - (@Lynn_Teo)
The Buell Hypothesis: "Change the dream and you change the city." Food for thought #architecture#changehttp://www.moma.org/interactives/e …
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/buell_hypothesis/
asdf
March 22, 2012, @ 1:05 am
This is a democracy. We have nobody to blame but the 51% of people who elect those who allow the 1% to exploit us and steal from us. Tighter financial regulations, more low cost/free public programs, subsidizing green energy and public transport as well as other welfare programs… these are values. One party in America cares about them, one doesn’t.
These aren’t architectural problems. They are political and social problems. The cities we live in represent the values of the people in America, unfortunately. If/when Americans evolve some and start looking forward rather than backwards, and start making political decisions to match, these problems with irresponsible development will be a long way towards being resolved.
As the American dream evolves, so too will the American landscape. But essentially, this is about politics in the end. Architects can only point out the root problems and propose solutions that point to them, as this article suggests. I don’t have any problem with utopian proposals. Architects aren’t the financiers and architects aren’t the home buyers. It’s up to the wealthy and to average Americans to change their values. Most architects are already much farther down the evolutionary path on that front than the average American voter.
This is a democracy. We have nobody to blame but the 51% of people who elect those who allow the 1% to exploit us and steal from us. Tighter financial regulations, more low cost/free public programs, subsidizing green energy and public transport as well as other welfare programs… these are values. One party in America cares about them, one doesn’t.
These aren’t architectural problems. They are political and social problems. The cities we live in represent the values of the people in America, unfortunately. If/when Americans evolve some and start looking forward rather than backwards, and start making political decisions to match, these problems with irresponsible development will be a long way towards being resolved.
As the American dream evolves, so too will the American landscape. But essentially, this is about politics in the end. Architects can only point out the root problems and propose solutions that point to them, as this article suggests. I don’t have any problem with utopian proposals. Architects aren’t the financiers and architects aren’t the home buyers. It’s up to the wealthy and to average Americans to change their values. Most architects are already much farther down the evolutionary path on that front than the average American voter.
Anonymous
Ladies , Gentlemen ,Professors et al ,
Have you forgotten the sad lessons of Pruitt - Igoe .
Since then the hard road to "Love thy neighbor as Thy self " in America has been shattered by
Inner city Gangs on one side & Gated WEALTH on the other .
The American dream for the rest of us ( the dying middle class) has become a survival Hell !!!
Now that the GREED & ME first failures have happened ;perhaps we can have SOCIAL change .
TRY this . Housing complexes with Cultural places which are inclusive of ALL classes & cultures .
Howard Roark
3/22/2012 2:57 AM CDT
Have you forgotten the sad lessons of Pruitt - Igoe .
Since then the hard road to "Love thy neighbor as Thy self " in America has been shattered by
Inner city Gangs on one side & Gated WEALTH on the other .
The American dream for the rest of us ( the dying middle class) has become a survival Hell !!!
Now that the GREED & ME first failures have happened ;perhaps we can have SOCIAL change .
TRY this . Housing complexes with Cultural places which are inclusive of ALL classes & cultures .
Howard Roark
3/22/2012 2:57 AM CDT
Anonymous
Paradigm shift. Foreclosures aside for a moment, if you will allow me, the last 50 or so years have seen the continuing expansion of our population into suburbia, into safe, reasonably secure, more open aired environments where one could drive to work in a reasonable amount of time, shop close to home and educate your children at a local school.
This study, I have not read it, seems to advocate a reversal of that movement. A compaction of the habitable structures into higher density areas with less reliance on the automobile but with the option of public transportation.
Those first two words came from a long conversation I had with a loosely knit group of home builders and developers over coffee one morning.
Consensus was that without a paradign shift in buyer attitude about whether they could expect the livibility, security and comfort and a level of freedom in a high density housing project as they would expect in a "normal" development, it had limited appeal. (Their demographic target(s) were the first/second time home buyer with children).
I don't believe that shift will occur without a far more serious change than the foreclosure crisis. And, knowing a bit about govmint and how it "thinks" I'd venture a guess that their stereotypes of high density housing is limited to a condominium complex with a swimming pool and 2car attached garages. Ciao
This study, I have not read it, seems to advocate a reversal of that movement. A compaction of the habitable structures into higher density areas with less reliance on the automobile but with the option of public transportation.
Those first two words came from a long conversation I had with a loosely knit group of home builders and developers over coffee one morning.
Consensus was that without a paradign shift in buyer attitude about whether they could expect the livibility, security and comfort and a level of freedom in a high density housing project as they would expect in a "normal" development, it had limited appeal. (Their demographic target(s) were the first/second time home buyer with children).
I don't believe that shift will occur without a far more serious change than the foreclosure crisis. And, knowing a bit about govmint and how it "thinks" I'd venture a guess that their stereotypes of high density housing is limited to a condominium complex with a swimming pool and 2car attached garages. Ciao
Yake
Thu Apr 12, 03:14:00 PM EDT
I didn't see the exhibit in person like you did, Alex, but I did read about it. The part that really got under my skin was when I read that the participants, to prepare for this exhibition, had spent some time "in residence" at PS 1 in Long Island City.
Would it really have killed them to spend some time in -- gasp -- actual suburbs? I guess that was just a bridge too far.
It confirmed my pre-existing notion, which I think you echo, that architecture, generally speaking, is not a discipline that has much that's meaningful to contribute towards these issues of redefining the American Dream. To critique it and to change it, it's helpful to have even a smidgen of understanding of why it's powerful and widespread among so many people.
I didn't see the exhibit in person like you did, Alex, but I did read about it. The part that really got under my skin was when I read that the participants, to prepare for this exhibition, had spent some time "in residence" at PS 1 in Long Island City.
Would it really have killed them to spend some time in -- gasp -- actual suburbs? I guess that was just a bridge too far.
It confirmed my pre-existing notion, which I think you echo, that architecture, generally speaking, is not a discipline that has much that's meaningful to contribute towards these issues of redefining the American Dream. To critique it and to change it, it's helpful to have even a smidgen of understanding of why it's powerful and widespread among so many people.
This sort of vague, non-ideological collectivism hangs over the entire show. Designs by Visible Weather and, in particular, Zago Architecture, stress the blurring of the usual lines between public and private, renting and owning, residential and commercial sites. Such imprecise boundaries give these projects a Ballardian air: what use is changing the dream if you replace it with a nightmare?
They are responding to the Buell Hypothesis, a long and somewhat loopy text in the form of a Socratic dialogue, put forward by the Buell Center at Columbia University whose aim is to “change the dream” of property ownership in America. Its maxims are perverse but enjoyable and often hit the mark. “The private house,” it states, “[is] just as institutionalized within social and economic policy as a public housing complex”.
In 1774, the Declaration of Colonial Rights declared that the colonists of North America had the immutable right to enjoy “life, liberty and property”. Two years later this document was reworked into the Declaration of Independence, and man’s immutable rights were tinkered with in order to replace “property” with “the pursuit of happiness”. Yet while “property” was struck from the record its spirit lingered on: owning a house became a key component of the fantasy of upward social mobility that we now know as the American Dream. This dream of property ownership never seemed more attainable than in the first decade of the 21st Century, when lax regulation, cheap credit and financial speculation led to a building boom and subsequent bust.
04 Apr, 2012 - (@paperliacu)
Change the dream and you change the city. MoMA | Foreclosed | The Buell Hypothesis | via @SpaceSyntaxGirl- http://bit.ly/HWtGGY
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/buell_hypothesis/
The “Foreclosed” project doesn’t just lay out clever ideas in architectural design, but steps back to re-examine the fundamental assumption of suburban life: that a prosperous community is built on single-family houses spread out over a wide area. The cities on display have suffered under that old vision of the American Dream. “Change the dream and you change the city,” argues “The Buell Hypothesis,” and the proposals laid out here suggest that there are several ways to reclaim that vision of prosperity.
Shibani Joshi (SJ): I love this concept, because I think this idea -- the white-picket-fence dream -- is now starting to get out-dated...It's not working anymore.
SV: But don't you think we can decide for ourselves...?
Shibani Joshi [brunette]: But this is what artists are doing. This is what they do. They inspire thoughts. They inspire discussion. What's wrong with it?
SV: But don't you think we can decide for ourselves...?
Shibani Joshi [brunette]: But this is what artists are doing. This is what they do. They inspire thoughts. They inspire discussion. What's wrong with it?
The American Dream is often equated with owning a family home in the suburbs. That same definition of the dream also seems like one of the many causes of the mortgage crisis and subsequent economic collapse...not to mention a host of other environmental and societal problems. “Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream” --an exhibition at New York's Museum of Modern Art (through July 31) -- is based on the Buell Hypothesis, which posits that a suburb is really just a different kind of city, and that “if you change the dream, you change the city.”
lady brett
On April 17, 2012 at 6:31 am
fascinating! just great – i want to watch all of these.
i live in a city that is wholly embracing (sub)urban sprawl – it's a small city, so this is a (relatively) recent development. the difficult part is that it feels so unstoppable when the entire system of city government is set up to encourage single-use, encourage sprawl (things like zoning laws that make home business illegal, or lack of impact fees, so that developers don't have to pay a cent to get utilities run to new developments outside the current city). and discourage historic preservations, as angie said (or, more accurately, only encourage it in affluent neighborhoods).
this from someone who has wholly embraced the home part of the american dream, if not the other parts. but owning a home has been a dream of mine for…ever – and it is just as amazing as i always thought. the thing that really strikes me is the number of homeowners i know who don't actually like owning a home (or at least none of the details that come with the concept).
fascinating! just great – i want to watch all of these.
i live in a city that is wholly embracing (sub)urban sprawl – it's a small city, so this is a (relatively) recent development. the difficult part is that it feels so unstoppable when the entire system of city government is set up to encourage single-use, encourage sprawl (things like zoning laws that make home business illegal, or lack of impact fees, so that developers don't have to pay a cent to get utilities run to new developments outside the current city). and discourage historic preservations, as angie said (or, more accurately, only encourage it in affluent neighborhoods).
this from someone who has wholly embraced the home part of the american dream, if not the other parts. but owning a home has been a dream of mine for…ever – and it is just as amazing as i always thought. the thing that really strikes me is the number of homeowners i know who don't actually like owning a home (or at least none of the details that come with the concept).
lady brett
On April 17, 2012 at 8:30 pm
shannon –my home is the hobby i've always wanted – i have always and forever loved building, fixing things…handyman work. apartment/rental life (for me they were always the same) was boring to me. the ability to customize my house the way i like is part of it, but the bigger part is that if my sheetrock needs repair i get to repair the sheetrock rather than call someone to do it. it's awesome.
there are also aspects of space and community which are not exclusive to houses or homeowners, but which have correlated in my life – urban homesteading stuff like growing food and composting and such, and talking with the neighbors, or meeting folks who walk their dogs (or kids with rc cars) by the house while you're gardening.
anyhow, i think the difference is that there are a lot of folks who own homes because it is what you are "supposed to do", but who don't actually like any of the things that come with it – they'd rather just be able to call a landlord to fix the house problems, and i know quite a few who find a yard to be more of a hassle than an asset. which is a-ok, but it seems to me like a shame that they were culturally shamed into homeownership in the first place.
also, i've gotten a chance to see another couple of the videos, and this project is fascinating! i *love* the ideas of space and community in these. again, space and community are a lot of what i love about homeownership, and those could (in theory) absolutely be achieved without the ownership part. but not here and now, so…
shannon –my home is the hobby i've always wanted – i have always and forever loved building, fixing things…handyman work. apartment/rental life (for me they were always the same) was boring to me. the ability to customize my house the way i like is part of it, but the bigger part is that if my sheetrock needs repair i get to repair the sheetrock rather than call someone to do it. it's awesome.
there are also aspects of space and community which are not exclusive to houses or homeowners, but which have correlated in my life – urban homesteading stuff like growing food and composting and such, and talking with the neighbors, or meeting folks who walk their dogs (or kids with rc cars) by the house while you're gardening.
anyhow, i think the difference is that there are a lot of folks who own homes because it is what you are "supposed to do", but who don't actually like any of the things that come with it – they'd rather just be able to call a landlord to fix the house problems, and i know quite a few who find a yard to be more of a hassle than an asset. which is a-ok, but it seems to me like a shame that they were culturally shamed into homeownership in the first place.
also, i've gotten a chance to see another couple of the videos, and this project is fascinating! i *love* the ideas of space and community in these. again, space and community are a lot of what i love about homeownership, and those could (in theory) absolutely be achieved without the ownership part. but not here and now, so…
Rethinking suburbs as self-sufficient urbanized areas where work and life coexist in communal and environmentally-sustainable ways are the best use of the masses of land that have become unfeasible to support after the foreclosure crisis. The nuclear family of the bungalow house is no longer the American family, and with the change in American family must come a change in the American dream.
The typical image of an American suburb, as we can see in movies and TV, is nothing else but boring, monochrome, seething world with cheap fast-food restaurants, old gas stations, and a mix of problems, such as poverty, drugs, and racial squabbles.
However, the original idea of designing neighborhoods was to escape all of these city life hardships and to live in a quiet, green and neat place with a family. Suburbs have long been the sites of a key component of American dream – personal ownership of a single-family home, an investment that once guaranteed stability and legacy for next generations.
However, the original idea of designing neighborhoods was to escape all of these city life hardships and to live in a quiet, green and neat place with a family. Suburbs have long been the sites of a key component of American dream – personal ownership of a single-family home, an investment that once guaranteed stability and legacy for next generations.
We were sold a faulty dream. But it is our own failing if we do not make an attempt to actually change that dream to meet the needs of all of us moving forward. We have brilliant ideas in circulation, everywhere. Ones that can lay the blueprints to a promising future. Heck, all you have to do is head to the Museum of Modern Art in New York to see for yourself.
If we can change the dream we can, possibly, change reality.
If we can change the dream we can, possibly, change reality.
I am of a generation where many in my age group have a little change in their pocket. They, too, have procreated and need some more space. They need an alternative to the apartments that have sufficed prior to life’s little miracles and changes. But what options are there? We have been handed, in terms of fulfillment of these needs, a suburbs scrawled across the landscape with profit in mind rather than the things that truly matter. We were handed a culture dependent on the quantity of housing rather than community. And, we have been handed a suburbs that lack the intelligent design necessary to maintain environmental sustainability, social interaction, and dare I stretch to say, lacking a soul.
The American Dream has never really been my cup of tea. It never made sense to me. Maybe the world has shrunk over the last couple decades so that I, unlike generations prior who seem to have bought into the idea of the American Dream intimately, see the problems and needs of the human race more clearly. With that recent insight made possible through technology and shared information how can the blind pursuit of your own self interest and desires be the end all be all? How does this consumptive me-first attitude provide for the well being of your children and their children with the daunting realities present in today’s world? I read a quote by the author and economist Jeremy Rifkin that sums up this point better than I can. He said:
“You can’t have 6.8 billion cowboys out there and begin to think about bringing the species together in a global economy and a global biosphere.”
The American Dream is not a sustainable intelligent vision. The needs of the many are left out of the utopian backyard. And I have never witnessed, in all my days, a direct correlation between happiness and prosperity.
“You can’t have 6.8 billion cowboys out there and begin to think about bringing the species together in a global economy and a global biosphere.”
The American Dream is not a sustainable intelligent vision. The needs of the many are left out of the utopian backyard. And I have never witnessed, in all my days, a direct correlation between happiness and prosperity.
“Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream,” visually demonstrates the results of the ongoing quest to throw off the stereotypes of suburban living and effectively alters the classic dream of owning property in America.
In present time, the suburbs suffer from a wide range of problems, including unemployment, increasing foreclosure, and environmental pollution caused by car-reliant inhabitants. On one wall of the exhibit it says, “Change the dream and you can change the city,” begging the question of how heavily our notions of American life affect the America we create around us.
This exhibition highlights the marriage of utility and aesthetics. It strives to promote five distinct prototypical solutions to the current ills of the foreclosure market, and brings them into the context of artistic expression as a tangible, visual, and thought-provoking platform. The solutions all revolve around one central theory: the Buell Hypothesis, which suggests that if you change the dream, you change the city. It challenges modern day conceptions of “The American Dream,” advocating for denser, more sustainable, more affordable, and more livable communities rather than the rampant single-family units scattered across America’s expanse today. The work of a dream team cast of academics, urban planners, designers, ecologists, and architects (including urban economist Edward Glaser, author of Triumph of the City), the legitimate and highly professional exhibit expresses hope for impoverished communities and developing metropolises alike.
Or, as Socrates says to Glaucon while stuck on I-95, “It may be time to dream a different dream.”
02 Jun, 2012 - (@KVNSLNG)
Amazing exhibit on redefining our suburbias but changing the 'America Dream'. Worth seeing if you're able http://www.moma.org/interactives/e …#MOMA
T. Caine
June 28, 2012 at 1:00 pm
Very interesting and provocative piece. I have to wonder if it is not a bit of a critique on the stalled vernacular that defines most of America’s housing. For a while now, the vast majority of new housing that we build is largely a replication of an historic archetype that no longer accurately reflects the present nature of our society. We build more space than we need, or even spaces that we hardly ever use, because we think they’re “supposed” to be there. The quaint American home is a fallen star–fallen from grace. It’s days of glory and true architectural exploration are over, serving more as a diluted relic of a former era.
Very interesting and provocative piece. I have to wonder if it is not a bit of a critique on the stalled vernacular that defines most of America’s housing. For a while now, the vast majority of new housing that we build is largely a replication of an historic archetype that no longer accurately reflects the present nature of our society. We build more space than we need, or even spaces that we hardly ever use, because we think they’re “supposed” to be there. The quaint American home is a fallen star–fallen from grace. It’s days of glory and true architectural exploration are over, serving more as a diluted relic of a former era.
Now you could rightly object that this merely reproduces architecture’s ideological role as a regressive image-machine by emphasizing "dreams" over material or economic processes. But the point is not that a collective fantasy or narrative like the "American Dream" defines or produces the single-family house and its all-too-real plumbing, wiring, driveways, roads, subdivisions, and so on.
Instead, the dream is conjured out of these material things and fed back into them as a guiding norm. Similarly, architectural projects, no matter how fanciful or abstract, are real, material things (models, drawings, and videos, in this case) that put ideas (and maybe dreams) on the table for detailed debate by interested parties. Yes, this too could be a distraction, and the still unmet challenge is to assemble all of the parties, from residents to public officials to investment bankers, in an agonistic yet equitable setting. Nevertheless, the large models of large-scale proposals sitting on tables in a MoMA gallery represent a deliberate curatorial decision, since models have a way of generating discussion and assembling publics around themselves. The tables on which the models sit might even foreshadow our efforts with this online roundtable, which the Buell Center has convened in collaboration with Architects, Designers, and Planners for Social Responsibility to explore the contours that configure the debate surrounding housing and suburbanization itself.
Instead, the dream is conjured out of these material things and fed back into them as a guiding norm. Similarly, architectural projects, no matter how fanciful or abstract, are real, material things (models, drawings, and videos, in this case) that put ideas (and maybe dreams) on the table for detailed debate by interested parties. Yes, this too could be a distraction, and the still unmet challenge is to assemble all of the parties, from residents to public officials to investment bankers, in an agonistic yet equitable setting. Nevertheless, the large models of large-scale proposals sitting on tables in a MoMA gallery represent a deliberate curatorial decision, since models have a way of generating discussion and assembling publics around themselves. The tables on which the models sit might even foreshadow our efforts with this online roundtable, which the Buell Center has convened in collaboration with Architects, Designers, and Planners for Social Responsibility to explore the contours that configure the debate surrounding housing and suburbanization itself.
Second, contrary to the myth that ours is a “post-racial” society, the foreclosure crisis has disproportionately affected communities of color, as did the housing crises that have recurred throughout U.S. history. For more than half a century, U.S. housing policy, with bipartisan support, has supported the “American Dream” of individual homeownership as the answer to the exclusion of African Americans from access to decent housing. But lately the dream turned into a nightmare when predatory lenders targeted the very populations that had been excluded, when greenlining led to gentrification and displacement in many cities, and when disinvestment in public housing began to eat away at one of the last of the mid-century social safety nets. All of these trends have reinforced structural inequalities and for the most part left intact neighborhood segregation.
HUFFPOST SUPER USER, revolution7153, Stupidity has a knack for getting its way..., 68 Fans
07:27 AM on 07/23/2012
Amen. Americans need to stop worshipping at the alter of the lawn. Its absolutely insane. Name me another activity where Im expected to nurture something and make it grow just so I can mow it down when it grows too much? I think Elvis had the right idea with Astroturf.
Amen. Americans need to stop worshipping at the alter of the lawn. Its absolutely insane. Name me another activity where Im expected to nurture something and make it grow just so I can mow it down when it grows too much? I think Elvis had the right idea with Astroturf.
"The financial and foreclosure crisis was such a psychic shock that it created the perfect moment to have this discussion. Before the crisis, the ubiquitous American Dream image being marketed to people was the suburban house of the 1950s — living in the perpetual hereafter of television. When the rumbling financial and foreclosure crises disturbed that dream, a new conversation became possible. Topics and ideas that had been “‘foreclosed’ by the housing boom, could be re-opened” after the bust.
The impact of the crisis is ubiquitous, even penetrating the Olympics, where talk of swimmer Ryan Lochte’s parents’ impending foreclosure has rivaled the attention paid to his swimming achievements. Intimately tied to the American dream, single-family home ownership has long been a measure of success.
epiphany2345
No more dream. Just one big ol' neverending nightmare!
Art & Architecture (36)
Saturday, the Museum of Modern Art in New York is presenting a symposium to kick off “Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream,” an exhibit planned for 2012 that’s based on the museum’s enlisting “five interdisciplinary teams of architects to envision a rethinking of housing and related infrastructures that could catalyze urban transformation, particularly in the country’s suburbs.” Let’s hope they’ll proceed with the understanding that while life may imitate art, it’s not necessarily meant to be displayed as such.
09 May, 2011 - (@lerneratl)
Can art help fix our gridlocked suburban dysfunction? MOMA takes on sprawl w/"Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream" http://bit.ly/kzLr7b
Where the Whitney ISP/Kitchen exhibition and discussion aimed to be open-ended, so as to allow for interdisciplinary connections at all scales, MoMA grounded itself in real sites where architecture as a specific discipline can alter an environment and thus change the course of an economic downward spiral. The exhibition, as the title suggests, will interrogate and, one hopes, reframe the “American Dream” that has shaped our flawed housing policies and design preferences. It remains to be seen if the plans imagined by assembled firms will go farther than MoMA’s walls, but the show has the potential to popularize innovative and economically sustainable design themes.
Some observers have been bewildered by this new use of the museum not as a sanctuary for continually re-launching a battle in a war I believe won long ago — namely the status of architecture as art — but rather as a public forum for advocacy. But this is not really a new program for the museum. The Museum of Modern Art opened its doors to the public in November 1929, just days after the big stock market crash, and it came of age in the Great Depression. From the first its agenda was multifold. Most architectural histories have preferred to emphasize the aesthetic manifesto of Philip Johnson and Henry-Russell Hitchcock’s seminal International Style exhibition of 1932; but in fact the most sustained activity of the architecture department’s first decade consisted of exhibitions and programs advocating for better public housing. Exhibitions such as America Can't Have Housing, of 1934, and Architecture in Government Housing, of 1936, had direct impacts on the creation of the New York City Housing Authority in 1934, and on the passage of the Federal Housing Act of 1937, with significant credit due to the activism of the young Catherine Bauer, who contributed to both shows, and the advocacy of Lewis Mumford.
22 Sep, 2011 - (@bamarquis)
US Sec HUD Shaun Donovan highilghts #ArtPlacein keynote at MoMA's Foreclosed event. http://bit.ly/n58jye
Traditional art audiences often differ from the communities most impacted in urban development schemes. “The idea of engaging community is very interesting to a lot of people but the nuances of how to do that effectively get lost in these bigger projects,” says Anne Fredericks, director of New York’s Hester Street Collaborative, another New Museum festival participant.
Because the goal of the exhibition is not to critique but to fundamentally reimagine suburbia, its stakes for architecture are doubly high. First, in seeking to address the underlying social and economic systems behind suburbia, the show tests architecture's capabilities and boundaries as a discipline, along with its continuing relevance as a guiding voice in the development of America's spatial and social geography. Simultaneously, because any treatment of suburbia has to address the problem of housing, the show must confront the house itself: that remarkable reminder of architecture's abilityto put something as ineffable as the American dream into specific material terms. So the show will also test architecture's capacity to symbolize, the ways in which it structures and embodies meaning.
But in retrospect, Venturi and Scott Brown's characterization of suburban sprawl as "the current vernacular of the United States," or the "people's architecture as the people want it," was naive. (Both descriptions are from the revised 1977 edition of their classic book Learning from Las Vegas, which included their work on Levittown.) Suburban architecture was a travesty of the American vernacular, driven not by local tradition or individual expression but by the house's new status as a mass-produced consumer product. The artist Dan Graham had already made this point in 1966, with his legendary Homes for America, a spread for Arts Magazine, in which he pointed out that beneath their symbolic appliqués, suburban homes exhibited the same monotonous repetition as any other artifact of industrialized capitalism.
And despite the fact that interpretations of Matta-Clark's work have tended more toward the sculptural and kinesthetic than the semiotic, his building cuts can be understood in the context of a similar interest in the commercialized symbolism of the suburban house. "Architecture is a big business," he told an interviewer in Arts Magazine in May 1976, going on to criticize an "industry that profligates suburban . . . boxes as a context for insuring a passive, isolated consumer."
The critical problem for museums’ efforts to activate socially engaged practice is how to displace the work from its original context without denaturing it. Social art and urban interventions are different from static art forms like painting and sculpture—at least in their materialized, pre-social versions. To be adequately experienced and to realize their intentions, they have to act in the world and be put to good use.
What does an artist interested in blight and the reactivation of space in under-resourced neighborhoods offer an architectural team taking on the failures of suburbia? How could my team (Charlie Vinz, Elizabeth MacWillie, and Hallie Chen) and I think hard about complementing an already amazing team of thinkers and doers? In the beginning of this monolith of a project, when all the decisions and turfs were being laid down, it was quite hard to figure out where we fit. The language of architecture and its creative and pragmatic loci were very different from the ways that I worked as an artist, especially as I’m interested in particularities of people as much as places and things.
Chere Lott
FEBRUARY 10, 2012, 4:45 P.M.
As an urbanist and lawyer, I think deeply about these issues. I find the efforts in Cicero to be interesting, but somehow missing the point of other communities of “outsiders” on the inside, like the Chatham of my youth. I am sympathetic to the plight of hardworking immigrants but would offer the story of the middle class community that is suffering by bureaucratic malfeasance of displacing the black poor into these neighborhoods with insufficient support systems and resources. Chicago is, according to the Manhattan Institute, the most segregated city in the US. It is also still has a large black population..for historical reasons. What design opportunities exist to revitalize the far south side? Is a Walmart the key to salvation? (I think, not) Mr Gates, I saw your show here in LA at the Moca Geffen and am very intriqued by the synergy that you create with your interests…arts, urban planning. I would like the opportunity to meet with you in Chicago to discuss ideas and opportunities for creating interest in saving Chatham.
As an urbanist and lawyer, I think deeply about these issues. I find the efforts in Cicero to be interesting, but somehow missing the point of other communities of “outsiders” on the inside, like the Chatham of my youth. I am sympathetic to the plight of hardworking immigrants but would offer the story of the middle class community that is suffering by bureaucratic malfeasance of displacing the black poor into these neighborhoods with insufficient support systems and resources. Chicago is, according to the Manhattan Institute, the most segregated city in the US. It is also still has a large black population..for historical reasons. What design opportunities exist to revitalize the far south side? Is a Walmart the key to salvation? (I think, not) Mr Gates, I saw your show here in LA at the Moca Geffen and am very intriqued by the synergy that you create with your interests…arts, urban planning. I would like the opportunity to meet with you in Chicago to discuss ideas and opportunities for creating interest in saving Chatham.
Intuitively, a designer may find this method abject to the emotional and psychological complexities of object creation as a matter of art. Contrary to the division of art and science, it should be noted that this applied grounded-theory method does not, in and of itself, create discrete knowledge and, as such, is as much of an art as it is perceptively a science.
Zak Klemmer
APRIL 9, 2012, 3:14 P.M.
Is this Art or propaganda? I left apartment living for the suburbs and have no intention of moving back to high density.
Is this Art or propaganda? I left apartment living for the suburbs and have no intention of moving back to high density.
The paradox—and the conundrum for the architects—is that when the Buell Hypothesis is deployed as a theoretical basis, it becomes almost impossible to escape the trap of replicating the fantasy they are critiquing. Additionally, no matter how compelling the substitute fantasies may be, they run the risk of falling flat in the midst of the larger cultural moment going on outside MoMA’s galleries [6]. So not only do these architects have to contend with addressing real problems, they must also responsibly navigate the terrain between the real and dream states set forth by the Hypothesis [7].
Foreclosure may represent a legal and financial nightmare, but can it be considered as art? A new exhibit at New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is focusing on the foreclosure crisis by presenting an exhibit that considers new architectural possibilities for revitalizing cities and suburbs that have been pockmarked by distressed housing markets.
Anonymous
This exhibit (and the state of the profession) is the result of architects' having been taught that they should strive to be artists. As such they value novelty, polemics, and individual expression above all else, and are ill-equipped to offer useful solutions to real problems. Instead, they should think of themselves as professional craftspersons whose products offer lasting value based on their usefulness.
2/17/2012 9:58 AM CST
2/17/2012 9:58 AM CST
Anonymous
Spend the money that these proposals would waste by creating impractical and ambiguous geometries on rehabbing existing city homes. In this age, the architect doesn't have to make an artistic statement to do good to a neighborhood.
2/16/2012 10:36 AM CST
2/16/2012 10:36 AM CST
Anonymous
All of these proposals are too heavy handed. They should have studied the metabolism movement. The american dream is still so rooted in the idea of a single family house with a yard. You must reflect that creatively or its just a museum exhibition.
2/16/2012 12:11 AM CST
2/16/2012 12:11 AM CST
Anonymous
The architecture of the city is always a "work" of art. What you should be evaluating is the quality of that work of art, good or bad.
2/13/2012 9:31 PM CST
2/13/2012 9:31 PM CST
Anonymous
"The city can not be a work of art."
--Jane Jacobs
2/13/2012 6:32 PM CST
--Jane Jacobs
2/13/2012 6:32 PM CST
Anonymous
"Architecture is the art of making places." -Robert Campbell
2/17/2012 4:22 PM CST
2/17/2012 4:22 PM CST
Anonymous
ya'll have to remember this is in an ART Museum, not a laboratory. I've seen sillier and less artistic exhibits at the MoMA
2/22/2012 1:02 PM CST
2/22/2012 1:02 PM CST
14 Feb, 2012 - (@RealEstateBuzz)
The art of real estate at MoMA: “Foreclosed Rehousing the American Dream,” fb.me/1b801jTdm
Now the trick is to try to implement one of these options. (See some images here.) While it is interesting to consider what might be done, it would be useful to ask the architects about how they would go about putting these plans into action in particular suburbs. What would suburban governments and residents approve? Where would the funding come from? A prominent composting plant? Gang’s plan requires changing a lot of zoning laws? Looking at some of the comments to this story, there is some skepticism. If these designs are in a museum, is the exhibit intended to be more art or practical design?
In December, I was at Design Miami/Art Basel and had a great time connecting with so many old friends, clients, press contacts, etc. At some point during the week, I sent a text message to a friend to recount some of the new work I'd seen, the run-ins, the parties, the tote-bags...
Her response was: "So, how is life with the 1%?" After a career in design, I certainly didn't feel like a member of the 1%, but from my view of the champagne bar in the VIP lounge it was clear that I was in close proximity. Then, I began to wonder:
Has "design" become an activity of, by, and for the 1%?
Her response was: "So, how is life with the 1%?" After a career in design, I certainly didn't feel like a member of the 1%, but from my view of the champagne bar in the VIP lounge it was clear that I was in close proximity. Then, I began to wonder:
Has "design" become an activity of, by, and for the 1%?
23 Feb, 2012 - (@siemprehasta)
hey @WiedenKennedydon't worry that you're taking money from polluters like chevrolet as long as you do hipster art http://bit.ly/zVOynk
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
Anonymous
Why would socially and/or eco-conscious projects not be able to document their work in such a way as to hang in an art gallery? Photographers take pictures of conventional looking buildings and make them look beautiful all the time. Why couldn't they show incredibly detailed models, at enormous scales, like we see from the ever-despised "star-chitects?" I see no reason why socially and eco-consciously focused firms shouldn't be able to fill a gallery space. Every architect should have a design process and a documentation process that is artful and ready to show. In my opinion, the entire process of making architecture is what makes it architecture. The process has to be authentic. But I don't think there's any reason simple or even conventional buildings that are focused on other issues than high-design (like the environment or social problems) can't document the process of creating them in a very modern and artistic way. It's not like these socially/eco-consciously focused architects don't know what good graphic design looks like. There's no limit on how artistic a socially-minded architect can be with their process and documentation. Even conventional looking buildings can be documented in unusual and dramatically beautiful ways. People do it all the time in the very first photography classes they take. Architects who do socially and eco-consciously focused work need to seduce the kind of people who go to MoMA and bother with exhibits like this, because they're often going to be the clients for doing more work like it. I'd say the seduction of a well considered/artistic design and documentation process is a moral imperative for socially minded architects, if they want to make big change and affect things at a large scale.
3/7/2012 2:32 AM CST
3/7/2012 2:32 AM CST
OpinionFromAustralia
Mar 7th 2012, 05:07
Isn't the museum of Modern Art a place for Art?
I don't know if i'm missing something, but any art gallery/museum i've been too rarely lets reality to get in the way of weird and wonderfula rt (especailly if it's of the 'modern' genre).
Was this exhibition meant to showcase real options for architectural redesign of these places or was it's objective to do art?
I'm confused...
Isn't the museum of Modern Art a place for Art?
I don't know if i'm missing something, but any art gallery/museum i've been too rarely lets reality to get in the way of weird and wonderfula rt (especailly if it's of the 'modern' genre).
Was this exhibition meant to showcase real options for architectural redesign of these places or was it's objective to do art?
I'm confused...
Nullcorp
MAR 16, 2012 11:47 AM EDT
There’s the publishing world of architecture – propagated by academics and starchitects – and then there’s the people with offices in almost every town doing the best they can. The former develop illustrious careers, building reputations instead of structures. The latter do the best they can, which is rarely enough.
Some architects (including me) want to be artists, and you don’t get into a show at MoMA by proposing moderate, affordable, pragmatic solutions to housing problems. And despite prevailing sterotypes, architects don’t really have that much control over the final outcome. It takes good taste and good money to create good buildings, and since the first two are in short supply these days, so is the third.
There’s the publishing world of architecture – propagated by academics and starchitects – and then there’s the people with offices in almost every town doing the best they can. The former develop illustrious careers, building reputations instead of structures. The latter do the best they can, which is rarely enough.
Some architects (including me) want to be artists, and you don’t get into a show at MoMA by proposing moderate, affordable, pragmatic solutions to housing problems. And despite prevailing sterotypes, architects don’t really have that much control over the final outcome. It takes good taste and good money to create good buildings, and since the first two are in short supply these days, so is the third.
16 Mar, 2012 - (@karenyair)
Reflecting on the new suburban utopia at 'Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream' @momapsi: http://bit.ly/wqFcxE #urbanism.
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
02 Apr, 2012 - (@mollysalzpj)
Art + Policy , makes me giddy! Foreclosed at http://MoMA.org http://bit.ly/wQpxaR
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
The exhibition transports the idea that architecture as a medium effectively contemplates possible futures for cities.
MOMA, you did more damage than good with this show and you continue to widen the gap between architects and the American public. You probably delayed the needed discussion on what to do with the American suburbs by decades. We should know better, we should have learned by now. After all, you’re not called the Museum of Modern Architecture, or the Museum of Modern Solutions. You’re a Modern Museum of Art, and regardless of the issues you choose to take on, or the title of your exhibits, the final product is always art. There’s nothing wrong with that in and of itself and there’s nothing wrong with art, unless of course you pitch the exhibit as “inventive solutions for the future of American Suburbs”. We propose that you change the show’s title to “Foreclosed: Artistic Impressions of Rehousing the American Dream.” Or maybe you’ve got some other ideas -let us know, we’ll be the ones in the bar tipping back Negronis.
MOMA, we love you. Really, we do. We are card carrying members of the Museum of Modern Art and we diligently pay you a visit each and every time we’re in Manhattan. You’ve been a fixture on our Modern List from the start and we’re constantly sending family, friends and colleagues your way. We have no intention of changing any of this. But you did it again. We were just there and we saw the train wreck with our own eyes. You took a critical issue of social and architectural importance and turned it into a theoretical art project. The last time you did this was with the Prefab Housing Exhibit (July-October 2008) which announced prefabricated architectural solutions to real housing issues; but really it was just an art project masquerading as something purposeful. It took three Negronis, two Compari & sodas, and a shrimp cocktail at the MOMA bar to doctor the wounds from that show.
Big Daddy
JUNE 7, 2012 · 8:01 PM
I live in the wrong part of the world to offer first hand critique of Foreclosed, but this criticism seems unqualified. MoMA is an art museum, and will provide inventive solutions based in the arts, surely! That is what i would expect to see at MoMA, and would be disappointed otherwise. I dont think they promised ‘practical’ solutions. Bit like going to a Michelin star restaurant and criticising them because they dont serve Big Macs.
I live in the wrong part of the world to offer first hand critique of Foreclosed, but this criticism seems unqualified. MoMA is an art museum, and will provide inventive solutions based in the arts, surely! That is what i would expect to see at MoMA, and would be disappointed otherwise. I dont think they promised ‘practical’ solutions. Bit like going to a Michelin star restaurant and criticising them because they dont serve Big Macs.
Challenge of Suburbia (56)
We think the suburbs are OK. They have problems and need to change but we don’t want to do away with them, we just want to make them better.
The Issue
The foreclosure crisis has led to a major loss of confidence in the suburban dream. The idea of single-family houses on private lots reachable only by car has been broken, and this new reality has hit especially hard in suburbs. It is here, rather than in the next ring of potential sprawl, where architects, landscape designers, artists, ecologists, and elected officials need to rethink reshaping urban America for the coming decades.
The foreclosure crisis has led to a major loss of confidence in the suburban dream. The idea of single-family houses on private lots reachable only by car has been broken, and this new reality has hit especially hard in suburbs. It is here, rather than in the next ring of potential sprawl, where architects, landscape designers, artists, ecologists, and elected officials need to rethink reshaping urban America for the coming decades.
When architects Sam Dufaux and Michael Etzel were tasked by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) with re-envisioning Keizer Station, they came up with a scathing indictment of Keizer as it currently exists: bedroom community, not very diverse, aging, little local dynamic.
Whether or not residents agree with that assessment is beside the point because the re-envisioning is less about the specifics of the Keizer Station and more about what it means to alter the previous conceptions of the American Dream.
Whether or not residents agree with that assessment is beside the point because the re-envisioning is less about the specifics of the Keizer Station and more about what it means to alter the previous conceptions of the American Dream.
Almost from the beginning, MoMA architects have focused on car-driven, low-density housing as both the appeal and the curse of the suburbs. Providing services — sewage, power, garbage collection and on and on — is far more costly amid low-density settlements than it is in cities, for obvious reasons. But people crave air and light, and room to move and play sports.
Well, here we are, eight years after the increasing value of our houses was supposed to make up for decades of declining wages and growing debt. More than $7.8 trillion in middle-class home equity was erased by the crash at the end of Bush’s two terms, 30 percent of homeowners now owe more than their houses are worth, and many of our suburbs are a checkerboard of occupied and empty houses. And that has made many long-standing critics of the American suburb — who see it as environmentally toxic, energy wasteful and just too expensive (especially because it’s paid for by taxing the cities) — call for another major rethink of the way we house our dream.
This weekend, we had the opportunity to attend the Open Studio event at MoMA’s PS1. As we mentioned earlier, this project posed the daunting question of how to re-think, re-organize and re-energize the concept of an American suburb in the wake of the foreclosure crisis.
But in retrospect, Venturi and Scott Brown's characterization of suburban sprawl as "the current vernacular of the United States," or the "people's architecture as the people want it," was naive. (Both descriptions are from the revised 1977 edition of their classic book Learning from Las Vegas, which included their work on Levittown.) Suburban architecture was a travesty of the American vernacular, driven not by local tradition or individual expression but by the house's new status as a mass-produced consumer product. The artist Dan Graham had already made this point in 1966, with his legendary Homes for America, a spread for Arts Magazine, in which he pointed out that beneath their symbolic appliqués, suburban homes exhibited the same monotonous repetition as any other artifact of industrialized capitalism.
The severe effects of the current economic crisis on suburbs across America make it more urgent than ever to rethink the designs of our suburban landscapes. Disconnected single-family homes requiring private automobile transport seem to form a less and less viable pattern of settlement.
03 Nov, 2011 - (@GalleryUntitled)
Foreclosed: MoMA Takes on Suburbia: The severe effects of the current economic crisis on suburbs across America ... http://bit.ly/uq80l0
Tim
Ahh, suburbia! The place we love to hate just as we love to hate ourselves.
One of the entries (“misregistration’) includes the concept of ‘rewilding’ what’s left of suburbia. Rewilding is the idea that we should set aside vast amounts of unproductive land to allow large predators to reinhabitat North America. This idea has a lot of merit, given that large predators are a keystone species regulating the health and resiliency of our ecosystems. This idea makes a lot of sense given the population shift toward urban areas and the need to safeguard ecosystem services (healthy soils, clean air, fresh water, food production, flood control, etc.) for future generations.
The imposition of professional, taxonomical knowledge obscures the complex social, spatial, economic, and cultural aspects of these territories. The realities of the suburbs—their spatial and cultural resiliencies, their persistence (not to mention formal mechanisms of governance)—suggest that big plans cannot rule the day. Foreclosed can thus be contextualized in the history of urban renewal, slum clearance, public housing, and other such large-scale, top-down housing policies that have failed. History seems to demonstrate that micro-transformations, house by house, lot by lot, bottom-up renewal, will most likely define the limits of suburban change [8].
The Hypothesis (worth reading in full) seems to have taken on the status of operating system, the underlying code for how to perceive and frame the “problem” of the suburbs. It’s influence can be read in all the projects. But so can the influence of architecture as a discipline—being somewhat institutionally slanted toward envisioning the American suburb as an intellectual and spatial problem.
The team identified three challenges affecting Cicero, common to a majority of suburbs: industrial decline, rising unemployment coupled with high poverty rates, and environmental conditions. The team turns these problems into potential opportunities by taking on both the urban fabric of the town and the financial architecture of living and working there.
In 2011 and 2012, Gang Architects and MoMA shined a spotlight on the Chicago suburb of Cicero alongside a widely overlooked programming need, small affordable housing units in American suburbia. The structured bungalow homes and factories of Cicero’s decaying industrial fabric morphed over time into a new affordable gateway city in Chicagoland for first generation Hispanics. The bungalow was cut up to accommodate the new individuals and families who initially tried to purchase the entire home but would quickly fall into foreclosure. The changing role of the suburban residential fabric from blue collar factory town to a modern day Ellis Island had to be addressed in the wake of Cicero’s local housing crisis. Compared to the town’s past, Cicero was now a community of individuals and small families just starting out in America who simply strive for a small bed and bath that allows for a strong stable foundation in the United States. Through their research and design, Jeanne Gang and her team hit on this vital suburban issue and carried the line of the MoMA exhibit, showing the distinct importance of new inner suburb density in the United States.
But precisely because the groups tackled their missions from multiple angles, they maximized the number of opponents who could prevent any of these projects from getting built. That’s the paradox of trying to transform the suburbs: The only way to get it done is by rewriting laws, rationalizing markets, reforming the construction industry, and changing the culture all at once—which probably can’t be done.
It’s got its own new set of dysfunctions: boarded windows and weedy lawns, acres of sparsely used parking lots flanking clogged roads, immigrant workers jamming by the dozen into houses conceived for the Cleavers, household food budgets eaten up at the gas pump. Then there are all the old urban ills of poverty, violence, drugs, and racial friction, which have migrated to places that were designed for escaping them.
13 Feb, 2012 - (@villahumana)
MoMA #Foreclosedexhibit calls on architects and designers to take on the suburb as their next great challenge. http://www.moma.org/explore/inside …
13 Feb, 2012 - (@JJmaddn)
@BrianBMaddenlet's go to NYC to see this @MoMAon urban #design. There is life after cul de sacs! http://nymag.com/arts/architect …
Stroll through the suburbs (if there are sidewalks or anything is accessible by foot) and the uniformity, lack of retail space, and absence of food markets is readily apparent. Many of the proposals in the installation look to rectify the discontinuity between the suburbs and ecology. Undoubtedly, several of the New Urbanist ideals of mixed use neighborhoods, shunned during the explosive growth over the past decades, will be featured prominently in the renderings.
The town turns out to be an ideal venue for clarifying the scope and impact of the foreclosure crisis.
The poster child for the crisis is the exurban home in the unfinished subdivision, yet the crisis has hit equally hard at older, close-in suburbs like Cicero. According to the Woodstock Institute, the town had 1,066 new foreclosures in 2010, an increase of 8.6 percent over the previous year. While foreclosures declined slightly in the first half of 2011, no one in Cicero expects the problem to go away anytime soon.
The poster child for the crisis is the exurban home in the unfinished subdivision, yet the crisis has hit equally hard at older, close-in suburbs like Cicero. According to the Woodstock Institute, the town had 1,066 new foreclosures in 2010, an increase of 8.6 percent over the previous year. While foreclosures declined slightly in the first half of 2011, no one in Cicero expects the problem to go away anytime soon.
"The foreclosure crisis has led to a major loss of confidence in the suburban dream. The idea of single-family houses on private lots reachable only by car has been broken, and this new reality has hit especially hard in suburbs. It is here, rather than in the next ring of potential sprawl, where architects, landscape designers, artists, ecologists, and elected officials need to rethink reshaping urban America for the coming decades.
The Museum of Modern Art’s newest exhibit, “Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream,” examines and troubleshoots the shortcomings of the modern suburb.
15 Feb, 2012 - (@gianluca_croce)
MoMA has addressed the financial crisis and possible ways for the regeneration of Am. suburbia http://nymag.com/arts/architect …http://www.archdaily.com/170180/update- …
15 Feb, 2012 - (@greenboxhomes)
At MoMA in NYC- what to become of foreclosed suburbs? The American Dream, Revised zite.to/ABSiJ7 via @zite
jla-x
Feb 23, 12 12:07 pm
Sub-urban and suburban are also two very different things. I would argue that sub-urban is not bad. A good example of this is in some parts of Brooklyn, Queens, and Nassau county NY. The density is greater than the typical suburban environment, and there is a small business walkable street scape that flanks a mix of multi and single family housing in many of these neighborhoods. There is also access to public transit in and out of the city. There is a mix of home owners and renters, and the opportunity to own a house and rent out the top floor. There is a sense of community and a feeling of being in a small town within a city. The film "Do the Right Thing" by Spike Lee so clearly expresses this. Another issue is density. More density is not the solution alone. We need to find an appropriate balance of density, production, and economy so that development can be in some sort of sustainable balance. I think that sub-urban form has the greatest potential for a sustainable development because there is enough space to support a mix of agriculture, industry,small business, housing, park space, etc...as well as enough density to support local businesses with regard to employees and consumers. Cities like manhattan will never be able to become hybrid typologies because things like urban agriculture and production will be far too expensive due to crazy high land prices. The only problem with the sub-urban typology is that it sometimes becomes gentrified over time as we see in brooklyn or the opposite happens where it becomes a ghetto due to the home values going down as density goes up like in Jamaica Queens (balance is always a thin line). On the other hand, suburban development lends itself to exploitation by corporate interests as James R. clearly articulates. The American dream of owning a single family home is not going away. It is a part of the American culture that dates back hundreds of years. We need to find a solution to the problem without ignoring the cultural mentality that led to it. This is why ideas like the ones in the MoMA exhibit never work. I believe that we need to study examples that already work like Astoria, and go from there.
Sub-urban and suburban are also two very different things. I would argue that sub-urban is not bad. A good example of this is in some parts of Brooklyn, Queens, and Nassau county NY. The density is greater than the typical suburban environment, and there is a small business walkable street scape that flanks a mix of multi and single family housing in many of these neighborhoods. There is also access to public transit in and out of the city. There is a mix of home owners and renters, and the opportunity to own a house and rent out the top floor. There is a sense of community and a feeling of being in a small town within a city. The film "Do the Right Thing" by Spike Lee so clearly expresses this. Another issue is density. More density is not the solution alone. We need to find an appropriate balance of density, production, and economy so that development can be in some sort of sustainable balance. I think that sub-urban form has the greatest potential for a sustainable development because there is enough space to support a mix of agriculture, industry,small business, housing, park space, etc...as well as enough density to support local businesses with regard to employees and consumers. Cities like manhattan will never be able to become hybrid typologies because things like urban agriculture and production will be far too expensive due to crazy high land prices. The only problem with the sub-urban typology is that it sometimes becomes gentrified over time as we see in brooklyn or the opposite happens where it becomes a ghetto due to the home values going down as density goes up like in Jamaica Queens (balance is always a thin line). On the other hand, suburban development lends itself to exploitation by corporate interests as James R. clearly articulates. The American dream of owning a single family home is not going away. It is a part of the American culture that dates back hundreds of years. We need to find a solution to the problem without ignoring the cultural mentality that led to it. This is why ideas like the ones in the MoMA exhibit never work. I believe that we need to study examples that already work like Astoria, and go from there.
toasteroven
Feb 21, 12 11:42 am
sustainable developers?? developers follow incentives and try to minimize risk - without government subsidizing sprawling (i.e. cheap & low capacity) infrastructure and overly restrictive zoning laws they'd very likely build far more high-density mixed-use buildings without parking (but also without green space). without utilities, roads, and other services land is pretty much worthless - and developers typically don't like challenging zoning unless they know the municipality is on board.
also - high-density outside of the city center presents another challenge because of the capacity of the existing services. Some towns in the northeast have put a moratorium on any new building because their existing water and sewer systems cannot handle any additional load. when you think of it, suburban development is often a function of how big the sewer systems are, or how much space is needed for a septic and/or leech field and buffer.
perhaps if as a culture we had a much healthier relationship with our own poop...
sustainable developers?? developers follow incentives and try to minimize risk - without government subsidizing sprawling (i.e. cheap & low capacity) infrastructure and overly restrictive zoning laws they'd very likely build far more high-density mixed-use buildings without parking (but also without green space). without utilities, roads, and other services land is pretty much worthless - and developers typically don't like challenging zoning unless they know the municipality is on board.
also - high-density outside of the city center presents another challenge because of the capacity of the existing services. Some towns in the northeast have put a moratorium on any new building because their existing water and sewer systems cannot handle any additional load. when you think of it, suburban development is often a function of how big the sewer systems are, or how much space is needed for a septic and/or leech field and buffer.
perhaps if as a culture we had a much healthier relationship with our own poop...
Andrew Purcell (AP) : Do you think that Americans are giving up on the suburban dream, then? Because it’s still seems quite resilient to me.
Barry Bergdoll (BB): It is astounding to what extent people’s dreams are fulfilled by images that are supplied to them by the marketplace, by advertising, by television, but I do think that that is shifting. And even some of the dream producers like movies, like television series, are beginning to address the complex realities of suburbs and are starting to show us images of suburbs which are arrival cities for immigrants which have multigenerational families living in the same house. Some of the kind of covering up of those realities in popular entertainment is itself beginning to erode. So, there are many many cracks in the dream.
Barry Bergdoll (BB): It is astounding to what extent people’s dreams are fulfilled by images that are supplied to them by the marketplace, by advertising, by television, but I do think that that is shifting. And even some of the dream producers like movies, like television series, are beginning to address the complex realities of suburbs and are starting to show us images of suburbs which are arrival cities for immigrants which have multigenerational families living in the same house. Some of the kind of covering up of those realities in popular entertainment is itself beginning to erode. So, there are many many cracks in the dream.
Inner-ring suburbs are in need of some solutions as they often face big-city problems without the resources or attention they need to truly innovate.
We need to stop demonizing the suburbs and start recognizing that we are all in this together. Is it better to annihilate suburbia or perfect it? Pragmatic solutions, like changing zoning to encourage density, more sustainable landscaping and agriculture, could be relatively easy to enact and would go a long way to improving the vitality of the suburbs.
But Foreclosed seethes with disdain for the suburbs, and the lack of an empathetic understanding of how the suburbs function and are changing, ultimately makes the exhibit look less visionary than ignorant. As an urban dweller who is deeply frustrated by the social, economic and environmental consequences of sprawl and car-centered communities, I too want to see clever ways of retrofitting these parts of the country. But saying that, I wish the exhibit had improved upon the suburbs rather than suggest transforming them beyond recognition.
21 Feb, 2012 - (@WhittleseyDoyle)
MOMA #Foreclosedexhibit showcases suburrbs. Are suburbs dead? We think not! #realestateNext #AmericanCity: http://americancity.org/buzz/entry/337 …
At MoMA none are presented as particularly interesting visually (though there’s a certain amount of bleak "as is" imagery in the online presentations), but as interesting data sets, illustrative of specific suburban problems. There’s growth versus open space, new models of the family, high unemployment and low levels of home ownership, abandoned subdivisions. If you are in New York, it is worth going to the exhibition in person, but only a very patient visitor would be able to absorb the materials, ranging from The Buell Hypothesis (“Change the dream and you change the city.”), each team’s statement of purpose and diagrams of their site, plus hours of video, at the museum. Most of the material is online, and frankly more comfortably accessed in parts and while seated. (Do I sound old? A knee operation will do that to you.)
oboe
re: Second look at the suburbs:
We need to stop demonizing the suburbs and start recognizing that we are all in this together. Is it better to annihilate suburbia or perfect it? Pragmatic solutions, like changing zoning to encourage density, more sustainable landscaping and agriculture, could be relatively easy to enact and would go a long way to improving the vitality of the suburbs
I think this misses the critique by a long shot. The problem of the suburbs is not that it's being demonized, and being "nicer" to the suburbs ain't going to redeem them.
The suburbs will be "fixed" when an overwhelming political majority of suburbanites buy into the "pragmatic solutions" the author listed. The question is whether that will happen or not. That someone somewhere made fun of Applebee's is irrelevant.
What stuns me, though, is the claim that things like zoning changes would be "relatively easy to enact". In the absence of democracy this is clearly the case. That's not the world we live in, though. Hell, DC has arguably one of the most liberal, pro-urban voting populations in the country, and implementing such changes here, in the heart of the city, are almost impossible.
(As an example, there's been an almost decade long struggle to allow a 2000 square foot day care facility to operate just north of Lincoln Park on Capitol Hill. There was angry resistance when neighbors found the newly opened Hill Center planned on allowing wedding receptions until midnight. The examples are endless).
The idea that it will be relatively ease" to get existing suburban homeowners on board with such radically changes of policy is naive. Frankly, I'm stunned whenever a place like DC or Arlington manages to eke out a minor pro-urbanist victory. The cynic in me says meaningful change in the suburbs are orders of magnitude more difficult, and is contingent on outside factors like resource depletion. And there's a further argument to be made that a suburbs without the resources to maintain itself certainly hasn't got the resources to reinvent itself.
Feb 22, 2012 10:20 am
We need to stop demonizing the suburbs and start recognizing that we are all in this together. Is it better to annihilate suburbia or perfect it? Pragmatic solutions, like changing zoning to encourage density, more sustainable landscaping and agriculture, could be relatively easy to enact and would go a long way to improving the vitality of the suburbs
I think this misses the critique by a long shot. The problem of the suburbs is not that it's being demonized, and being "nicer" to the suburbs ain't going to redeem them.
The suburbs will be "fixed" when an overwhelming political majority of suburbanites buy into the "pragmatic solutions" the author listed. The question is whether that will happen or not. That someone somewhere made fun of Applebee's is irrelevant.
What stuns me, though, is the claim that things like zoning changes would be "relatively easy to enact". In the absence of democracy this is clearly the case. That's not the world we live in, though. Hell, DC has arguably one of the most liberal, pro-urban voting populations in the country, and implementing such changes here, in the heart of the city, are almost impossible.
(As an example, there's been an almost decade long struggle to allow a 2000 square foot day care facility to operate just north of Lincoln Park on Capitol Hill. There was angry resistance when neighbors found the newly opened Hill Center planned on allowing wedding receptions until midnight. The examples are endless).
The idea that it will be relatively ease" to get existing suburban homeowners on board with such radically changes of policy is naive. Frankly, I'm stunned whenever a place like DC or Arlington manages to eke out a minor pro-urbanist victory. The cynic in me says meaningful change in the suburbs are orders of magnitude more difficult, and is contingent on outside factors like resource depletion. And there's a further argument to be made that a suburbs without the resources to maintain itself certainly hasn't got the resources to reinvent itself.
Feb 22, 2012 10:20 am
24 Feb, 2012 - (@abergrenmiller)
Is MOMA's _Foreclosed_ too critical of the suburbs? http://americancity.org/buzz/entry/337 …
New York is a dense area accessible to public transit, Tampa, Los Angeles, and Portland are areas full of ‘failed’ housing, and Chicago is overwhelmed with abandoned unused factories. The teams are reconfiguring what is the best way to live in the current economical conditions, so when development takes place, it doesn’t eat more land. ‘Real’ problems are being looked at as a start for models and the question of how to change these already existing structures not only economically, but physically and socially too. Michael Meredith and Hilary Sample of the design in New York feel like architecture has become to passive. Stating so, they focus on the issue of health/stress as inspiration for ideas and want to redefine the street as a social space. How do we cater to current important problems through architecture?
There’s something almost colonialist about this exhibition: Witness five architectural practices hailing from New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago parachute into relatively poor suburbs, spend very little time actually talking to the people who live there, and pitch projects that only a city-dweller could love, and that only a socialist state could finance. “City-building does not necessarily have to take the path laid out by the markets,” writes co-curator Reinhold Martin, who set the terms of the teams’ engagement with The Buell Hypothesis—an eclectic text (it is in part a screenplay) that quite explicitly proposes “unapologetically public housing models on government land.”
Any honest attempt to fix the suburbs has to start with facing up to why so many Americans live in the suburbs in the first place, and who those Americans are. Suburban families are bigger than urban families; they like their space; and they like living in places where they’re a good distance from their neighbors and a long way indeed from people of other social classes.
It’s a message that doesn’t really solve the problems of suburbia so much as simply eradicate them by decree. Studio Gang’s proposal gleefully attacks Cicero’s suburban zoning code, deleting most of it with neat red lines and replacing it with the language of “density,” “diversity,” and “a variety of living types.” Congratulations on reinventing the city. Now, what are we going to do about the suburbs?
In this sense, the projects on show here also provide an interesting overview of the state of contemporary architecture in the US, where an architect who is tuned in to what is going on cannot fail to think about green issues, the problem of health, the use of resources and public transport systems when drawing up projects.
In a symposium on the exhibit earlier this month put on by the Forum for Urban Design, MoMA, and the Lincoln Institute (where, full disclosure and as you can see in my bio, I also work) a panel of experts doused the well-attended exhibit with more cold water, talking about zoning and changing demographics and NIMBYism - all the challenges of reinventing more dense and less car-dependent patterns. There was a sense that in all these areas, planners and the housing markets had somehow got it wrong. In the built environment, it is a singular engineering challenge to go back and try to re-stitch things back together and get it right.
16 Mar, 2012 - (@DesignerTweetz)
Though the panelists agreed that the foreclosure crisis will lead to major changes in suburban development, they... http://bit.ly/H6nSeG
Anonymous
03/19/12 12:14 PM
That stretch of the 15 freeway is always sooo windy. Trucks would literally flip on their side.
I am surprised people would actually consider living there.
That stretch of the 15 freeway is always sooo windy. Trucks would literally flip on their side.
I am surprised people would actually consider living there.
The typical image of an American suburb, as we can see in movies and TV, is nothing else but boring, monochrome, seething world with cheap fast-food restaurants, old gas stations, and a mix of problems, such as poverty, drugs, and racial squabbles.
However, the original idea of designing neighborhoods was to escape all of these city life hardships and to live in a quiet, green and neat place with a family. Suburbs have long been the sites of a key component of American dream – personal ownership of a single-family home, an investment that once guaranteed stability and legacy for next generations.
However, the original idea of designing neighborhoods was to escape all of these city life hardships and to live in a quiet, green and neat place with a family. Suburbs have long been the sites of a key component of American dream – personal ownership of a single-family home, an investment that once guaranteed stability and legacy for next generations.
“Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream,” visually demonstrates the results of the ongoing quest to throw off the stereotypes of suburban living and effectively alters the classic dream of owning property in America.
In present time, the suburbs suffer from a wide range of problems, including unemployment, increasing foreclosure, and environmental pollution caused by car-reliant inhabitants. On one wall of the exhibit it says, “Change the dream and you can change the city,” begging the question of how heavily our notions of American life affect the America we create around us.
This exhibition highlights the marriage of utility and aesthetics. It strives to promote five distinct prototypical solutions to the current ills of the foreclosure market, and brings them into the context of artistic expression as a tangible, visual, and thought-provoking platform. The solutions all revolve around one central theory: the Buell Hypothesis, which suggests that if you change the dream, you change the city. It challenges modern day conceptions of “The American Dream,” advocating for denser, more sustainable, more affordable, and more livable communities rather than the rampant single-family units scattered across America’s expanse today. The work of a dream team cast of academics, urban planners, designers, ecologists, and architects (including urban economist Edward Glaser, author of Triumph of the City), the legitimate and highly professional exhibit expresses hope for impoverished communities and developing metropolises alike.
The show’s other four schemes offered equally suggestive architectural solutions for new construction (one, by Studio Gang, even inserted new housing into the shell of a derelict factory) but none addressed how to deal with existing neighborhoods where foreclosures are rampant — the house on the brink, as it were, to steal Suh’s metaphor. In the end that is the harder question.
One thing the exhibit proves conclusively is that good suburban architecture is hard to do. City buildings often have a rich surrounding architectural fabric that provides an enlivening and forgiving context. Because buildings in rural environments are not beholden to larger context, they have an almost unchecked formal freedom. Suburban buildings, however, have the unique dual responsibility to both shape a vibrant environment and to hold their own as singular structures.
As they now exist, these researchers speculate, many suburban places are not meeting the needs of the residents who live there. As we’ve written, the demographics of the suburbs are changing. Suburban cities around the country are home to growing immigrant communities who have been disproportionately affected by the foreclosure crisis. And today the largest share of the American poor live in the suburbs. These cities are increasingly ill equipped to deal with the needs of poor families who need access to things like good public transit and multi-generational housing.
Open through August 13, Foreclosed engages the Buell Hypothesis by attempting to assess whether a change in cultural assumptions has the potential to allay the effect of the foreclosure crisis and diminish the impracticality of the suburbs. Each of the projects employs the hypothesis as a call for change by harnessing its potential to redefine suburban sprawl. Tucked away in a room on the third floor of MoMA, Foreclosed illuminates a new opportunity for unrestrained innovation in response to the housing crisis.
janetvarney
Are you tired of Little Boxes on the Hillside? Can foreclosure ultimately lead to a more unique America?
StephersRG
off topic maybe but question/comment...Does Suburbia necessarily mean rich or imply box like houses, green lawns? I'm sure that is the first thought of many but growing up in the south, I think of poverty levels and depressed neighborhoods as suburbia too. That is bad foreclosure
StephersRG
thanks for not ignoring the neglected areas!! We shouldn't only talk about the rich areas! My parent's first house was in the suburbs. But not the nice ones!!
Luke_Cloran
Suburbs are becoming more and more desolate, more young people are moving toward the urban home-lives.
Luke_Cloran
Theres a difference between suburb "developments", and actual communities.
Circulation (50)
NJP1
06:52 AM on 08/10/2011
There is much made of the American Dream, can someone define what this American Dream is, or was, and reassure us all that it is not based on infinite consumption of finite resources? There seems to be no other way of realising that ‘dream’. We must pump more oil, find more gas, rip our planet apart to find the stuff we must have in order to perpetuate some kind of illusion into an infinity that is constantly receding. Politicians scream :’vote for me, and you can have it all when I get elected’ so the gullible masses decide which candidate offers the best sounding lies. Then find that they still can’t have what they want, because the previous incumbent ‘left such a mess’ that getting the economy straight puts back the good times for another few years. So the myth of the American Dream goes on, always that illusive future awaiting everyone that was, I fear, the creation of postwar admen: that if you always bought the newest car and bigger house further out, you would always have the means to drag 2 tons of steel 20 miles to buy your groceries, or propel yourself at 500mph to sit on beach 2000 miles away for 2 weeks. Unfortunately the ‘means’ isn’t there anymore, The dream was built on an infinity of cheap oil and the dream is turning into a nightmare because oil is now too expensive to use for dream making. http://www.yourmedievalfuture.com/
There is much made of the American Dream, can someone define what this American Dream is, or was, and reassure us all that it is not based on infinite consumption of finite resources? There seems to be no other way of realising that ‘dream’. We must pump more oil, find more gas, rip our planet apart to find the stuff we must have in order to perpetuate some kind of illusion into an infinity that is constantly receding. Politicians scream :’vote for me, and you can have it all when I get elected’ so the gullible masses decide which candidate offers the best sounding lies. Then find that they still can’t have what they want, because the previous incumbent ‘left such a mess’ that getting the economy straight puts back the good times for another few years. So the myth of the American Dream goes on, always that illusive future awaiting everyone that was, I fear, the creation of postwar admen: that if you always bought the newest car and bigger house further out, you would always have the means to drag 2 tons of steel 20 miles to buy your groceries, or propel yourself at 500mph to sit on beach 2000 miles away for 2 weeks. Unfortunately the ‘means’ isn’t there anymore, The dream was built on an infinity of cheap oil and the dream is turning into a nightmare because oil is now too expensive to use for dream making. http://www.yourmedievalfuture.com/
As the barriers to entry into the American Dream – interpreted as a house in the suburbs – rise, the Foreclosed project tackles the question of “what if” we could dream a bit differently. The suburb was built on the notion of the nuclear family that lived and worked within a relatively small geographic area, but, in the past 50 years, as ring upon ring of suburb spirals out into all the space zoning codes permit, residents of the suburbs are increasingly remote from the places where they work.
“The drive everywhere for cheaper and cheaper things mentality is unsustainable. It’s getting more crowded and a huge portion of the income goes into transportation,” Dufaux said.
“The drive everywhere for cheaper and cheaper things mentality is unsustainable. It’s getting more crowded and a huge portion of the income goes into transportation,” Dufaux said.
Keizer's Joe
August 13, 2011 at 5:18 PM
I like this design a lot better than our current Keizer Station layout. I almost dread going to Keizer Station because I always take the long way to get to where I am going. I just can’t figure out the roads. It’s confusing.
A tourist from Georgia once confronted me in the Lowes parking lot and asked me how to get to Target because he had seen it from the freeway. He seemed intelligent enough. I laughed because I told him that I live in Keizer and still can’t figure it out. I gave him the best directions I could and wished him luck. He said “Thank you for the directions and hope I can find my way back to the freeway”. I wished him good luck yet again.
I am dependent on my automobile to go from one store to the next. I love going to Bridgeport Village. Parking is a problem but once you park, it’s a pleasure to walk from store to store. And there is such variety. I can even take in a movie after shopping. It’s just an attractive place to visit. It’s inviting. The footprint of Bridgeport is so small compared to Keizer Station. It’s just a total waste of land. Too bad we can’t just start over.
I just can’t wait for the Mayor’s, Chamber of Commerce’s and the council’s Walmart to be built. Doubt that Walmart was envisioned initially but we have to please Chuck Sides. Hey, doesn’t he owe the city back taxes? Oh, he is immune to paying taxes. Too bad, the city could use the money.
I like this design a lot better than our current Keizer Station layout. I almost dread going to Keizer Station because I always take the long way to get to where I am going. I just can’t figure out the roads. It’s confusing.
A tourist from Georgia once confronted me in the Lowes parking lot and asked me how to get to Target because he had seen it from the freeway. He seemed intelligent enough. I laughed because I told him that I live in Keizer and still can’t figure it out. I gave him the best directions I could and wished him luck. He said “Thank you for the directions and hope I can find my way back to the freeway”. I wished him good luck yet again.
I am dependent on my automobile to go from one store to the next. I love going to Bridgeport Village. Parking is a problem but once you park, it’s a pleasure to walk from store to store. And there is such variety. I can even take in a movie after shopping. It’s just an attractive place to visit. It’s inviting. The footprint of Bridgeport is so small compared to Keizer Station. It’s just a total waste of land. Too bad we can’t just start over.
I just can’t wait for the Mayor’s, Chamber of Commerce’s and the council’s Walmart to be built. Doubt that Walmart was envisioned initially but we have to please Chuck Sides. Hey, doesn’t he owe the city back taxes? Oh, he is immune to paying taxes. Too bad, the city could use the money.
The exact boundaries of the MOS study have yet to be set, but the team intends to include an area large enough to include the rail station and Interstate 280, which runs nearby. “The state has promised funds to encourage higher densities within a half-mile radius of light railroad transit stations, and we wanted to be as practical as we could be.”
Bergdoll and Martin describe their directive to the teams as "not to redesign the house, but to redesign the dream."
All five teams have responded to this directive to some degree by proposing social and infrastructural systems that attempt, on a large scale, to align with the new cultural desires and economic realities of American suburban living. Amale Andraos and Dan Wood of WORK Architecture Company, working on SalemKeizer, Oregon, propose a contemporary update on the notion of a garden city, addressing a range of ecological issues. Hilary Sample and Michael Meredith of MOS, analyzing the Oranges, New Jersey, explore the potential of suburban streets to offer a new kind of civic space in a less car-dependent future. Jeanne Gang of Studio Gang, focusing on Cicero, Illinois, seeks a new flexibility in housing that will accommodate the rapidly shifting immigrant populations in the suburbs outside Chicago. Andrew Zago of Zago Architecture, studying Rialto, California, subverts the strict hierarchies of property boundaries that have traditionally structured suburban space. And Michael Bell of Visible Weather, examining Temple Terrace, Florida, considers the relationship between relatively homogenous Florida suburbs and the more diverse and less prosperous neighboring urban communities.
All five teams have responded to this directive to some degree by proposing social and infrastructural systems that attempt, on a large scale, to align with the new cultural desires and economic realities of American suburban living. Amale Andraos and Dan Wood of WORK Architecture Company, working on SalemKeizer, Oregon, propose a contemporary update on the notion of a garden city, addressing a range of ecological issues. Hilary Sample and Michael Meredith of MOS, analyzing the Oranges, New Jersey, explore the potential of suburban streets to offer a new kind of civic space in a less car-dependent future. Jeanne Gang of Studio Gang, focusing on Cicero, Illinois, seeks a new flexibility in housing that will accommodate the rapidly shifting immigrant populations in the suburbs outside Chicago. Andrew Zago of Zago Architecture, studying Rialto, California, subverts the strict hierarchies of property boundaries that have traditionally structured suburban space. And Michael Bell of Visible Weather, examining Temple Terrace, Florida, considers the relationship between relatively homogenous Florida suburbs and the more diverse and less prosperous neighboring urban communities.
The severe effects of the current economic crisis on suburbs across America make it more urgent than ever to rethink the designs of our suburban landscapes. Disconnected single-family homes requiring private automobile transport seem to form a less and less viable pattern of settlement.
Instead of cookie cutter houses that are oriented towards an outdated concept of the nuclear family, the different teams suggested adding a variety of housing types that would provide shelter for people in different groupings such as empty nesters and extended families. Sidewalks and walkways would be added to make communities more pedestrian friendly, while the incorporation of retail and light industrial infill developments would aid in reducing dependence on cars.
“Our affordable housing strategy,” said Donovan, “was effectively: ‘If you cannot afford a house near a job or public transportation, just keep on driving.’”
macphile
I live in the sprawlingest (yes, it's a word) city there is, let me tell you, and there has to come a point where we stop. People already have 1-hour commutes or more, all so they can have their perfect (cheaply built) house in good school districts. If they go much further, they'll be in the district of the next city over. Quality of life isn't just about keeping your kids away from the minorities and "teh gayz." It should also be about how much of your life you're spending in traffic jams and whether there's any nature left for your kids to see because you've bulldozed it all (just so you can complain when the neighborhood is "invaded" by wild animals). And those lawns...and those deed restrictions. It's all a blight. A blight, I say.
December 20, 2011 at 5:44 pm
December 20, 2011 at 5:44 pm
Laughing Cow
It is very apparent that you are uneducated on the DEVASTATING effect of the suburban model in todays society.
It affected gender roles and pollution sky-rocketed because they through these homes up with NO regard to solar orientation and etc. It increased dependency on the car and was a nightmare for the family that had one car... which was almost everyone...
Not only that it also decreased the amount of diversity in a given area which has added to more social problems in our communities
December 20, 2011 at 1:18 pm
It affected gender roles and pollution sky-rocketed because they through these homes up with NO regard to solar orientation and etc. It increased dependency on the car and was a nightmare for the family that had one car... which was almost everyone...
Not only that it also decreased the amount of diversity in a given area which has added to more social problems in our communities
December 20, 2011 at 1:18 pm
musings
Why CNN does not teach American Studies: The first suburbs were "Streetcar Suburbs" NOT car suburbs. I live in one, and believe me, it is mostly houses – but they are from the 1880's and they were purpose-built to coordinate with the streetcar (now subway) system. Los Angeles was built up in the same fashion long before everyone drove cars.
So those songs about ticky tacky boxes – well that historical revisionism.
December 20, 2011 at 12:00 pm
So those songs about ticky tacky boxes – well that historical revisionism.
December 20, 2011 at 12:00 pm
musings
Decisions were made after WWII to create a consumer society around suburbs, cheap gasoline and "national defense highways".
But there were real suburbs long before most people drove cars: streetcar tracks were everywhere in LA and in the East they coordinated with commuter trains. This phenomenon dates back to the 1880's. I live in such a neighborhood and it still works much better than the one I grew up in, Anaheim, California (a typical 50's suburb).
Suburbs would be great if there was a lot of public transportation that linked them efficiently with cities nearby. I love my Boston suburb and it is much simpler to get downtown than it is if you live in LA and have to sit in traffic on the freeway. I keep sampling and comparing the two since my family still lives in LA: Boston wins.
December 20, 2011 at 12:13 pm
But there were real suburbs long before most people drove cars: streetcar tracks were everywhere in LA and in the East they coordinated with commuter trains. This phenomenon dates back to the 1880's. I live in such a neighborhood and it still works much better than the one I grew up in, Anaheim, California (a typical 50's suburb).
Suburbs would be great if there was a lot of public transportation that linked them efficiently with cities nearby. I love my Boston suburb and it is much simpler to get downtown than it is if you live in LA and have to sit in traffic on the freeway. I keep sampling and comparing the two since my family still lives in LA: Boston wins.
December 20, 2011 at 12:13 pm
Despite being well served by a regional transit system that includes both trains and buses, there is still a significant rate of foreclosure and a high rate of unemployment in Orange, a suburb of individual bungalows and single-family structures between New York City and Newark, New Jersey. An in-depth analysis of the suburb has sparked MOS Architects and their team to create a proposal suggesting a new form of urbanism and architectural occupation of the street. The proposal considers aspects of municipal budget and infrastructure, public health, and new models of ownership to promote flexibility and diversity-a range of issues that extends far beyond those generally considered in isolated development plans.
Anonymous
I'm guessing the people who will inhabit the newly roadless (or road filled) scheme by MOS will never need a fire truck or an ambulence. - I'd like to hear their thoughts on how they planned for these rather basic needs.
2/15/2012 5:45 PM CST
2/15/2012 5:45 PM CST
Stroll through the suburbs (if there are sidewalks or anything is accessible by foot) and the uniformity, lack of retail space, and absence of food markets is readily apparent. Many of the proposals in the installation look to rectify the discontinuity between the suburbs and ecology. Undoubtedly, several of the New Urbanist ideals of mixed use neighborhoods, shunned during the explosive growth over the past decades, will be featured prominently in the renderings.
The most provocative idea in the show may belong to MOS—the firm headed by Michael Meredith and Hilary Sample—which focuses on East Orange, New Jersey. The plan acknowledges the lack of pedestrian life in today’s suburbs and reclaims the streets themselves as building sites. That allows increased density without the need to demolish existing housing. But if the idea is strong, details, of what the “ribbon” buildings” would look like and how they would function, are sparse.
jla-x
Feb 23, 12 12:07 pm
Sub-urban and suburban are also two very different things. I would argue that sub-urban is not bad. A good example of this is in some parts of Brooklyn, Queens, and Nassau county NY. The density is greater than the typical suburban environment, and there is a small business walkable street scape that flanks a mix of multi and single family housing in many of these neighborhoods. There is also access to public transit in and out of the city. There is a mix of home owners and renters, and the opportunity to own a house and rent out the top floor. There is a sense of community and a feeling of being in a small town within a city. The film "Do the Right Thing" by Spike Lee so clearly expresses this. Another issue is density. More density is not the solution alone. We need to find an appropriate balance of density, production, and economy so that development can be in some sort of sustainable balance. I think that sub-urban form has the greatest potential for a sustainable development because there is enough space to support a mix of agriculture, industry,small business, housing, park space, etc...as well as enough density to support local businesses with regard to employees and consumers. Cities like manhattan will never be able to become hybrid typologies because things like urban agriculture and production will be far too expensive due to crazy high land prices. The only problem with the sub-urban typology is that it sometimes becomes gentrified over time as we see in brooklyn or the opposite happens where it becomes a ghetto due to the home values going down as density goes up like in Jamaica Queens (balance is always a thin line). On the other hand, suburban development lends itself to exploitation by corporate interests as James R. clearly articulates. The American dream of owning a single family home is not going away. It is a part of the American culture that dates back hundreds of years. We need to find a solution to the problem without ignoring the cultural mentality that led to it. This is why ideas like the ones in the MoMA exhibit never work. I believe that we need to study examples that already work like Astoria, and go from there.
Sub-urban and suburban are also two very different things. I would argue that sub-urban is not bad. A good example of this is in some parts of Brooklyn, Queens, and Nassau county NY. The density is greater than the typical suburban environment, and there is a small business walkable street scape that flanks a mix of multi and single family housing in many of these neighborhoods. There is also access to public transit in and out of the city. There is a mix of home owners and renters, and the opportunity to own a house and rent out the top floor. There is a sense of community and a feeling of being in a small town within a city. The film "Do the Right Thing" by Spike Lee so clearly expresses this. Another issue is density. More density is not the solution alone. We need to find an appropriate balance of density, production, and economy so that development can be in some sort of sustainable balance. I think that sub-urban form has the greatest potential for a sustainable development because there is enough space to support a mix of agriculture, industry,small business, housing, park space, etc...as well as enough density to support local businesses with regard to employees and consumers. Cities like manhattan will never be able to become hybrid typologies because things like urban agriculture and production will be far too expensive due to crazy high land prices. The only problem with the sub-urban typology is that it sometimes becomes gentrified over time as we see in brooklyn or the opposite happens where it becomes a ghetto due to the home values going down as density goes up like in Jamaica Queens (balance is always a thin line). On the other hand, suburban development lends itself to exploitation by corporate interests as James R. clearly articulates. The American dream of owning a single family home is not going away. It is a part of the American culture that dates back hundreds of years. We need to find a solution to the problem without ignoring the cultural mentality that led to it. This is why ideas like the ones in the MoMA exhibit never work. I believe that we need to study examples that already work like Astoria, and go from there.
AP: What chance does a scheme like this have of being realized?
Jeanne Gang (JG): I think we can’t afford not to realize something. We have so many issues especially in the inner ring suburbs where we were looking at, like Cicero, where developers kind of hop-skip over them and sprawl out into further and further-out suburbs, which just increases our dependence on the car.
Jeanne Gang (JG): I think we can’t afford not to realize something. We have so many issues especially in the inner ring suburbs where we were looking at, like Cicero, where developers kind of hop-skip over them and sprawl out into further and further-out suburbs, which just increases our dependence on the car.
Geena
March 4, 2012 at 8:38 am
Love it! Cicero is nicely located near downtown and public transport. Agree with first commenter about the bike unfriendly aspect.
Love it! Cicero is nicely located near downtown and public transport. Agree with first commenter about the bike unfriendly aspect.
sassy01247
February 16, 2012 at 9:59 am
What appears to be missing from consideration is transportation infrastructure. More specifically, walking, biking and mass transit.There are many structural components to accomodate these modes such as ramps (which serve bikes, carriages, wheelchairs etc), and flat surfaces running along stairways. Seperated and/or elevated lanes and parking and rental facilities for bikes etc.
What appears to be missing from consideration is transportation infrastructure. More specifically, walking, biking and mass transit.There are many structural components to accomodate these modes such as ramps (which serve bikes, carriages, wheelchairs etc), and flat surfaces running along stairways. Seperated and/or elevated lanes and parking and rental facilities for bikes etc.
17 Feb, 2012 - (@edESTESdesign)
@Moma's take on walkable cities. View the various projects @OPinDC@DDOTDChttp://www.moma.org/interactives/e …
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
17 Feb, 2012 - (@OPinDC)
What do you think? RT @edestesdesign: @Moma's take on walkable cities. View the various projects @OPinDC@DDOTDChttp://www.moma.org/interactives/e …
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
Overall, urbanization seems to be part of the solution. All five designs replace the single-family home, so beloved of suburbia, with diverse alternatives. Similarly, transportation options — like walking! — replace private cars, necessary evils more often than not in suburbia.
northern virginia
While I do happen to live on a cul-de-sac, I live in an inner-ring suburb of washington dc. I walk to the metro and use it everyday to get to downtown dc. I only drive my car on the weekends. Supermarkets and stores are (finally) being built so that my neighborhood will become completely walkable within the next year or so.
4 months ago
4 months ago
Amber
Re: fixing the suburbs
The author's jimmies seem to be particularly rustled at the thought of replacing cul-de-secs with a cold, urban grid. "The winding cul-de-sac roads are then met with a grid form. This disrespect for the rhythms of a suburban lifestyle...". We do not need a grid of streets to fix the suburbs, or so he argues.
Actually, you kinda do. IMO, the cul-de-sacs are part of the core of the problem. A landscape that is very permeable for walkers and cyclists is essential. A grid of streets makes it much easier/faster to walk from one place to another. A grid of streets is easier to mentally map. The author doesn't really understand what makes the city different than the burbs.
Feb 22, 2012 12:14 pm
The author's jimmies seem to be particularly rustled at the thought of replacing cul-de-secs with a cold, urban grid. "The winding cul-de-sac roads are then met with a grid form. This disrespect for the rhythms of a suburban lifestyle...". We do not need a grid of streets to fix the suburbs, or so he argues.
Actually, you kinda do. IMO, the cul-de-sacs are part of the core of the problem. A landscape that is very permeable for walkers and cyclists is essential. A grid of streets makes it much easier/faster to walk from one place to another. A grid of streets is easier to mentally map. The author doesn't really understand what makes the city different than the burbs.
Feb 22, 2012 12:14 pm
CH: What does that mean? I think we sort of have a sense of the automobile, the sort of oil-fueled world of post-World War II America and suburban sprawl as these kinds of the things that have conspired to build the great sprawling American suburban landscape. What does rethinking that involve from a design perspective? From a policy perspective?
MB: […] In the 1990s you had a booming economy, you had a kind ofpush to alter, if not end, the welfare state. By the 2000s, you have a real estate bubble. And today you have a foreclosure crisis. But in all of these situations, there are a couple things that have been consistent. The amount of money people spend on housing and transportation is immense. They can’t afford it. You don’t want to tell people they can’t afford something and say that’s the reason to change. You want to be more positive than that. But there are many, many factors about affordability, about energy consumption, and frankly about the role of design in any of it. The American single-family house is a commodity product that has virtually no research and development, no design. Architects, in a spec house in Houston in the late 1990s—their fee was about twelve dollars per house. These are mass-produced commodities. There is no professional engagement. […] I think most of the people in this exhibition are quite
positive and excited about the suburbs. We know it’s a deeply, deeply important part of the American ethos, if not just everyday life of course. But, they’re not inevitable. And the financial underpinnings of them have really dramatically shifted in the last five, ten, fifteen years—not just the last two.
CH: Talk about that R&D thing. You made a point in the video in the exhibition that blew my mind about the comparison between how much money in R&D goes into your iPhone or anti-lock brakes versus an American home.
MB: I did mention anti-lock brakes. For many commodities, before they hit the market, there are billions of dollars that might precede it, whether it’s Clorox or whether it’s an iPhone or a Honda Civic which is quite an ingenious product. Housing as we know it has kind of ironed all of that
out of it, and it did it a long time ago. […] They are paying Mercedes Benz prices for a twenty-year-old used car. The single-family house market atomizes out all of the financial processes, and you still are spending large sums of money, but you’re not getting the sophisticated product. It’s not that it’s not a nice product or something people love, but it could be much, much better in energy and everything else.
MB: […] In the 1990s you had a booming economy, you had a kind ofpush to alter, if not end, the welfare state. By the 2000s, you have a real estate bubble. And today you have a foreclosure crisis. But in all of these situations, there are a couple things that have been consistent. The amount of money people spend on housing and transportation is immense. They can’t afford it. You don’t want to tell people they can’t afford something and say that’s the reason to change. You want to be more positive than that. But there are many, many factors about affordability, about energy consumption, and frankly about the role of design in any of it. The American single-family house is a commodity product that has virtually no research and development, no design. Architects, in a spec house in Houston in the late 1990s—their fee was about twelve dollars per house. These are mass-produced commodities. There is no professional engagement. […] I think most of the people in this exhibition are quite
positive and excited about the suburbs. We know it’s a deeply, deeply important part of the American ethos, if not just everyday life of course. But, they’re not inevitable. And the financial underpinnings of them have really dramatically shifted in the last five, ten, fifteen years—not just the last two.
CH: Talk about that R&D thing. You made a point in the video in the exhibition that blew my mind about the comparison between how much money in R&D goes into your iPhone or anti-lock brakes versus an American home.
MB: I did mention anti-lock brakes. For many commodities, before they hit the market, there are billions of dollars that might precede it, whether it’s Clorox or whether it’s an iPhone or a Honda Civic which is quite an ingenious product. Housing as we know it has kind of ironed all of that
out of it, and it did it a long time ago. […] They are paying Mercedes Benz prices for a twenty-year-old used car. The single-family house market atomizes out all of the financial processes, and you still are spending large sums of money, but you’re not getting the sophisticated product. It’s not that it’s not a nice product or something people love, but it could be much, much better in energy and everything else.
PH: So will be buildings in the streets be next?
EH: Maybe in the future, but I will say directly answering your question: The entire city of Orange will not be a carless community.
EH: Maybe in the future, but I will say directly answering your question: The entire city of Orange will not be a carless community.
The modern city is one built around a sprawling network of roads for cars. The cities are also serviced and linked by federal highways. This system encourages anti-pedestrian development: things in the cities themselves are spaced too far apart to manage without a car and completely car-dependent “separation of uses” development results with cul-de-sac housing pods and strip malls along the highway.
28 Feb, 2012 - (@AboutDCI)
Buildings in the streets? Check out a video on how "Architects re-imagine foreclosed cities" http://ow.ly/9l3J5
Aaron Cohn, “Dream Houses,” Columbia Magazine, Summer 2012, 3.
DREAM HOUSES
Letters
The proposed housing models featured in your Spring 2012 issue (“Dreaming American”) are best described as solutions in search of a problem. In particular, the proposal for the Oranges, in New Jersey — which would fill underused streets between existing buildings with ribbons of new developments — creates problems for which there are no reasonable solutions.
Problem number one is that the new structures, to meet disability-access regulations and building codes, would require elevators and public corridors leading to enclosed exit stairways, neither of which can be accommodated within the proposed configurations. Problem number two is that the structures would interfere with access for emergency vehicles.
But aided by the reclamation of previously private spaces (“The idea is that private space that is now abandoned, foreclosed, or empty would be given back to the public”), a more realistic project could be conceived featuring the following:
• Narrowed and reconfigured roads for use by bicyclists and joggers, and access for emergency vehicles.
• Playgrounds, parks, and open space enabled by the demolition of buildings deemed to be unsuited for adaptive reuse.
• Varied housing types to accommodate residents with a wide range of family structures and financial resources.
• Ground-level spaces for such services as childcare, health care, laundry, and community administration.
• Community-owned shuttle buses to provide access to shops and schools.
I’m sure that Jane Jacobs, if she were alive today, would be pleased to see this concept implemented.
Aaron Cohn ’49GSAPP
Los Angeles, CA
Aaron Cohn, “Dream Houses,” Columbia Magazine, Summer 2012, 3.
Yamatotimes
Mar 7th 2012, 00:12
Walkable suburbs - the most important future development for suburban planning and refurbishment.
Walkable suburbs - the most important future development for suburban planning and refurbishment.
Some of the projects have the ability to create quite a lively town hall debate. Hilary Sample and Michael Meredith from MOS Architects worked on a proposal for urban-leaning Orange, N.J., that would create ribbon-like structures that would house a combination of homes, businesses and commercial space — and be built on top of current public streets. It’s not exactly car-friendly.
NotanEconomistFrank
Mar 2nd 2012, 22:48
What a strange review. It seems that anyone questioning the car in American urbanism is considered ridiculous. MOS's Orange NJ proposal is completely reasonable in a world where our policies towards automobile driven urbanism is making the working poor even poorer and more unhealthy/obese. It's based around pedestrians and mass transit, not really that radical actually.... To propose a dense city based upon the pedestrian instead of car seems like the type of urban thinking we need.
What a strange review. It seems that anyone questioning the car in American urbanism is considered ridiculous. MOS's Orange NJ proposal is completely reasonable in a world where our policies towards automobile driven urbanism is making the working poor even poorer and more unhealthy/obese. It's based around pedestrians and mass transit, not really that radical actually.... To propose a dense city based upon the pedestrian instead of car seems like the type of urban thinking we need.
Bob , flintstone BLVD.
4/3/2012 16:13
Did anyone see any Churches? I would love to see a drive in movie theater. I love really wide streets, and wide parking spots.
Did anyone see any Churches? I would love to see a drive in movie theater. I love really wide streets, and wide parking spots.
04 Mar, 2012 - (@dmhdesign)
"Death" of the suburban auto? Architects re-imagine foreclosed cities http://money.cnn.com/video/news/201 …via @CNNMoney
06 Mar, 2012 - (@ForumFUD)
MOS interrupted the street network with housing to make Orange a pedestrian paradise http://ow.ly/9ncre #ShiftingSuburbia
Anonymous
03/19/12 12:27 PM
It would good for everyone if the Pomona became a job center.
Places like Rialto, Fontana, Chino Hills, and Rancho Cucamonga wouldn't be such far-off exurbs.
There's even an international airport (ONT) right next to Pomona.
It would good for everyone if the Pomona became a job center.
Places like Rialto, Fontana, Chino Hills, and Rancho Cucamonga wouldn't be such far-off exurbs.
There's even an international airport (ONT) right next to Pomona.
Anonymous
All this silly non-sense thinking that we are gonna change years and years of development centered around a mode of transit in a compressed amount of time - utter foolishness. The market will determine what happens - gubmit policy and high minded utopian ideals will not.
3/21/2012 5:00 PM CDT
3/21/2012 5:00 PM CDT
Much of the increase in consumption was tied to the growth in sprawl. To find more affordable homes, families have moved to suburbs farther and farther from their workplaces. But for every dollar saved by living in more affordable neighborhoods, Americans were spending 77 cents more on transportation, according to a 2005 study by the nonprofit Center for Housing Policy. And commuting time lost to congestion has increased fivefold in the past quarter-century. As Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan put it in his keynote speech for the workshop phase of the exhibit, "Our affordable housing strategy was effectively; 'If you can't afford a home near a job or transportation, just keep driving. Drive until you find a home you can afford.'"
This exhibit comes at a critical time. Right-wing organizations like the Heritage Foundation have been churning out polemics against public transportation and zoning for higher density development. A GOP-dominated Congress is also on the attack. Last year it cut funding slated for the 2009 stimulus bill's signature infrastructure project, the high-speed rail initiative. House Republicans appear to have given up on their attempts to include a mass-transit-crushing amendment in their controversial five-year, $260 billion transportation bill. Still, a paralyzed Congress is on the verge of allowing the current bill to expire on March 31 without any new legislation for continued funding.
Stuart Varney (SV): It seems to me that this exhibit is from the elites telling us how we should live. We should all live in cities, and if we don't live in cities we should turn our suburbs into cities. That's the way we should live. Isn't that the elites going at us and telling us how we mere mortals should live?
Alex Ulam (AU): No, it's not the elite. It's the way our tax...It's the way our housing policy has been oriented for the last twenty or thirty years. It's unsustainable---
SV: We should not be organizing ourselves and where to live. Now the elites are telling us how we should be doing it.
AU: They are making some suggestions, but -- listen -- it's unsustainable for people to live in suburbs.
SV: Who says?
AU: Well most Americans actually spend more money on transportation than they do on medical care or on taxes. The average family of four that makes $50,000 spends somewhere between $7,900 and---
Alex Ulam (AU): No, it's not the elite. It's the way our tax...It's the way our housing policy has been oriented for the last twenty or thirty years. It's unsustainable---
SV: We should not be organizing ourselves and where to live. Now the elites are telling us how we should be doing it.
AU: They are making some suggestions, but -- listen -- it's unsustainable for people to live in suburbs.
SV: Who says?
AU: Well most Americans actually spend more money on transportation than they do on medical care or on taxes. The average family of four that makes $50,000 spends somewhere between $7,900 and---
The resulting projects, for actual American suburbs, are predictably varied in their practicality and architectural flair. A proposal for an Oregon community designed around a compost mountain by the New York firm WORKac seemed especially daring. Chicago's Jeanne Gang proposed the retrofitting of a derelict factory, and used it to piggyback an argument for better design and smarter financing options on the opinion page of The New York Times. Taken together, the projects would seem to suggest that the American suburbs should look a lot more like Europe, or really Holland. That is, they should be more dense, less dependent on the car, more flexible, and more environmentally friendly.
This proposal for Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream at MoMA uses the streets of older neighborhoods well served by public transit as development opportunities.
Envisioning more mingling of work and residential spaces—often difficult under current zoning restrictions—the different plans also place an emphasis on pedestrian-friendly design.
Does a design exhibit ominously called Foreclosed have a fighting chance to shape a new, hopeful vision for the American suburb, traditionally a no man’s land for architecture? All five of these accomplished schemes have been imagined by architects based in large cities who offer formal solutions to the suburban housing crisis, rather than aspirational ones devised by suburban residents themselves. Obviously, many Americans value the light, space, quiet, and autonomy that suburban living affords, but this lifestyle calculus is slowly changing as prospective homebuyers realize that energy and fuel will only become scarcer and more expensive as traditional suburb-to-city commutes become longer and more perilous.
And so it seems that we can have it all: urbanity, diversity of choices, a high quality of life that does not revolve around the automobile, and a healthy and economically sustainable community. And the chance to be “roommates with nature.” I particularly love how Nature-City dares to give kids of every age a landscape of opportunity for discovery and joy.
HoosierInMaryland, HuffPo says my 'micro-bio is empty', 333 Fans
01:24 AM on 07/23/2012
One thing that would help suburbia would be a requirement that ALL streets have sidewalks on at least one side of the street, preferably both sides.
Might encourage people to do a little walking, and do that walking away from the vehicular traffic?
One thing that would help suburbia would be a requirement that ALL streets have sidewalks on at least one side of the street, preferably both sides.
Might encourage people to do a little walking, and do that walking away from the vehicular traffic?
AmoreenaHogarth, 7 Fans
12:41 AM on 07/23/2012
I've never understood why anyone ever thought to pay so much to live in grids of look-alike homes... They look exactly like low income housing developments, really.
And the idea of criticizing people who use mass transit bus systems, but think it's not government to use the highways...
There's such a disconnect... I think a lot of people anymore don't connect how community & civilization aspects interact, and don't really understand how we have a civilization.
I've never understood why anyone ever thought to pay so much to live in grids of look-alike homes... They look exactly like low income housing developments, really.
And the idea of criticizing people who use mass transit bus systems, but think it's not government to use the highways...
There's such a disconnect... I think a lot of people anymore don't connect how community & civilization aspects interact, and don't really understand how we have a civilization.
MJ: But East Orange’s riff on transit-oriented development is a very smart proposal as well. It stretches our thinking, residing on the edge of the practical and the ideal. It proposes a politic trade: save revenue and therefore tax dollars by eliminating many of the neighborhood streets and the costs associated with maintaining them. Additionally, this approach radically diminishes the role of the automobile in the community. It treats the streets like we’ve treated vacant land in the city: as an opportunity for infill housing. It increases density in the area near an existing rail station and incorporates mixed uses enriching the area’s amenities while, again, reducing the residents’ reliance on the car to get things done. Curiously, however, while calling for the end of the ghetto enclave, its uninterrupted ribbon development results in a densely packed community that reminds me of my image of the kasbah, a true enclave, impenetrable from the outside, labyrinthine from the inside, and devoid of large, open, public spaces where people can meet and talk and relax. To relegate these opportunities, as they say in the paper, to the ground floors of new developments which might contain a variety of shops and services is to subordinate community to commerce.
It’s refreshing that the team unabashedly suggests that much of these new ribbons of housing would be developed as public housing. But if this is a serious idea, not simply a gesture or metaphor, then one must confront the fact that public housing in the United States, apart from unfortunately being in ideological disrepute, is also grossly underfunded.
It’s refreshing that the team unabashedly suggests that much of these new ribbons of housing would be developed as public housing. But if this is a serious idea, not simply a gesture or metaphor, then one must confront the fact that public housing in the United States, apart from unfortunately being in ideological disrepute, is also grossly underfunded.
BB: These are all sites in metropolitan corridors. So, there are a number of characteristics that are incredibly important about these. First of all, obviously there is a substantial rate of foreclosure, well above the national average, in each of these regions and in the particular suburban locations that were chosen. All of them lie somewhere on or near—you remember high-speed rail? A once-projected vision of some kind of communal transport along corridors which might, in fact, rewrite some regional geographies. And, also, they all lay in metropolitan areas with substantial projected growth. So this is not an exercise in rust-belt downsizing or shrinking cities, but rather in places where to think about housing infrastructure-development actually made some sense even if they were invited to look at areas where there were large amounts of—and this is another important factor—large amounts of publicly held land that might be subject to development perhaps in a private-public partnership.
Cities & Suburbs (71)
Micki O'Toole
May 3, 2011 at 8:52 pm
This is fascinating Kevin. I heard a few months ago about re-engineering communities to be some what self-contained where people would not be living in “out-lying areas” as they would be in designed communities. However that idea is born out of something entirely different I don’t want ot post here.Anyway, I wonder why they chose Rialto as a focus area? Will be fascinating to see the results of this.
This is fascinating Kevin. I heard a few months ago about re-engineering communities to be some what self-contained where people would not be living in “out-lying areas” as they would be in designed communities. However that idea is born out of something entirely different I don’t want ot post here.Anyway, I wonder why they chose Rialto as a focus area? Will be fascinating to see the results of this.
NJP1
06:52 AM on 08/10/2011
There is much made of the American Dream, can someone define what this American Dream is, or was, and reassure us all that it is not based on infinite consumption of finite resources? There seems to be no other way of realising that ‘dream’. We must pump more oil, find more gas, rip our planet apart to find the stuff we must have in order to perpetuate some kind of illusion into an infinity that is constantly receding. Politicians scream :’vote for me, and you can have it all when I get elected’ so the gullible masses decide which candidate offers the best sounding lies. Then find that they still can’t have what they want, because the previous incumbent ‘left such a mess’ that getting the economy straight puts back the good times for another few years. So the myth of the American Dream goes on, always that illusive future awaiting everyone that was, I fear, the creation of postwar admen: that if you always bought the newest car and bigger house further out, you would always have the means to drag 2 tons of steel 20 miles to buy your groceries, or propel yourself at 500mph to sit on beach 2000 miles away for 2 weeks. Unfortunately the ‘means’ isn’t there anymore, The dream was built on an infinity of cheap oil and the dream is turning into a nightmare because oil is now too expensive to use for dream making. http://www.yourmedievalfuture.com/
There is much made of the American Dream, can someone define what this American Dream is, or was, and reassure us all that it is not based on infinite consumption of finite resources? There seems to be no other way of realising that ‘dream’. We must pump more oil, find more gas, rip our planet apart to find the stuff we must have in order to perpetuate some kind of illusion into an infinity that is constantly receding. Politicians scream :’vote for me, and you can have it all when I get elected’ so the gullible masses decide which candidate offers the best sounding lies. Then find that they still can’t have what they want, because the previous incumbent ‘left such a mess’ that getting the economy straight puts back the good times for another few years. So the myth of the American Dream goes on, always that illusive future awaiting everyone that was, I fear, the creation of postwar admen: that if you always bought the newest car and bigger house further out, you would always have the means to drag 2 tons of steel 20 miles to buy your groceries, or propel yourself at 500mph to sit on beach 2000 miles away for 2 weeks. Unfortunately the ‘means’ isn’t there anymore, The dream was built on an infinity of cheap oil and the dream is turning into a nightmare because oil is now too expensive to use for dream making. http://www.yourmedievalfuture.com/
estosage
September 18, 2011 at 12:46PM
This sounds like a lot of over paid elitists trying to decide how everyone else should live. My suggestion is that all members of this elite team be required to move their families to this new development and reside there for at least five years as part of their contract. The most troubling is, as Fairfield Fox points out, the use of taxpayer dollars to fund this boodoggle. Who are they to declare that suburban living is dead? Then the usual outlandish lie: " many long-standing critics of the American suburb — who see it as environmentally toxic, energy wasteful and just too expensive (especially because it’s paid for by taxing the cities) " All evidence points to the suburban taxpayer as supporting the urban ghettos so your analysis is an ouit right lie. Abbot schools and other urban renewal activities are primarily supported by taxpayers from the suburbs.
This sounds like a lot of over paid elitists trying to decide how everyone else should live. My suggestion is that all members of this elite team be required to move their families to this new development and reside there for at least five years as part of their contract. The most troubling is, as Fairfield Fox points out, the use of taxpayer dollars to fund this boodoggle. Who are they to declare that suburban living is dead? Then the usual outlandish lie: " many long-standing critics of the American suburb — who see it as environmentally toxic, energy wasteful and just too expensive (especially because it’s paid for by taxing the cities) " All evidence points to the suburban taxpayer as supporting the urban ghettos so your analysis is an ouit right lie. Abbot schools and other urban renewal activities are primarily supported by taxpayers from the suburbs.
FairfieldFox
September 18, 2011 at 3:40PM
Truth is, the Great Migration destroyed the great cities of Detroit, Cleveland, Chicago (Orly the Daley’s could hold this wondrously toddlin’ town together; Rahm’s clueless), Newark, L.A., Philadelphia and NYC. They aren’t coming back. Neither are places like Orange and Irvington, the former Camptown. Parasites will use our tax dollars in a quixotic attempt to recapture history, while pocketing some easy Money. Then, a thesis can be griten, a PhD for someone’s daughter in Urban Planning? Sure, why not? Then, a fellowship on the tazxpayers’ cuff. The rip-off.
It seems like only yesterday, that I could hop on the bus, for a dime, with friends and go “downtown”, to catch a ballgame, a movie or just mingle with the delightful crowds. Then, around 1958, that became dangerous for kids under 15….then under 20….then EVERYONE. The jostling started. The Huggins, the 5 vs. 2 shakedowns. The stabbings and the shootings and the rapes. A cannonball, they said, could be fired down every “Main Street”, without injuring a soul…because everyone had fled. What a helluva migration, as we look back over what was, and can never be again. Only yesterday.
Truth is, the Great Migration destroyed the great cities of Detroit, Cleveland, Chicago (Orly the Daley’s could hold this wondrously toddlin’ town together; Rahm’s clueless), Newark, L.A., Philadelphia and NYC. They aren’t coming back. Neither are places like Orange and Irvington, the former Camptown. Parasites will use our tax dollars in a quixotic attempt to recapture history, while pocketing some easy Money. Then, a thesis can be griten, a PhD for someone’s daughter in Urban Planning? Sure, why not? Then, a fellowship on the tazxpayers’ cuff. The rip-off.
It seems like only yesterday, that I could hop on the bus, for a dime, with friends and go “downtown”, to catch a ballgame, a movie or just mingle with the delightful crowds. Then, around 1958, that became dangerous for kids under 15….then under 20….then EVERYONE. The jostling started. The Huggins, the 5 vs. 2 shakedowns. The stabbings and the shootings and the rapes. A cannonball, they said, could be fired down every “Main Street”, without injuring a soul…because everyone had fled. What a helluva migration, as we look back over what was, and can never be again. Only yesterday.
When we first walked into the room, their amazing blue foam model immediately yelled at us that this would not be like any of the other presentations. As Meredith joked in the beginning, “All suburbs are not equal.”
Bergdoll and Martin describe their directive to the teams as "not to redesign the house, but to redesign the dream."
All five teams have responded to this directive to some degree by proposing social and infrastructural systems that attempt, on a large scale, to align with the new cultural desires and economic realities of American suburban living. Amale Andraos and Dan Wood of WORK Architecture Company, working on SalemKeizer, Oregon, propose a contemporary update on the notion of a garden city, addressing a range of ecological issues. Hilary Sample and Michael Meredith of MOS, analyzing the Oranges, New Jersey, explore the potential of suburban streets to offer a new kind of civic space in a less car-dependent future. Jeanne Gang of Studio Gang, focusing on Cicero, Illinois, seeks a new flexibility in housing that will accommodate the rapidly shifting immigrant populations in the suburbs outside Chicago. Andrew Zago of Zago Architecture, studying Rialto, California, subverts the strict hierarchies of property boundaries that have traditionally structured suburban space. And Michael Bell of Visible Weather, examining Temple Terrace, Florida, considers the relationship between relatively homogenous Florida suburbs and the more diverse and less prosperous neighboring urban communities.
All five teams have responded to this directive to some degree by proposing social and infrastructural systems that attempt, on a large scale, to align with the new cultural desires and economic realities of American suburban living. Amale Andraos and Dan Wood of WORK Architecture Company, working on SalemKeizer, Oregon, propose a contemporary update on the notion of a garden city, addressing a range of ecological issues. Hilary Sample and Michael Meredith of MOS, analyzing the Oranges, New Jersey, explore the potential of suburban streets to offer a new kind of civic space in a less car-dependent future. Jeanne Gang of Studio Gang, focusing on Cicero, Illinois, seeks a new flexibility in housing that will accommodate the rapidly shifting immigrant populations in the suburbs outside Chicago. Andrew Zago of Zago Architecture, studying Rialto, California, subverts the strict hierarchies of property boundaries that have traditionally structured suburban space. And Michael Bell of Visible Weather, examining Temple Terrace, Florida, considers the relationship between relatively homogenous Florida suburbs and the more diverse and less prosperous neighboring urban communities.
Ken B
Levittown was the first fully planned suburban community – it was by no means, the first suburb. Not by a long shot.
December 21, 2011 at 2:43 pm
December 21, 2011 at 2:43 pm
Jude
From an empirical perspective, this article is incorrect in its claim that Levittown was the first suburb. Street car suburbs, such as Evanston and Oak Park near Chicago were built in the late 1800s. Residents used trains or street cars to commute into the city.
Perhaps by providing a definition of what they consider a "suburb" the authors of the article can resolve this issue.
As a side note, it would be interesting to see an article that explores the fate and paths of these even earlier locales.
December 21, 2011 at 12:52 pm
Perhaps by providing a definition of what they consider a "suburb" the authors of the article can resolve this issue.
As a side note, it would be interesting to see an article that explores the fate and paths of these even earlier locales.
December 21, 2011 at 12:52 pm
KPMCO
Actually...the Levitt model isn't bad. People complaining about it assume that everyone who buys one wants to work in the city. The suburbs have developed their own economies, business structures, schools and shopping, and other amenities. It allows smaller towns to grow and develop into more urbanized communities.
As far as pre-fab construction. there is nothing wrong with it, so long as it abides by building codes. My home in Florida requires cinderblock framing for the ground floor...for hurricane resistance. Even though we're more than 50 miles from the coast, it's just the way it is here. Many people assume that something different is always bad. That's not the case. The house is gorgeous, with a nice stucco exterior, and nice finishes inside. It was still relatively affordable for a brand new house...and would have been less had I not had a porch, lanai, or extra room added.
I agree that a LOT of new constructions are wasteful, and people worry more about getting granite counter tops, high end appliances, upgraded fixtures, etc....instead of getting something more functional and workable. That's what many people want, but they shouldn't be complaining when their mortgage is much higher than mine or can't afford their "dream house". Cookie cutter houses are fine if that is what is in your budget. I won't complain about them. :)
December 20, 2011 at 3:01 pm
As far as pre-fab construction. there is nothing wrong with it, so long as it abides by building codes. My home in Florida requires cinderblock framing for the ground floor...for hurricane resistance. Even though we're more than 50 miles from the coast, it's just the way it is here. Many people assume that something different is always bad. That's not the case. The house is gorgeous, with a nice stucco exterior, and nice finishes inside. It was still relatively affordable for a brand new house...and would have been less had I not had a porch, lanai, or extra room added.
I agree that a LOT of new constructions are wasteful, and people worry more about getting granite counter tops, high end appliances, upgraded fixtures, etc....instead of getting something more functional and workable. That's what many people want, but they shouldn't be complaining when their mortgage is much higher than mine or can't afford their "dream house". Cookie cutter houses are fine if that is what is in your budget. I won't complain about them. :)
December 20, 2011 at 3:01 pm
Rod C. Venger
I've never made more than $7 an hour in my life...was retired by cancer in 1999...but picked up a nice home (to me) in a 30 year old subdivision in Colorado Springs back in 1986 for just under $50,000. Price have gone up but so have wages. If I sold my 850k home in L.A., 1700 sq ft, I could buy 4 of those here in Bryan Texas with the same money. This isn't a small town...Bryan/College Station together add up to close to 250,000 people. Dump your toys with their 2 year plans and save that money instead. Realize too that most of the US is nothing like NYC or LA. Oddly there's a link between liberal cities and absurdly high real estate. There's more to the US than the place you wake up to every morning. Opportunities are everywhere.
December 20, 2011 at 1:44 pm
December 20, 2011 at 1:44 pm
Urbanista
Yes and no, while the word suburb had existed for about a century to denote such a place, it did not really define a specific place to live for Americans until post-war. You either lived on the outskirts of the city proper (streetcar suburbs) or in an actual town outside the city (commuter town). The distance and general cost factor would have prohibited many people, even well-off, from considering the pre-war suburb. This is because then, most economic activity, jobs, retail, etc happened near the core (downtown). You also have to consider, today a suburb indicates a politically independent place with a large land mass, whereas back then many suburbs eventually were annexed into the major city.
December 20, 2011 at 1:59 pm
December 20, 2011 at 1:59 pm
vintage274
I, too, was reared in the same streetcar suburb as my mother. Housing was a mix of single family and apartment buildings with many more trees than the city. Houses varied from some streets that contained row-type houses to others with spacious Victorians. Each of those suburbs had a main street with needed businesses, but most men went into the city or off to the industrial section for daily work. Our family home was built just after the change of the century. In the 1950s the "real" suburbs popped up out on the edge of the farms. They had no apartment buildings, no main streets. Each single family home had both a front and back lawn and a garage. They were typically smaller than the streetcar suburb houses, but boasted modern conveniences. Strip malls were the rage (though limited to one complex for evey ten or so communities) and contained a branch of at least one large downtown department store, a family shoe store, and a pharmacy of some sort. Large groceries were nearby, but not a part of the malls. In the 60s large indoor malls became the rage as well, and big cities boasted one in each georgraphical direction. Although Levittown is a suburban icon in America, it was not the model all over the country. The suburb I lived in as a teen in Pennsylvania (built in the 1940s) offered larger houses than the Levittown model (usually 3 bedroom) which were generally built of brick and offered in a vaiety of architectural styles - ranch, Cape Cod, two story, split level - carefully interspersed to add variety to the neighborhood.
December 20, 2011 at 12:51 pm
December 20, 2011 at 12:51 pm
musings
Why CNN does not teach American Studies: The first suburbs were "Streetcar Suburbs" NOT car suburbs. I live in one, and believe me, it is mostly houses – but they are from the 1880's and they were purpose-built to coordinate with the streetcar (now subway) system. Los Angeles was built up in the same fashion long before everyone drove cars.
So those songs about ticky tacky boxes – well that historical revisionism.
December 20, 2011 at 12:00 pm
So those songs about ticky tacky boxes – well that historical revisionism.
December 20, 2011 at 12:00 pm
Jim P.
"The word "suburb" didn't even exist back then, in the late '40s and early '50s"
Yes it did. The word was in use in the 1890's certainly and possibly earlier. Heck, the Chevy Suburban has been made since the 1930's I think....1935 to be exact.
Bad writer, no cookie!
December 20, 2011 at 11:54 am
Yes it did. The word was in use in the 1890's certainly and possibly earlier. Heck, the Chevy Suburban has been made since the 1930's I think....1935 to be exact.
Bad writer, no cookie!
December 20, 2011 at 11:54 am
Respecting the location of foreclosures largely on the outskirts of urban areas, the task was to work through design interventions and enhancements, rethinking human-nature relationships given the suburban adjacency to the hinterlands.
Zak Klemmer
APRIL 9, 2012, 3:14 P.M.
Is this Art or propaganda? I left apartment living for the suburbs and have no intention of moving back to high density.
Is this Art or propaganda? I left apartment living for the suburbs and have no intention of moving back to high density.
“Foreclosed” does a fine job of analyzing these changes and of offering tentative, provocative solutions. For all its thoughtfulness and rigor, though, a whiff of colonialism blows through the project, with its corps of city-based experts venturing into suburbia with maps and modern technology and plans for reforming the indigenous culture. The visions they come up with have a familiar urban feel, and the show replaces old conventional wisdom with the only slightly fresher dogma of density, a word that irritates millions. Packing people close together has virtues that don’t need to be spelled out to most readers of this magazine, and dispersing the population as wantonly and deliberately as we have in the last 70 years has been a colossal environmental blunder. We need more variety of settlement types. But suburbanites like the suburbs. To dismiss the deeply ingrained desire for a buffer zone between one household and another is to turn potential allies into a hostile cul-de-sac army. You can’t wish the ’burbs away, and you can’t turn them into imitation cities.
KAZOOGUY
Justin's closing remarks have it right. After living in an urban core with flocks of pigeons and 20-something bar hoppers, we were ready for the green grass and birds of suburbia. Now we're looking again - for an aging-in-place suburban homestead that will support a 2- or 3- workstation home business office and a live-in housekeeper. Complicated? Yes. Impossible? Not at all. Add a neighborhood shuttle, a rec center, a boutique grocery, a coffee shop, and walking/bicycling trail connectivity and you'll have a community for those of us lucky enough to not have to commute downtown each day, which is a rapidly growing portion of the workforce.
6 Months Ago
6 Months Ago
A few years ago, an architect with a global reputation was walking me through his busy studio, boasting of his exhaustive experience. I asked if he had ever designed in the suburbs; he looked at me as if I were out of my mind. Architects tend to treat the zones where half of all Americans live as a backward, inhospitable wilderness. The suspicion is mutual: Who needs a fancy designer when builders all over the country know how to construct a peaked-roof single-family house?
The elimination of restrictive zoning in the Cicero proposal is emblematic of the way the various teams in “Foreclosed” challenge the physical and bureaucratic barriers that have defined American suburbia for generations. All five teams push for a vibrant mix of residential and business development. All challenge the idea that “suburbs” and “cities” are fundamentally different creatures. All advocate for variability in types and terms of ownership, with rental always an option, and shared spaces for work and play readily available.
toasteroven
Feb 23, 12 2:49 pm
if downtown is for people, then who are the suburbs for?
if downtown is for people, then who are the suburbs for?
jla-x
Feb 23, 12 12:07 pm
Sub-urban and suburban are also two very different things. I would argue that sub-urban is not bad. A good example of this is in some parts of Brooklyn, Queens, and Nassau county NY. The density is greater than the typical suburban environment, and there is a small business walkable street scape that flanks a mix of multi and single family housing in many of these neighborhoods. There is also access to public transit in and out of the city. There is a mix of home owners and renters, and the opportunity to own a house and rent out the top floor. There is a sense of community and a feeling of being in a small town within a city. The film "Do the Right Thing" by Spike Lee so clearly expresses this. Another issue is density. More density is not the solution alone. We need to find an appropriate balance of density, production, and economy so that development can be in some sort of sustainable balance. I think that sub-urban form has the greatest potential for a sustainable development because there is enough space to support a mix of agriculture, industry,small business, housing, park space, etc...as well as enough density to support local businesses with regard to employees and consumers. Cities like manhattan will never be able to become hybrid typologies because things like urban agriculture and production will be far too expensive due to crazy high land prices. The only problem with the sub-urban typology is that it sometimes becomes gentrified over time as we see in brooklyn or the opposite happens where it becomes a ghetto due to the home values going down as density goes up like in Jamaica Queens (balance is always a thin line). On the other hand, suburban development lends itself to exploitation by corporate interests as James R. clearly articulates. The American dream of owning a single family home is not going away. It is a part of the American culture that dates back hundreds of years. We need to find a solution to the problem without ignoring the cultural mentality that led to it. This is why ideas like the ones in the MoMA exhibit never work. I believe that we need to study examples that already work like Astoria, and go from there.
Sub-urban and suburban are also two very different things. I would argue that sub-urban is not bad. A good example of this is in some parts of Brooklyn, Queens, and Nassau county NY. The density is greater than the typical suburban environment, and there is a small business walkable street scape that flanks a mix of multi and single family housing in many of these neighborhoods. There is also access to public transit in and out of the city. There is a mix of home owners and renters, and the opportunity to own a house and rent out the top floor. There is a sense of community and a feeling of being in a small town within a city. The film "Do the Right Thing" by Spike Lee so clearly expresses this. Another issue is density. More density is not the solution alone. We need to find an appropriate balance of density, production, and economy so that development can be in some sort of sustainable balance. I think that sub-urban form has the greatest potential for a sustainable development because there is enough space to support a mix of agriculture, industry,small business, housing, park space, etc...as well as enough density to support local businesses with regard to employees and consumers. Cities like manhattan will never be able to become hybrid typologies because things like urban agriculture and production will be far too expensive due to crazy high land prices. The only problem with the sub-urban typology is that it sometimes becomes gentrified over time as we see in brooklyn or the opposite happens where it becomes a ghetto due to the home values going down as density goes up like in Jamaica Queens (balance is always a thin line). On the other hand, suburban development lends itself to exploitation by corporate interests as James R. clearly articulates. The American dream of owning a single family home is not going away. It is a part of the American culture that dates back hundreds of years. We need to find a solution to the problem without ignoring the cultural mentality that led to it. This is why ideas like the ones in the MoMA exhibit never work. I believe that we need to study examples that already work like Astoria, and go from there.
Inner-ring suburbs are in need of some solutions as they often face big-city problems without the resources or attention they need to truly innovate.
17 Feb, 2012 - (@Greg_Lindsay)
The topic of discussion: "nature," "town & country" and the suburb is neither. http://bit.ly/uxXO4f #foreclosed
17 Feb, 2012 - (@urbanexus)
Justin Davidson on MoMA's Architectural Response to the Financial Crisis (in the suburbs) -- http://bit.ly/w6oWRJ #urbanplanning, #cities
Overall, urbanization seems to be part of the solution. All five designs replace the single-family home, so beloved of suburbia, with diverse alternatives. Similarly, transportation options — like walking! — replace private cars, necessary evils more often than not in suburbia.
Urbanists should look beyond the simplistic view that suburbs are, ipso facto, unsustainable. Los Angeles, essentially one of the country’s largests suburbs, also has one of the country’s lowest carbon emission rates when counting transportation and residential energy usage. More important than reducing car emissions may be to reduce the amount of energy derived from coal and increase alternative energy.
It’s important to take a long view of the suburban/urban divide and realize that the pendulum has by now swung all the way to cities and may be swinging back to the ‘burbs. Poverty, unemployment and environmental degredation are now facing cities and suburbs in equal measure. But there are good reasons to expect that the suburbs, with their ethnic diversity, will become increasingly vibrant places.
In order to change the narrative of the American Dream, the teams have attacked it. With the exception of Andrew Zago’s project in Rialto, California that retains a cul-de-sac structure while beefing up the housing density, these projects are aggressively anti-suburban in their form. For example, WORKac’s Nature-City replaces a neighborhood’s dominant single-family house typology with large multi-family buildings. The winding cul-de-sac roads are then met with a grid form.
This outsider perspective on the suburbs is the exhibit’s crucial flaw and inevitably influenced the architects to propose interventions in suburbia that have all the grace of a superblock in the middle of the city grid. Despite their good intentions, their efforts at sustainability and their smart alternatives to homeownership, the architects’ wrath for the suburbs has caused them to create projects that annihilate the suburbs rather than improve them.
But Foreclosed seethes with disdain for the suburbs, and the lack of an empathetic understanding of how the suburbs function and are changing, ultimately makes the exhibit look less visionary than ignorant. As an urban dweller who is deeply frustrated by the social, economic and environmental consequences of sprawl and car-centered communities, I too want to see clever ways of retrofitting these parts of the country. But saying that, I wish the exhibit had improved upon the suburbs rather than suggest transforming them beyond recognition.
A provocative exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), Foreclosed, wants to change that, by insisting that suburban single-family homes have played a role in the foreclosure crisis. Curated by Barry Bergdoll and produced in less than three years (lightning-fast for large museums like MoMA), Foreclosed presents five architectural projects that rethink the suburbs from their economic underpinnings to their aesthetic character. But while the exhibit’s thesis that sprawl is toxic jives with that of many urbanists, the architectural remedies on display seem almost as problematic.
21 Feb, 2012 - (@1100architect)
MoMA’s Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream is inspiring interesting discussions about the suburban/urban divide: http://goo.gl/MYJYy
21 Feb, 2012 - (@amandakhurley)
As an unashamed suburbanite, I'm so happy to see this whip-smart review of MoMA's Foreclosed by @dianalindindexhttp://americancity.org/buzz/entry/337 …
John Mindiola III
03.08.12 at 09:55
@Ries is correct. Many people live in the burbs because they don't want to live in city, and visa versa. And, let's not forget that many people live where they live, love it or hate it, because (gasp) they can't afford to live elsewhere. Let's also not forget about the cost of the commute, no matter what form that takes. Design is part of the intrigue, but it's not the whole enchilada.
@Ries is correct. Many people live in the burbs because they don't want to live in city, and visa versa. And, let's not forget that many people live where they live, love it or hate it, because (gasp) they can't afford to live elsewhere. Let's also not forget about the cost of the commute, no matter what form that takes. Design is part of the intrigue, but it's not the whole enchilada.
As Justin Davidson pointed out in New York Magazine, there’s still a chasm between urban architects and suburban architecture, and part of getting out of the foreclosed mess is not only creating a better checklist but one in a form people are willing to buy, rent or lease. That’s why the Wieden+Kennedy ads were so brilliant. Impossible to look away, they offered you an emotional investment in the new American dream … without having to show you the house.
AWalkerInTheCity
@ oboe "Frankly, I'm stunned whenever a place like DC or Arlington manages to eke out a minor pro-urbanist victory. The cynic in me says meaningful change in the suburbs are orders of magnitude more difficult, and is contingent on outside factors like resource depletion. And there's a further argument to be made that a suburbs without the resources to maintain itself certainly hasn't got the resources to reinvent itself."
Arlington is only out of the category of "suburban" (to the extent it is) due to the large scale urbanist victories there.
in fact lots of suburban jurisdictions are making urbanist changes -in greater DC (excluding arlington and City of Alex as urban) we have them in Fairfax, in City of Falls Church, in MoCo, and even in PG (and even a tiny bit in Loudoun). Now, those are often only in select locations, or are balanced by antiurbanist decisions. But see, thats where the demonization blinds people - if you can accept that auto centric suburbia is going to continue to be the preferred way to live for many (possibly the majority) then the fact that only 5-10% say, of Fairfax, is going to end up walkable TOD may be an acceptable result.
As for demonization mattering to the political process, I think it does. I have participated in such discussions with fellow NoVans, and I think the more extreme viewpoints including have left people very defensive, and believing things about urbanism that give ammo the antiurbanists, and make their job of persuasion easier. These include the impressions that urbanists beleive A. that everyone should be carfree B. That no one should live in a SFH C. That everyplace on Greater Washington outside of the district is "bad" regardless of density, etc, etc.
Obviously there are larger, real issues that drive suburban politics, not just these discourse focused issues, and obviously there are things in the discourse on these issues that are unhelpful aside from extremist urbanism memes. But they are not trivial in their impact, IMO. And as someone who values urbanism, I find the distortion of urbanism involved in those memes particularly troubling. It makes a sophisticated vision of a reinvented metropolitan america sound like the ravings of naive hipsters.
Feb 22, 2012 10:47 am
Arlington is only out of the category of "suburban" (to the extent it is) due to the large scale urbanist victories there.
in fact lots of suburban jurisdictions are making urbanist changes -in greater DC (excluding arlington and City of Alex as urban) we have them in Fairfax, in City of Falls Church, in MoCo, and even in PG (and even a tiny bit in Loudoun). Now, those are often only in select locations, or are balanced by antiurbanist decisions. But see, thats where the demonization blinds people - if you can accept that auto centric suburbia is going to continue to be the preferred way to live for many (possibly the majority) then the fact that only 5-10% say, of Fairfax, is going to end up walkable TOD may be an acceptable result.
As for demonization mattering to the political process, I think it does. I have participated in such discussions with fellow NoVans, and I think the more extreme viewpoints including have left people very defensive, and believing things about urbanism that give ammo the antiurbanists, and make their job of persuasion easier. These include the impressions that urbanists beleive A. that everyone should be carfree B. That no one should live in a SFH C. That everyplace on Greater Washington outside of the district is "bad" regardless of density, etc, etc.
Obviously there are larger, real issues that drive suburban politics, not just these discourse focused issues, and obviously there are things in the discourse on these issues that are unhelpful aside from extremist urbanism memes. But they are not trivial in their impact, IMO. And as someone who values urbanism, I find the distortion of urbanism involved in those memes particularly troubling. It makes a sophisticated vision of a reinvented metropolitan america sound like the ravings of naive hipsters.
Feb 22, 2012 10:47 am
Amber
Re: fixing the suburbs
The author's jimmies seem to be particularly rustled at the thought of replacing cul-de-secs with a cold, urban grid. "The winding cul-de-sac roads are then met with a grid form. This disrespect for the rhythms of a suburban lifestyle...". We do not need a grid of streets to fix the suburbs, or so he argues.
Actually, you kinda do. IMO, the cul-de-sacs are part of the core of the problem. A landscape that is very permeable for walkers and cyclists is essential. A grid of streets makes it much easier/faster to walk from one place to another. A grid of streets is easier to mentally map. The author doesn't really understand what makes the city different than the burbs.
Feb 22, 2012 12:14 pm
The author's jimmies seem to be particularly rustled at the thought of replacing cul-de-secs with a cold, urban grid. "The winding cul-de-sac roads are then met with a grid form. This disrespect for the rhythms of a suburban lifestyle...". We do not need a grid of streets to fix the suburbs, or so he argues.
Actually, you kinda do. IMO, the cul-de-sacs are part of the core of the problem. A landscape that is very permeable for walkers and cyclists is essential. A grid of streets makes it much easier/faster to walk from one place to another. A grid of streets is easier to mentally map. The author doesn't really understand what makes the city different than the burbs.
Feb 22, 2012 12:14 pm
For all their problems, suburbs clearly “work” on some levels. (If they didn’t, suburbs would hold little attraction for to the millions happily residing in them.) Lind’s specific examples of cultural clueless-ness on the part of the MoMA-commissioned architects are well worth pondering. She suggests that failing to consider what aspects of suburbs work (and how) results the same sort of ham-fisted, bureaucratic approach that destroyed thriving urban neighborhoods in the mid-twentieth century:
Thomas Schaller (TS): Are you envisioning a resuburbanization of America in the next twenty or thirty years? At its peak, houses got gluttonous and big, and the physical footprints that those houses were sitting on got really big. So, I’m wondering if it’s going to be smaller plots? Smaller homes? A little bit of both?
CH: Increased density?
MB: All five projects in the show deal with density, and they also deal with trying to find housing that is probably more financially and size-wise appropriate to its user, but also that would use dramatically less energy to basically dramatically lower carrying costs. But I think many of the people, including ourselves, we were looking at ways to take underutilized property, publicly held or publicly controlled, and increase density around infrastructure because the public has already paid for all of that infrastructure and isn’t using it.
CH: Increased density?
MB: All five projects in the show deal with density, and they also deal with trying to find housing that is probably more financially and size-wise appropriate to its user, but also that would use dramatically less energy to basically dramatically lower carrying costs. But I think many of the people, including ourselves, we were looking at ways to take underutilized property, publicly held or publicly controlled, and increase density around infrastructure because the public has already paid for all of that infrastructure and isn’t using it.
CH: I cannot tell you how much I love this exhibit. I just thought it was really fascinating to start thinking in these terms. And in some ways it brings the discussion we’ve had in Detroit—which is a discussion about “How do you take this moment of crisis and ruin and abandonment and turn it into an opportunity to kind of rethink things?”—to the national level where we have communities … some of these communities that were assigned have foreclosure rates as high as thirteen, fourteen, fifteen percent. Tell me about what your team did, where you were assigned to look at, and how you started to think about what kind of place you would design in the wake of the foreclosure crisis.
Michael Bell (MB): We were asked by the Museum to work on a site called Temple Terrace, Florida. It’s the northeast corner of Tampa, and a little town. It’s 22,000 people. It was an incorporated city in 1926. It preceded the growth of Tampa. Tampa eventually came to meet Temple Terrace, in a kind of typical American situation where something that was very rural became urban, “quasi-urban” one could say. Temple Terrace actually had a relatively low foreclosure rate: 168 foreclosures in a town of 10,000 households. So, in looking at all of this, it actually became much more of a scenario of looking at “How did Temple Terrace operate historically? Financially? What was its density?” Etc., etc. It became much more of a project about trying to produce a future that would be more secure against those kinds of problems, rather than being immediately reactive to the problem now. And I think that’s true for the whole exhibition.
Michael Bell (MB): We were asked by the Museum to work on a site called Temple Terrace, Florida. It’s the northeast corner of Tampa, and a little town. It’s 22,000 people. It was an incorporated city in 1926. It preceded the growth of Tampa. Tampa eventually came to meet Temple Terrace, in a kind of typical American situation where something that was very rural became urban, “quasi-urban” one could say. Temple Terrace actually had a relatively low foreclosure rate: 168 foreclosures in a town of 10,000 households. So, in looking at all of this, it actually became much more of a scenario of looking at “How did Temple Terrace operate historically? Financially? What was its density?” Etc., etc. It became much more of a project about trying to produce a future that would be more secure against those kinds of problems, rather than being immediately reactive to the problem now. And I think that’s true for the whole exhibition.
27 Feb, 2012 - (@DesignObserver)
"Foreclosed" at the MOMA asks what people really like about suburban living - from @langealexandra: http://dogroup.co/zCQPPb
Of course, for an idea to be sustainable, it also has to be realistic. Much of the MoMA show fails that criterion miserably. Orange, N.J., is not going to build long strings of apartments in the middle of its streets, as suggested by MOS Architects’ Michael Meredith, AIA, and Hilary Sample, AIA. Neither is Keizer, Ore., going to bite on huge towers of three-story homes teetering atop each other—complete with indoor waterfalls—as put forward by Amale Andraos and Dan Wood, AIA, of Work AC. And are those elephants that Andrew Zago dropped in the backyards of Rialto, Calif.? Yes, they really are.
All of the projects in this exhibition, in one way or another, pile Americans on top of each other; squeeze them into homes that are much smaller than those currently found in the suburbs; and extol the wonders of urban mixed-use developments that feature the broadest possible range of owners, renters, and even businesses. They basically comprise a simple message to suburbanites: We city-dwellers are better at living than you are, and if you want to improve your lifestyle, you’re going to have to become much more like us.
It’s a message that doesn’t really solve the problems of suburbia so much as simply eradicate them by decree. Studio Gang’s proposal gleefully attacks Cicero’s suburban zoning code, deleting most of it with neat red lines and replacing it with the language of “density,” “diversity,” and “a variety of living types.” Congratulations on reinventing the city. Now, what are we going to do about the suburbs?
The Buell Hypothesis also highlights another central fact: the need for architects to return to research on these non urban areas. Until now, the suburbs have been analyzed by a specific group of architects linked to the New Urbanism movement. Usually the argument has been that a mixture of nostalgia and contemporary priorities (sustainability, green space, pedestrian zones and so on) has been the idea which has inspired the form of these areas, in most cases. And thus prevailing opinion has often linked the reading of suburbs more to that of a village than a city. The Hypothesis attempts to provide another way of understanding these areas,
Neo Urban Planner
Mar 24th 2012, 11:25
I have been working on new style of urban planing among capital cities. The fundamental difference between urban city and suburb has almost similar meaning of difference between individual-life style and nuclear family-life style. Urban city needs excitement. Suburb needs relax. It is good to be focused on Hispanic-Family's tradition for re-developing suburb community environment. Is there any support to business start-up for those new residents ? Maybe they should develop those project with economists and/or investors to be real american dream makers.....
I have been working on new style of urban planing among capital cities. The fundamental difference between urban city and suburb has almost similar meaning of difference between individual-life style and nuclear family-life style. Urban city needs excitement. Suburb needs relax. It is good to be focused on Hispanic-Family's tradition for re-developing suburb community environment. Is there any support to business start-up for those new residents ? Maybe they should develop those project with economists and/or investors to be real american dream makers.....
-CJW, Tracy, CA, USA
3/3/2012 12:55
Urban planners will never understand 50%+ of the population DON'T WANT to live in multi-unit dwellings in their beloved cities, but they keep trying anyway. Like Jon from Cheyenne said, many prefer and like our own S-P-A-C-E away from all of the traffic, crime, and supposed "enlightenment" that city life purports to offer. They can have it and LEAVE US ALONE!
Urban planners will never understand 50%+ of the population DON'T WANT to live in multi-unit dwellings in their beloved cities, but they keep trying anyway. Like Jon from Cheyenne said, many prefer and like our own S-P-A-C-E away from all of the traffic, crime, and supposed "enlightenment" that city life purports to offer. They can have it and LEAVE US ALONE!
Gone are the 1,500 square feet or larger single family homes with large backyards and wide spaces between properties; all five proposals call for much more density, shared spaces, and retail and dining options often inside the communities. In essence, what the design teams are trying to do is replicate some of the best features of urban living and transport them to the suburbs.
Some architecture critics have complained that the solutions on view in “Foreclosed” are too urban, as Justin Davidson argued in his review of the exhibition in New York magazine. True, they are all designed by firms based in cities that all are striving to turn towns into mini-metropolises. However, such a goal might make sense in the 21st century. The suburbs are dying; cities are thriving. Numerous statistics show that today, most people around the world live in cities. The fresh, urban-inspired models proposed in “Foreclosed” might just be the most timely and relevant blueprints for designers and communities committed to reviving the suburbs.
GRRR
MAR 14, 2012 8:40 AM EDT
I don’t know how you can say that the housing crisis was mostly a suburban thing. In downtown Portland all of the condo projects that were completed between 2007 and 2009 were subsequently turned into apartments or turned over to banks. Unsold units in bank possession were auctioned off or otherwise sold at a 40% discount. This reversed the trend of the prior decade of apartment buildings being converted into condos. Look around and the cranes are building new apartment buildings, not condos.
To the point of suburban architectural solutions to making housing affordable. You know that museum-curated shows are always ‘think big or don’t come’. When was the last time you saw a curated show present pragmatic proposals that could be installed in real life, the next day?
Real life solutions are already being played out in the burbs of Portland, and undoubtedly in hundreds of other burbs in the nation.
Orenco Station is supposed to be a New Urbanism project, although its growth has been driven by the big-box strip mall (a blend between the traditional strip mall and the single lot big box store).
A twist on Jane Jacobs romanticism connected to mass transit rail is discerned from stop after stop along the TriMet MAX, with tracts of townhomes and pocket parks within 1000′ of a MAX stop.
Not two weeks ago, the Portland Home Show unveiled the IKEA House. A collaboration between IKEA and a local company – Ideabox – that designs and builds prefab structures. It turns out, the solution to making housing affordable is to downsize the McMansion and make it practical inside.
In any case, the solution is either to expand suburbia outward or increase density — move out or move up.
I don’t know how you can say that the housing crisis was mostly a suburban thing. In downtown Portland all of the condo projects that were completed between 2007 and 2009 were subsequently turned into apartments or turned over to banks. Unsold units in bank possession were auctioned off or otherwise sold at a 40% discount. This reversed the trend of the prior decade of apartment buildings being converted into condos. Look around and the cranes are building new apartment buildings, not condos.
To the point of suburban architectural solutions to making housing affordable. You know that museum-curated shows are always ‘think big or don’t come’. When was the last time you saw a curated show present pragmatic proposals that could be installed in real life, the next day?
Real life solutions are already being played out in the burbs of Portland, and undoubtedly in hundreds of other burbs in the nation.
Orenco Station is supposed to be a New Urbanism project, although its growth has been driven by the big-box strip mall (a blend between the traditional strip mall and the single lot big box store).
A twist on Jane Jacobs romanticism connected to mass transit rail is discerned from stop after stop along the TriMet MAX, with tracts of townhomes and pocket parks within 1000′ of a MAX stop.
Not two weeks ago, the Portland Home Show unveiled the IKEA House. A collaboration between IKEA and a local company – Ideabox – that designs and builds prefab structures. It turns out, the solution to making housing affordable is to downsize the McMansion and make it practical inside.
In any case, the solution is either to expand suburbia outward or increase density — move out or move up.
And yet, they must not think too big, as the ghost towns of China and the zombie subdivisions of the Southeast and Intermountain West attest. Not everyplace can be like New York, and enjoy its good fortune and staggering wealth. But in terms of its grid and planning for growth, it may be the perfect example of Goldilocks planning – not too far-reaching, not insufficient, but impressively, just right.
The American Dream is often equated with owning a family home in the suburbs. That same definition of the dream also seems like one of the many causes of the mortgage crisis and subsequent economic collapse...not to mention a host of other environmental and societal problems. “Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream” --an exhibition at New York's Museum of Modern Art (through July 31) -- is based on the Buell Hypothesis, which posits that a suburb is really just a different kind of city, and that “if you change the dream, you change the city.”
04 Jun, 2012 - (@PolicyMatters12 )
Nature City: city-living in nature. Impossible? http://www.moma.org/interactives/e …#innovation#greenliving#citylife
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/keizer/
Does a design exhibit ominously called Foreclosed have a fighting chance to shape a new, hopeful vision for the American suburb, traditionally a no man’s land for architecture? All five of these accomplished schemes have been imagined by architects based in large cities who offer formal solutions to the suburban housing crisis, rather than aspirational ones devised by suburban residents themselves. Obviously, many Americans value the light, space, quiet, and autonomy that suburban living affords, but this lifestyle calculus is slowly changing as prospective homebuyers realize that energy and fuel will only become scarcer and more expensive as traditional suburb-to-city commutes become longer and more perilous.
“Sustainable” is a key word here in the most basic and fundamental sense, and it’s not really referring to solar panels and well-insulated windows. These interventions alter development patterns, funding structure, and conceptions of public and private space to ensure that satellite communities can survive rising energy prices, demographic biases against suburban lifestyles, and greater concern for carbon emissions. The question is, once these changes are wrought, do these places still function as suburbs?
Each of the five projects on display confounds common assumptions about what a suburb looks like and what it's like to live in one. Many designs set out to provide integrated live/work spaces, active pedestrian life, increased architectural variety, greater social integration, and generous green spaces. Yet none offer an architectural vision that feels truly suburban. Instead, most projects propose dense, urban schemes.
The large scale of these projects, their abstract white renderings, and even their titles suggest that the best way to support ailing suburbs is to transform them into cities. Is there a way to develop suburbs as suburbs, a way to build less densely but also responsibly?
One thing the exhibit proves conclusively is that good suburban architecture is hard to do. City buildings often have a rich surrounding architectural fabric that provides an enlivening and forgiving context. Because buildings in rural environments are not beholden to larger context, they have an almost unchecked formal freedom. Suburban buildings, however, have the unique dual responsibility to both shape a vibrant environment and to hold their own as singular structures.
This prologue to the Hypothesis and the Foreclosed designs does a great job of explaining how the mortgage crisis is based on global finance -- ergo, so is home ownership. It also illustrates how suburbs are increasingly city-like, in terms of demographics, economics, and social conflict. Therefore changing conditions locally and globally necessitate a reconsideration of the suburban milieu, not just quick fixes to the existing infrastructure. But do the five designs point to effective "dreams" for Americans to consider?
28 Jun, 2012 - (@libbybrittain)
@jaredhechtDid you see the Foreclosed exhibit at MOMA? Really cool stuff related to that shift. http://www.moma.org/foreclosed/
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
For the last 30 years I have lived in New York City, and I consider myself very much an urbanist. I love the city’s density, vibrancy, and diversity. It’s not at all like where I grew up. But why can’t we have both in one place? That is the brilliance of WORKac’s proposal for Nature-City. It demonstrates that, in fact, we can have both. And that it can be quite wonderful. And, perhaps of greatest surprise, financially feasible, too.
SF94109, 5 Fans
03:45 AM on 07/23/2012
I believe in density, as in cities, where efficient distribution infrastructure is established and leave more open space around the city for everybody to enjoy. This is also less harmful to the environment when we concentrate habitat with a smaller footprint. Cities are vibrant places where people actually interact and encourage understanding and learn to live together. While I understand the urge to want to own ones home, I don't understand the continued sprawl of suburban areas that are so far away from the cities. What does one do in these boring tract homes that all look the same and where nobody gets out of their cars until they are in their garage. It's kind of depressing.
I believe in density, as in cities, where efficient distribution infrastructure is established and leave more open space around the city for everybody to enjoy. This is also less harmful to the environment when we concentrate habitat with a smaller footprint. Cities are vibrant places where people actually interact and encourage understanding and learn to live together. While I understand the urge to want to own ones home, I don't understand the continued sprawl of suburban areas that are so far away from the cities. What does one do in these boring tract homes that all look the same and where nobody gets out of their cars until they are in their garage. It's kind of depressing.
BL: “Properties with Property” occupies the only site that anyone who doesn’t live in Manhattan would call a “real suburb,” which Marc alluded to, and unapologetically so. In so doing, Team Zago really brings to the fore, in the most aesthetically exciting way possible, issues of the overlaps between public and private space that are paramount to any affordable housing development since the introduction of Newman’s Defensible Space. […] But the question that automatically brings up, especially when compared against MOS’s project, is that even though the density in some places in Rialto is quadrupled from what it was or what it was proposed to be, is that still enough density to survive? Even though that density is camouflaged, would the people that want to be in a low-density area still want to be there? And would the people who need the density in order to survive, and predominantly those are low-income families, would they be able to get the supportive services that they would need in a community with that level of density?
BL: I think it’s important for us, especially within the context of this exhibition, to look at New Jersey because we’re not really talking about what we understood to be “suburbia” any more, and we’re also not really talking about what we understood to be “the city” anymore. East Orange and “Thoughts on a Walking City” are an excellent example of that. The Oranges, if they were compared to the largest cities in the United States, would be the fifth densest city in the United States. It actually has over 16,000 people per square mile. (To give you some frame of reference, New York only has 27,000 people per square mile, and the drop-off after New York is rather rapid.) So, I applaud MOS for their somewhat backhanded recognition that, despite this density, there still aren’t enough services, there still isn’t enough affordable housing, and “Oh, and by the way, you’re all fat.” The answer they came up with, which I don’t disagree with at all, is that we actually need to make it denser, what they suggest is essentially Smart Growth on steroids. […] The way Smart Growth is essentially practiced now is in very small increments, and to the extent that it’s practiced in these small increments, it’s working. But if it were practiced at a much larger scale, as MOS suggested, who knows what the implications could be? I like to think that could be very beneficial.
MJ: In some ways, in its effort to strengthen the demographics of certain communities, the city used the crisis of the ’70s and ’80s to subtly suburbanize low- and moderate-income neighborhoods through its land disposition and financing strategy. It pushed the needle just a bit in the direction of homeownership, and under Mayor Bloomberg’s plan up until the real estate bubble burst, homeownership—single-family, cooperative, and condominium—continued to be integral to the plan. But what has been and remains truly integral to the plan has been a commitment to encourage mixed-income and mixed-use development based upon the belief that this strategy will result in stronger developments and more stable, durable, and healthier communities.
MJ: If the subprime crisis has cruelly afflicted some suburban areas, the great transformation of the city’s economy from one based upon manufacturing to a service-based economy dominated by the financial services industry initially gutted the city’s neighborhoods.
BB: These are all sites in metropolitan corridors. So, there are a number of characteristics that are incredibly important about these. First of all, obviously there is a substantial rate of foreclosure, well above the national average, in each of these regions and in the particular suburban locations that were chosen. All of them lie somewhere on or near—you remember high-speed rail? A once-projected vision of some kind of communal transport along corridors which might, in fact, rewrite some regional geographies. And, also, they all lay in metropolitan areas with substantial projected growth. So this is not an exercise in rust-belt downsizing or shrinking cities, but rather in places where to think about housing infrastructure-development actually made some sense even if they were invited to look at areas where there were large amounts of—and this is another important factor—large amounts of publicly held land that might be subject to development perhaps in a private-public partnership.
Barry Bergdoll (BB): Along the way, we have been much accused of perpetuating a metropolitan view of the suburbs. So, I thought it was interesting to kind of a little bit flip back and say, “What might we learn, might we discuss, might we debate, in the process of this inquiry, from the metropolitan perspective?” because in the end the foreclosure crisis knows no borders. One has only to look not only, as we will in a moment, at Queens or Jersey City, or of course to what’s happening today in Europe where much of our debt is bundled together with theirs.
Because the teams were tasked with presenting provocations and not solutions to the foreclosure crisis, we were able to use their proposals as a starting point for a discussion at MoMA on June 13 with Marc Jahr, President of the NYC Housing Development Corporation, and Brian Loughlin, Chief Architect, Jersey City Housing Authority. Marc and Brian reflected on ways in which the five Foreclosed team proposals could be applied to the New York and New Jersey regions, both to help emphasize the fact that the projects were intended to be seen as representational archetypes as opposed to proscriptive solutions, and to shift the emphasis from the national to the local agenda.
See Floor 3. Yes MOMA is now exhibiting a rehousing of Foreclosed America.(see pics) As a lender I was very interested in what rehousing the "American dream" would entail. Sadly, I was very disappointed. The bottom line is that there were multiple artistic versions but they all came to turning single family home tracts into city like condensed landscapes. Their theory is that a large percentage of foreclosures in the United States are single family homes. Of course the majority are single family homes, the majority of the United States is comprised of single family homes.The data was skewed to a very pro city, anti suburb lean which I found disappointing. "Mcmansions" were not what caused foreclosures. It was loose lending coupled with the affect of a tough economy. If you are in NYC check out the MOMA and see if you disagree.
Community Input (46)
Bahij Chancey
Having worked in museums for a large part of my life I do agree that they serve as an excellent platform to engage people’s minds in new and relevant social ideas. However, I would not say that they are the only outlet, or that they are even the best. Museum environments can often be colder and more sterile than some of their community counterparts, not entirely fostering room for discourse so much as a contemplation. It seems to me that it is in America’s community centers, art spaces and concert halls that people feel more comfortable to come together in civil discussion.
Bob Duggan
Thanks, Neal, for the links to your presentations. Clearly you’re riding the crest of what seems to be a new wave of civic and civil involvement of museums in America. I’m a little behind on this trend and am now feeling a bit deluged, but excited, by the prospect.
And thanks, too, Bahij for commenting. It’s always great to hear from people in the field. I’m a little saddened by your “museum environments can often be colder and more sterile than some of their community counterparts” comment. I think that’s true in many cases, but I also think that it’s more of an indication of museums doing something wrong. It would seem to me that museums full of human creativity should be the complete opposite of cold and sterile, at least if the content is presented correctly.
Also, as you say, “community centers, art spaces and concert halls” should also offer forums for discourse, but in our non-ideal world and American society right now, those centers, spaces, and halls are struggling to survive even more so than museums. In my native Philadelphia, community centers close frequently and the local orchestra is filing for bankruptcy, while the museums continue to plug along.
Thanks, everyone, for commenting on this post about, well, commenting!
—Bob
And thanks, too, Bahij for commenting. It’s always great to hear from people in the field. I’m a little saddened by your “museum environments can often be colder and more sterile than some of their community counterparts” comment. I think that’s true in many cases, but I also think that it’s more of an indication of museums doing something wrong. It would seem to me that museums full of human creativity should be the complete opposite of cold and sterile, at least if the content is presented correctly.
Also, as you say, “community centers, art spaces and concert halls” should also offer forums for discourse, but in our non-ideal world and American society right now, those centers, spaces, and halls are struggling to survive even more so than museums. In my native Philadelphia, community centers close frequently and the local orchestra is filing for bankruptcy, while the museums continue to plug along.
Thanks, everyone, for commenting on this post about, well, commenting!
—Bob
Charles Betterton
06:18 PM on 08/10/2011
Having served as a disaster relief expert and community economic development specialist for 15 years under 5 previous US Administrations, I believe there has never been a better opportunity to provide expanded resources for individuals, organizations and communities to "claim their ultimate destiny".
The field of Community Economic Development (CED), which includes a focus on Self-help, Empowerment and Capacity Building, is best known for successes in microenterprise development, "community based development" and fostering "multi-sector collaborative partnerships".
Your initiative to recognize individuals who are stepping up and making a difference is similar to the Ultimate Destiny Hall of Fame Awards developed to recognize individuals who are fulfilling their ultimate destiny while helping others manifest their own destiny. That program recently led to a visionary description of "The United State of Americans", pending publication of a free publication on Solving the Ultimate Destiny of the USA and a proposal to help establish thousands of locally initiated non-profit CED Community Resource Centers whose mission is nearly identical with your message in this article.
The CAN DO! CED Resource Centers encompass Bucky Fuller's vision of "betterment for 100% of humanity", Authur Morgan's vision for The Great Community and it transforms Abraham Maslow's description of a fully actualized individual into a strategy for evolving more fully actualizing communities. The vision and mission is similar to several recent initiatives by President Obama and HUD Secretary Donovan such as Choice Neighborhoods, Sustainable Communities and most recently the Great Cities, Great Communities program.
Having served as a disaster relief expert and community economic development specialist for 15 years under 5 previous US Administrations, I believe there has never been a better opportunity to provide expanded resources for individuals, organizations and communities to "claim their ultimate destiny".
The field of Community Economic Development (CED), which includes a focus on Self-help, Empowerment and Capacity Building, is best known for successes in microenterprise development, "community based development" and fostering "multi-sector collaborative partnerships".
Your initiative to recognize individuals who are stepping up and making a difference is similar to the Ultimate Destiny Hall of Fame Awards developed to recognize individuals who are fulfilling their ultimate destiny while helping others manifest their own destiny. That program recently led to a visionary description of "The United State of Americans", pending publication of a free publication on Solving the Ultimate Destiny of the USA and a proposal to help establish thousands of locally initiated non-profit CED Community Resource Centers whose mission is nearly identical with your message in this article.
The CAN DO! CED Resource Centers encompass Bucky Fuller's vision of "betterment for 100% of humanity", Authur Morgan's vision for The Great Community and it transforms Abraham Maslow's description of a fully actualized individual into a strategy for evolving more fully actualizing communities. The vision and mission is similar to several recent initiatives by President Obama and HUD Secretary Donovan such as Choice Neighborhoods, Sustainable Communities and most recently the Great Cities, Great Communities program.
“The way we think about land is skewed, we think of value in terms of size and there’s a quality of land that goes way beyond what is traditionally taken into account,” Dufaux said. “And everyone we’ve talked to chooses to live here because of the natural beauty. So, when we started the project, we decided we wanted to have the city at the front door and the country at the back door.”
Gang’s approach truly centered around the people of Cicero, and through a series of personal interviews, she could understand the needs of the people and attempt to address them. Gang introduced the project siting it as an “Arrival City” since most of Cicero is dominated by immigrants.
Bradley
September 23, 2011 at 8:35 am
I think nurturing an arts community is also about creating community. In an increasily mobile society being alienated, or not feeling part of a community is a very real and common thing. The arts help bring back the community!
I think nurturing an arts community is also about creating community. In an increasily mobile society being alienated, or not feeling part of a community is a very real and common thing. The arts help bring back the community!
Otslabvane
October 3, 2011 at 2:26 pm
Yes, you are right! The community should be brought back!
Yes, you are right! The community should be brought back!
Traditional art audiences often differ from the communities most impacted in urban development schemes. “The idea of engaging community is very interesting to a lot of people but the nuances of how to do that effectively get lost in these bigger projects,” says Anne Fredericks, director of New York’s Hester Street Collaborative, another New Museum festival participant.
“We know that we are not experts,” says Gaspar, “but we work closely with the advocacy groups that are.” In contrast, curators and architects are expected to be authorities. “We have no idea what we are doing!” joked MOS Architects partner MichaelMeredith, who is tackling the redesign of the “Oranges” townships in New Jersey for MoMA’s “Foreclosed”. The pressure of being an outside expert stems, in part, from having to assimilate all known data for a region in order to, presumably, improve it.
The nonprofit’s creation of affordable live/work spaces has attracted artists, further stimulating growth and development. Now, a world-renowned arts organization has validated HANDS vision. The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) has selected Orange; the only one of the five cities chosen that is on the east coast, to be part of “Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream,” an exhibition opening in January 2012 that examines possibilities for American cities and suburbs.
Foreclosed asks its design teams to consider what is “‘public’ about today’s cities and suburbs.” The question recalls the central theme of MoMA’s very first exhibit on community planning and suburbia, 1944′s Look at Your Neighborhood. Less about design and more a call to civic action, the bare-bones show declared, “Your neighborhood needs you . . . Organize a neighborhood planning council.”
Rebecca Conroy · Director at Bill and George
Thanks for the rad read. Grateful for some kindred thoughts; This kind of thing has been disturbing me in my hometown Sydney where a flurry of socially engaged and participatory practices have been emerging with little consideration or deep thinking about the politics of 'engagement'. Like, does anyone really ask these communities if they want to be 'engaged' with? And how transparent and accountable are the practices used to 'engage' with the 'community'? I think that's how inoculation works - having been exposed to a bit of 'engagement' we become immune to actual change.
November 21, 2011 at 12:02am
November 21, 2011 at 12:02am
The different teams worked to design site-specific plans with input from local communities, but what unified them was the way they aimed to make their sites at once both self-sufficient and better connected to their broader metropolitan regions. To that end, the different models included infrastructure such as light rail, co-generation electrical plants, recycling centers, and gardens to enable people to grow their own food. Some plans included light industrial facilities and workspaces adjacent to residential areas so people would not have to endure long automobile commutes to get to work.
It was the stories that really made this project important for me. We asked simple questions, like, How’d you end up here? What kind of home did you come from? How would you like to live? People’s responses were candid and clear. Their thoughts indicate that not only was there a housing problem but a lack of advocacy for the needs of migrant and immigrant communities and the poor.
Maybe the interdisciplinary teams should have included a representative from the respective communities. Oh, but they don’t know what they want or they want the wrong things. So, this would have caused trouble.
The entire production and funding structure allowed each design team to visit, investigate, and talk with the residents of each town. Gang's team dove in and worked hand-in-hand with the Cicero community, while other teams simply took shots from a car and quickly left. Gang's strong grassroots effort would show up in the team's comprehensive research and final design in comparison to other schemes, allowing the project to develop a framework for Cicero's long term growth and MoMA's future community design efforts.
In the early weeks of the workshop phase, the teams spent time in their assigned megaregions-visiting potential sites for intervention, meeting with local residents and officials, and considering what type of architectural program would respond to the local needs and realities of the existing population. As a result, the proposals developed for the five sites provide radically different visions of a rethought surburbia.
Anonymous
Theory-based architects consider themselves the vanguard of civilization, leading mere mortals towards a better world where untested ideas are more relevant than facts. The vision and superior attitude of these self-anointed guardians of our future lacks respect for the wisdom inherent in experience and common opinion. Its practitioners value abstractions—dreams for an egalitarian world where conflicts and the preferences rooted in individuality do not exist. The cold urban wastelands that result from this approach are to be seen all over Eastern Europe. Why would anyone want to repeat these mistakes now?
2/16/2012 12:40 PM CST
2/16/2012 12:40 PM CST
Anonymous
Has anyone asked the people who need housing what they need? Suburbia has always been wasteful and dehumanizing, but when I see ivory tower intellectuals and "community activists" trying to redefine our culture I cringe.
What people need is the liberty to pursue their dreams and the educational and intellectual means to obtain it. Then they can buy whatever housing they like, even a McMansion.
2/13/2012 3:13 PM CST
What people need is the liberty to pursue their dreams and the educational and intellectual means to obtain it. Then they can buy whatever housing they like, even a McMansion.
2/13/2012 3:13 PM CST
jameswhadley wrote
What are we all doing? None of these projects would be accepted by the public who would have to live in them. (Some are better than others at being contextual and/or livable, but where do you walk the dog.) A discussion that begins to sell the public on the need for re-thinking the American lifestyle has to come before the design studies. Otherwise it's just "posturing." And probably scary for the average home-buyer or apartment seeker.
Problem no. 1 for architects today is entering and starting to lead that discussion. Otherwise we will be ignored... vigorously. And probably planners are more important in the discussion than architects.
James W. Hadley AIA (aka anonymous)
2/13/2012 2:54 PM CST
Problem no. 1 for architects today is entering and starting to lead that discussion. Otherwise we will be ignored... vigorously. And probably planners are more important in the discussion than architects.
James W. Hadley AIA (aka anonymous)
2/13/2012 2:54 PM CST
Anonymous
Navel gazing is not the starting point for the housing of tomorrow. Did any of these people bother to ask the target audience what their needs are? Unless 4 year olds are getting mortgages these days, it's hard to believe that Andrew Zago's cartoon-like foolishness would find buyers.
2/18/2012 7:30 AM CST
2/18/2012 7:30 AM CST
Raphael Sperry
1. Right on, Brian. It’s a real shame that MoMA went from understanding something about community work to the idea that architects can magically help reverse decades of community disinvestment and financial industry assault through the use of digital design tools and esoteric philosophy. People facing foreclosure and the designers who want to help them (who may be one and the same) deserve better when our leading institutions investigate the situation.
February 17, 2012, @ 2:44 p.m.
February 17, 2012, @ 2:44 p.m.
In the end, it is not a curator or the designer who will determine if design projects are successful or not. It is the public who will be the final judge, based on what the design achieves.
For architecture to reach its full potential the public must be involved, inviting designers to be a part of their conversations and solutions in addressing social needs. But before this happens, the public must first understand the newly-emerging role of design. And it is here that this show wastes so much possibility and a timely opportunity.
For architecture to reach its full potential the public must be involved, inviting designers to be a part of their conversations and solutions in addressing social needs. But before this happens, the public must first understand the newly-emerging role of design. And it is here that this show wastes so much possibility and a timely opportunity.
To be fair, a few efforts at community engagement could be found in Foreclosed. Jeanne Gang included three qualified advocates for the interests of the general public: Theaster Gates, Roberta Feldman, and Cristine Pope. As she states: “Early in the process, our teammates Roberta Feldman and Theaster Gates worked with Cicero’s Interfaith Leadership Project [Cristine Pope] to interview residents about their own personal foreclosure crises.
One of the best of these was (ironically) another MoMA show, “Small Scale, Big Change,” presented just last year. Curator Andres Lepik selected projects in which the architects maintained a sustained relationship with the communities they served. The projects were developed and carried out with the involvement of the communities, not invented in a museum for distant “beneficiaries”. Rather than being esoteric ideas proposed for whole “mega-regions” of the country, these projects were site-specific and actually built, in cooperation with the people who benefited.
For the past ten years, evidence has mounted in other exhibits and publications that design can play a direct role in addressing issues critical to the general public. Rather than just providing luxury to “the few,” designers involved in those projects worked intensely with communities to reshape their built environments.
Allison Tao
3. Designers and architects should be actively engaging the public’s opinions and ideas in order to creatively solve problems whether they are working in small villages or massive cities.
June 15, 2012, @ 12:11 p.m.
June 15, 2012, @ 12:11 p.m.
16 Feb, 2012 - (@andremorand)
Good urban design is achieved through collaboration, not imposition. http://bit.ly/AaLr3L Insights from Bryan Bell on "Foreclosed" at MoMA
Jeannie Kim
Reaction to (and, at times, shrill critique) of) the recently opened exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, “Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream,” might suggest that – yes – perhaps designers are better off sticking to the 1% that they know well, given architecture’s repeated historic failures to address complex urban (and suburban) challenges. After all, as Steven Holl apparently said in a 2010 interview, “It’s always about the clients. Without good clients you can’t have good architecture,” (quoted in Nicolai Ouroussoff, “By the Architects, for the People: A Trend for 2010s,” The New York Times, May 3, 2010) and the 99% is a notoriously difficult client. Yet the most innovative architects have and, thankfully, will continue to engage these questions, whether speculatively or with actual “blueprints” rather than just “visions”. OWS and the 99% have been galvanized by mortgage foreclosures, setting up camp at the same time the MoMA teams were first presenting their proposals (nee “visions”) last fall. Any design activity that engages these questions needs to be linked to radical changes in fiscal policy and transit infrastructure as well, however. The announcement that the Obama administration will be unveiling new standards this week for now banks treat the millions of people facing foreclosure may help, therefore, but it’s just a step toward addressing a vast problem that architects and designers alone cannot solve.
Wednesday, February 22 at 6:05pm
Wednesday, February 22 at 6:05pm
This outsider perspective on the suburbs is the exhibit’s crucial flaw and inevitably influenced the architects to propose interventions in suburbia that have all the grace of a superblock in the middle of the city grid. Despite their good intentions, their efforts at sustainability and their smart alternatives to homeownership, the architects’ wrath for the suburbs has caused them to create projects that annihilate the suburbs rather than improve them.
Of course, for an idea to be sustainable, it also has to be realistic. Much of the MoMA show fails that criterion miserably. Orange, N.J., is not going to build long strings of apartments in the middle of its streets, as suggested by MOS Architects’ Michael Meredith, AIA, and Hilary Sample, AIA. Neither is Keizer, Ore., going to bite on huge towers of three-story homes teetering atop each other—complete with indoor waterfalls—as put forward by Amale Andraos and Dan Wood, AIA, of Work AC. And are those elephants that Andrew Zago dropped in the backyards of Rialto, Calif.? Yes, they really are.
Rob S
Mar 7th 2012, 08:27
I wonder if anybody thought to ask those people who live in these communities what they wanted. These proposed changes sound as if they were generated in somebody's downtown office. How about you, John? What do your neighbors in the suburb you live in think about being moved into condos? About tearing down the old and starting from scratch?
My own guess is that they think you would come up with a whole new list of mistakes to replace the old ones that they have become used to.
I wonder if anybody thought to ask those people who live in these communities what they wanted. These proposed changes sound as if they were generated in somebody's downtown office. How about you, John? What do your neighbors in the suburb you live in think about being moved into condos? About tearing down the old and starting from scratch?
My own guess is that they think you would come up with a whole new list of mistakes to replace the old ones that they have become used to.
“Change the dream and you change the city.” The maxim at the heart of the Buell Hypothesis and the thesis driving Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream sets up a difficult goal to achieve. Changing the city is hard. It takes vision, power, cooperation, planning and, in most cases, the forces that drive urban change are outside the control of designers or citizens. Changing the dream, however, may be harder still: amending a national subconscious is a grand, maybe hubristic task, with no clear mode of address. Conversations that complement and take inspiration from design strategies offer a potentially productive model for new dreams, and most importantly serve as a reminder that “What is Foreclosed?” is not at its heart a question for architects. It is a question that implicates many disciplines, and many people, most importantly those who answer that question with “my house.” In the face of a housing crisis, however, it would be irresponsible for architects and planners not to be asking this question. The next step, it seems, is to move the conversation outside the design sphere and instead of trying to change the dream, try to understand what American’s dreams really are.
Of course large-scale, system-wide, policy-based approaches to the crisis of foreclosure and housing affordability should require and enable local participatory processes, community input, and context specificity.
Anonymous
05/30/12 01:18 AM
We went to check the community out a few days ago. Best way to know how livable a neighborhood is... Ask those who live there. We spoke to three people who have homes there and they enjoy it there. That's what we will look for. We don't care what outsiders say... Lol
We went to check the community out a few days ago. Best way to know how livable a neighborhood is... Ask those who live there. We spoke to three people who have homes there and they enjoy it there. That's what we will look for. We don't care what outsiders say... Lol
There was never any interaction between city officials and the MoMA project team, either during the research phase last year or since the exhibition opened in February. Yet Orange officials are willing to admit that the architects got some things right.
Does a design exhibit ominously called Foreclosed have a fighting chance to shape a new, hopeful vision for the American suburb, traditionally a no man’s land for architecture? All five of these accomplished schemes have been imagined by architects based in large cities who offer formal solutions to the suburban housing crisis, rather than aspirational ones devised by suburban residents themselves. Obviously, many Americans value the light, space, quiet, and autonomy that suburban living affords, but this lifestyle calculus is slowly changing as prospective homebuyers realize that energy and fuel will only become scarcer and more expensive as traditional suburb-to-city commutes become longer and more perilous.
It is equally interesting, and maybe troubling, that the overwhelming majority of the projects did not take up practices of participatory design that also date back to the 1970s and even earlier. Still, it is worth noting that the more recent codification of “bottom-up” approaches to housing, particularly in Latin America, has coincided with neoliberal “structural adjustment” in the global economy. In the case of sites-and-services and other models of user-generated, low-income housing — in which municipalities provide only minimal financing and basic infrastructure (e.g., water, electricity, sanitation) and depend upon residents to construct their own shelter — this has often meant, among other things, offloading the material cost of that housing onto the backs of already dispossessed residents. This reality in no way delegitimizes vital efforts to empower residents in the provision of housing; it merely marks one of the potential contradictions — the fact that residents are often compelled by implicit, seemingly horizontal power relations to participate in processes that validate and perpetuate their own dispossession. And it suggests that empowerment from below must center on developing the political resources with which to contest — intellectually and pragmatically — the very structures by which this occurs.
KSlaught
As a non-design professional, for whom I would assume the exhibit and Mr. Martin's statement might be aimed at, I find the discussion interesting, but somewhat baffling. Mr. Martin's use of language and terminology is inherently exclusionary to those who are not of the academic/professional of which he is a part. The other essays here are more readily understandable to a layperson.
The disappointment expressed by Mr. Martin, that none of the teams used a public process to inform their entry is legitimate. Based upon lectures at the Alaska Design Forum, it appears that many designers have little interaction with the end users, whether it is housing stock or another product. The most apparently successful designers are those who engage the end users, whether it is residents of Medellin, Colombia, Aboriginal Australians, or buyers at Sacks 5th Avenue.
Mr. Agnotti accurately summarized the problem, that we cannot design ourselves out of a problem, whether it is sprawl, foreclosures, or racial divides. The faith in design to solve problems is similar to the faith in technology to solve our problems. Perhaps it would be useful to step out of the the world view that seems to inhabit these conversations and look for a different one. Take as an example that of social work, where they ideally look for and base their work on the clients' strengths and desires. Lecturing or telling society to change, without asking why it should or what currently drives the actions, will just result in frustration and a smaller and smaller audience.
07.05.12 at 02:52
The disappointment expressed by Mr. Martin, that none of the teams used a public process to inform their entry is legitimate. Based upon lectures at the Alaska Design Forum, it appears that many designers have little interaction with the end users, whether it is housing stock or another product. The most apparently successful designers are those who engage the end users, whether it is residents of Medellin, Colombia, Aboriginal Australians, or buyers at Sacks 5th Avenue.
Mr. Agnotti accurately summarized the problem, that we cannot design ourselves out of a problem, whether it is sprawl, foreclosures, or racial divides. The faith in design to solve problems is similar to the faith in technology to solve our problems. Perhaps it would be useful to step out of the the world view that seems to inhabit these conversations and look for a different one. Take as an example that of social work, where they ideally look for and base their work on the clients' strengths and desires. Lecturing or telling society to change, without asking why it should or what currently drives the actions, will just result in frustration and a smaller and smaller audience.
07.05.12 at 02:52
The proposal for Temple Terrace, Florida, calls for a new financial structure that transfers ownership of land from private developers back to the taxpayers, and proposes a reconvening of the town meeting as a forum.
BL [in response to an audience question]: In a lot of ways I think the community engagement process can be grossly misused, and it has been misused. […] And it’s unfair because nine times out ten you’re working with a community that doesn’t have your background. They don’t have your vocabulary. They certainly don’t have your resources. In a way, what we try to do is unstack the deck when we start.
BL: From the outset, I think it was clear that the public was welcome to come in and be part of the conversation, but hoping that MoMA continues to move forward and have other activities and exhibitions that focus on housing, I would hope that the next iteration of this conversation is actually brought out to the public as opposed to asking the public to come in. […] There are three necessary components to a productive dialectic: the abstract, the negative, and the concrete. Similarly, though not immediately corollary, there are three necessary participants in a healthy discussion on housing: the architects, the policymakers, and the public. So, speaking on behalf of the policymakers and in the hopes that we both endeavor to include the public early and often, I say, “Welcome Back.”
BL: Jeanne Gang’s “Machine in the Garden” is perhaps the place to start, as the central elements of the project are so clearly and bilingually communicated. One thing I cannot overstate is the value of community participation, which this team did better than anyone else. It costs very little to hold community meetings, interview residents, paint murals, and build neighborhood gardens and playgrounds, especially when compared to the overall cost of developing affordable housing, but the dividends reaped from these efforts are invaluable in terms of achieving a sustainable community that residents want to be a part of. Pride of ownership of individual property, which is something that has been pushed for a long time—again, since ’72— is nothing compared to the pride or want to belong to one’s community.
Brian Loughlin (BL): I want to thank the Museum for reengaging the issue of housing after what has been a long and notable absence. I think we can argue that also absent, from this never-ending conversation about the public’s role in the provision of housing to its citizens—as it continues in media and budget hearings and courtrooms and in community meetings— have been the contributions of academic institutions like the Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture. In fact, I would go so far as to say that in large part, Architecture (with a big A) has pulled back from the discourse on social housing in this country since the proclaimed death of modern architecture with the fall of Yamasaki’s buildings in ’72. Even the Congress for New Urbanism, coauthors of this fine document here, through their involvement with HOPE VI, have inserted themselves into the void where traditional public housing and modern architecture reportedly failed, by quietly steering its supposed cure. But, they’ve sought to do so without the appearance of Architecture (again, big A) or authorship, relying instead on the stylistics of nostalgia and the will of the public as apparently expressed in community charrettes.
MJ: In fact, amidst the rubble and smoldering ruins of the South Bronx, building these 1950s, Beaver Cleaver, suburban tract homes was as provocative and improbable an act as building any of the five projects proposed in Foreclosed. It went contrary to and undermined every conceivable narrative about the South Bronx and the folks who lived there. It provided people with hope, an ineffable but indispensible quality that something could be done to roll back the firestorm of devastation. And it provided them with a model for how to do that: draw upon the ambition, energy, and resources of organized community residents, marry it with significant philanthropic and more importantly government resources and political will, and use those relationships to leverage private capital.
Marc Jahr (MJ): I think it’s also important to note that I’m neither an architect nor a city planner. My background is as a community and tenant organizer and as an affordable housing finance practitioner. And clearly those are the lenses I look at the world through because I’ve come to realize that if you can’t finance it, you can’t build it. And if it doesn’t resonate with neighborhood residents, if they’re not involved in some way in the planning and implementation of the initiative, then the odds of it being durable are going to be slim. I suppose that’s why I took mild umbrage at Andrew Zago’s comment—Andrew, where are you?—as part of Foreclosed, his team focused upon Rialto, California, that the pedagogical lesson is that with all the value other disciplines bring to urbanism, new urban projects should be not only architect-led but architecture-led. I think that approach can lead to playful, intriguing, but problematic architectural plans.
The Exhibition (139)
This spring, the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim, and the New Museum launched multidisciplinary, multisite, goal-oriented programs to take on such issues as housing, the mortgage crisis, and waste management, to name a few.
While these projects might seem far afield from museums’ traditional mission—to preserve, study, and show their collections—directors say they reflect a logical evolution of their founders’ intentions.
While these projects might seem far afield from museums’ traditional mission—to preserve, study, and show their collections—directors say they reflect a logical evolution of their founders’ intentions.
The plan include large bands that serve as swaths of nature. We loved their amazing model which shows the diversity of their housing typologies.
When we first walked into the room, their amazing blue foam model immediately yelled at us that this would not be like any of the other presentations. As Meredith joked in the beginning, “All suburbs are not equal.”
Doug Kelbaugh
MARCH 7, 2012, 3:40 P.M.
Following up on KB’s Dec. 15 comment and the article:Ecological principles may not be mutually exclusive with human habitat, but that is not the key issue.The most sustainable approach is to make the human built environment as dense, livable and compact, while leaving the hinterland and wilderness as intact as possible – not the agonizing compromise of low density settlements on the periphery of cities. This suburbanized nature, even with rewilding, is neither feasible or sustainable for the 7 B people on the planet – or any number close to that.
Let’s build good, tight cities and leave as much untouched habitat as possible for other plant and animal species. Introducing green design into the urban environment is fine, but not the crux of the ecological benefits of urbanism.
I sense the MOMA exhibit missed the point to a large extent.
Following up on KB’s Dec. 15 comment and the article:Ecological principles may not be mutually exclusive with human habitat, but that is not the key issue.The most sustainable approach is to make the human built environment as dense, livable and compact, while leaving the hinterland and wilderness as intact as possible – not the agonizing compromise of low density settlements on the periphery of cities. This suburbanized nature, even with rewilding, is neither feasible or sustainable for the 7 B people on the planet – or any number close to that.
Let’s build good, tight cities and leave as much untouched habitat as possible for other plant and animal species. Introducing green design into the urban environment is fine, but not the crux of the ecological benefits of urbanism.
I sense the MOMA exhibit missed the point to a large extent.
Feedback has been provided by the design and lay community on ours and other alternative design approaches to the current suburban model. The model and our work will be refined by the museum’s curators and then be put on display in the main museum in Manhattan in February, 2012.
Alex Brudno
MARCH 19, 2012, 3:37 P.M.
Most of the exhibit is not well-balanced. There were more images than text and video. The scale of the descriptions within the renderings is too small to read.
Most of the exhibit is not well-balanced. There were more images than text and video. The scale of the descriptions within the renderings is too small to read.
03 Feb, 2012 - (@EditorAtLarge)
MoMA rethinks architectural possibilities around foreclosures: Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream, a major... http://bit.ly/zyEVBW
At the center of the exhibition are models, drawings, renderings, animations, and analytical materials produced by the five teams developed during the workshop period. In addition, the research presented in The Buell Hypothesis will be shown with contextual material in the gallery as background to the proposal.
JUSTIN DAVIDSON (NYMAG)
A lot of issues in just a few comment! @Jake_Wegmann: Your point that the problems facing the suburbs are not purely a design problem is right on, but that's exactly why the MoMA show tries to deal with legal, financial, ethnic, political, and cultural issues, too. And yes, the teams visited the sites they dealt with and interviewed people who live there - in the case of the Studio Gang project, the interviews are part of the exhibit.
@Cyberoid: It's true that the word "Suburb" includes places that are vastly different from each other - do you really think that makes the word so vague as to be meaningless, though? I don't think MoMA is claiming that the foreclosure crisis is over by any means - in fact, the sites in question were selected in part becuase they have high rates of foreclosure and high rates of non-foreclosed homeowners under water on their mortgages.
@Lecorbusier (I've heard of you, haven't I?) For what it's worth, I do know Ellen Dunham-Jones' excellent work on retrofitting dead malls, etc. What I said probably couldn't be done was revamping the suburbs wholesale "by rewriting laws, rationalizing markets, reforming the construction industry, and changing the culture all at once." Do you know of anywhere where such a sweeping transformation has been carried out? If so, I'd be very interested to know more about it.
6 Months Ago
@Cyberoid: It's true that the word "Suburb" includes places that are vastly different from each other - do you really think that makes the word so vague as to be meaningless, though? I don't think MoMA is claiming that the foreclosure crisis is over by any means - in fact, the sites in question were selected in part becuase they have high rates of foreclosure and high rates of non-foreclosed homeowners under water on their mortgages.
@Lecorbusier (I've heard of you, haven't I?) For what it's worth, I do know Ellen Dunham-Jones' excellent work on retrofitting dead malls, etc. What I said probably couldn't be done was revamping the suburbs wholesale "by rewriting laws, rationalizing markets, reforming the construction industry, and changing the culture all at once." Do you know of anywhere where such a sweeping transformation has been carried out? If so, I'd be very interested to know more about it.
6 Months Ago
JAKE_WEGMANN
I totally agree with Kazooguy.
I was about to write this piece off, but then I read the absolutely spot-on dose of skepticism at the end, and then I was OK with it.
For starters, couldn't the architects have deigned to live "in residence" in, I dunno, a blue collar suburb like Brentwood, Long Island rather than Long Island City, Queens? Would it really have killed them to go and look at a (GASP) actual suburb and talk to some people who actually live in one?
On a more fundamental level, I question whether architects come from the right profession to address the undeniable problems that suburbs face. Design is the easy part. The hard part has to do with politics, infrastructure, taxes, race, class, regulations, and so forth.
And on a still more fundamental level, I question whether the term "suburb" is even useful at all. Are Claremont and Riverside both "suburbs" of Los Angeles? Well, I guess so. Do they even remotely have anything in common with each other, apart from the fact that they are in the LA region but not part of the City of LA? Not really. In fact, not at all. I think the very framing of this exhibit is outdated, and was put together by people who do not get out of their bougie, 24-hour city enclaves enough to have a whole lot that's interesting to say about the "real America" (the REAL real America, full of racial, ethnic and other kinds of diversity, not Sarah Palin's 1950s-era small town fantasy) and what problems it faces.
6 Months Ago
I was about to write this piece off, but then I read the absolutely spot-on dose of skepticism at the end, and then I was OK with it.
For starters, couldn't the architects have deigned to live "in residence" in, I dunno, a blue collar suburb like Brentwood, Long Island rather than Long Island City, Queens? Would it really have killed them to go and look at a (GASP) actual suburb and talk to some people who actually live in one?
On a more fundamental level, I question whether architects come from the right profession to address the undeniable problems that suburbs face. Design is the easy part. The hard part has to do with politics, infrastructure, taxes, race, class, regulations, and so forth.
And on a still more fundamental level, I question whether the term "suburb" is even useful at all. Are Claremont and Riverside both "suburbs" of Los Angeles? Well, I guess so. Do they even remotely have anything in common with each other, apart from the fact that they are in the LA region but not part of the City of LA? Not really. In fact, not at all. I think the very framing of this exhibit is outdated, and was put together by people who do not get out of their bougie, 24-hour city enclaves enough to have a whole lot that's interesting to say about the "real America" (the REAL real America, full of racial, ethnic and other kinds of diversity, not Sarah Palin's 1950s-era small town fantasy) and what problems it faces.
6 Months Ago
12 Feb, 2012 - (@studiovert)
rethinking the American home and suburban zoning. See Studio Gang's project at PS1/MOMA's "Foreclosed" http://fb.me/1jwoIU5FR
Anonymous
With the exception of Jean Gang who has an established practice, the other firms are young, recently formed and have little or no built work, and even less experience with urbanism. The absence of that training is evident in the superficial, image-driven approach to their ill-informed fantasies. Promoting amateurs as though they are experts is a bad move particularly when the naivety of their ideas reflects poorly on the whole profession.
2/17/2012 11:23 AM CST
2/17/2012 11:23 AM CST
Anonymous
The act or threat of foreclosure is a tragedy for many Americans today. Secure in the comfort of arty-farty notoriety, the self-idulgent naval gazing displayed by these architects is a slap in the face to the very real problems these people are facing. I'm insulted that Barry Bergdoll and MoMA could be so oblivious to the real world concerns that this show mocks with its distance and comfortable remove. They should be ashamed of themselves.
2/16/2012 10:34 PM CST
2/16/2012 10:34 PM CST
Less developed is the plan by Michael Bell and Eunjeong Song to revamp parts of Temple Terrace, Florida, near Tampa. The models and renderings are colorless—if the goal was to avoid tropical clichés, the architects succeeded. Andrew Zago went to the other extreme, covering the houses in his proposed development (part of Rialto, California) in patterning so bold, it recalls the work of Ettore Sottsass at the giddy height of Memphis. One extraordinary rendering appears to have been printed out of register (so that colors overlap in unexpected ways), symbolizing the desired blurring of lines between public and private property.
Anonymous
It happened that I went to the show with a medical doctor working in Orange area in NJ and he says that the towns are patients suffering from obesity, but the architects’ prescription is to keep eating less bad food with some stomach relief pills. The renderings are colorful and the models are shiny, but it’s far from sophistication or intellectuality. Representations are just busy. A long shot. Seemingly many experts have worked together for this disappointing presentation. Seemingly overwhelmed by the scale of national dead end. Are these really the first-class architects in America? Hello?
2/21/2012 3:38 PM CST
2/21/2012 3:38 PM CST
Anonymous
Note to MoMA .... Please FORECLOSE on this silly exhibition. It is unworthy of the Museum.
2/22/2012 3:25 PM CST
2/22/2012 3:25 PM CST
At 2,500 square feet, The Museum of Modern Art’s Robert and Joyce Menschel Gallery, site of the exhibition Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream, is about the size of the average suburban house. But while that may be too much square footage for the typical family, it is too little for a show this rich. MoMA should consider rehousing “Rehousing.”
14 Feb, 2012 - (@archiCULTURE)
Review of new MoMA exhibit 'Foreclosed' about designers n the suburbs. Will it have the impact of 'Rising Currents.' http://nymag.com/arts/architect …
The newly opened show at the Museum of Modern Art, Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream, through July 30, fails to accomplish what it claims: to address one of the most critical issues facing the public today – foreclosures. The result is a disservice to the people the show’s organizers set out to help. What ‘s worse, the exhibit takes design back ten years, attempting to re-aim design in a failed direction of the past.
The large pale-blue three-dimensional model is handsome, but difficult to imagine as a real place.
In a difficult but arresting new exhibit, “Foreclosure: Rehousing the American Dream,” MoMA is suggesting that architecture and design can help reconfigure how/where we live, and how we own homes (or don’t).
The connection within the communities and the natural environment made sense in the writing but weirdly none of the designs proposed conveyed these ideas. The renderings of the buildings (which looked like the unfinished renderings from an undergrad class) were not conveying any sense of intimacy or belonging. Further along, I was looking at funky shapes in crayola colors (art?) that did not have any cultural relationship with the local or regional culture of the inhabitants. Another proposal, which was developed with an ecologist on board (good start!) suggested "re-wilding" : blending with the natural habitat and even suggesting the importance of reintroducing the predators of an ecosystem; but all I saw was buildings that were forced under the turf of artificial forests... and last a flower shaped reflecting pools (biophilia?).
These radical visions that are so insensitive to the suburbs remind me of the Modernist public housing projects that were once foisted on inner cities. Created by well-intentioned but essentially ignorant architects and planners, those buildings made sense in theory but not in practice. They didn’t respond to the rhythms and needs of the people who would be housed there, because the architects didn’t really respect or understand the lives of poor people. MoMA should have found some architects who could love and live in the suburbs, showing us the way to make the most of suburban housing instead of wishing it didn’t exist.
A provocative exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), Foreclosed, wants to change that, by insisting that suburban single-family homes have played a role in the foreclosure crisis. Curated by Barry Bergdoll and produced in less than three years (lightning-fast for large museums like MoMA), Foreclosed presents five architectural projects that rethink the suburbs from their economic underpinnings to their aesthetic character. But while the exhibit’s thesis that sprawl is toxic jives with that of many urbanists, the architectural remedies on display seem almost as problematic.
With this exhibit, MoMA heightens an awareness of the U.S. foreclosure problem via architecture, design, and planning, albeit a niche perspective. This exhibit both inspires and provokes. Depending on who’s telling the foreclosure story: the promises of government and bankers, the opines of economists and media, the taut tales of the foreclosed, our planners are hardwired dreamers raising questions, presenting the what-ifs, creating visions and realities that can inspire. Ironically, the woeful boarded up homes that are seen everywhere as we drive through neighborhoods, dreaded by those who own housing near the monuments of foreclosure, are also needed reminders and initiators at this juncture that there is still much to do and more what-ifs are desirable.
As Justin Davidson pointed out in New York Magazine, there’s still a chasm between urban architects and suburban architecture, and part of getting out of the foreclosed mess is not only creating a better checklist but one in a form people are willing to buy, rent or lease. That’s why the Wieden+Kennedy ads were so brilliant. Impossible to look away, they offered you an emotional investment in the new American dream … without having to show you the house.
Diana Lind wrote a fairly heated denunciation of the exhibition at Next American City; I didn’t feel the architects involved “demonized” the suburbs, but I also didn’t see a natural bridge between the visions and blueprints. I wonder if the show might have been stronger if it had stopped short of asking the architects to build new towns, which end up looking and sounding a lot like new Brooklyns. Three stories, home offices, granny flats, walkable. That's my life, but many of my friends don't want it.
And yet, one can’t discount the aesthetic. I can’t visualize an REIT, can you? And the museum clearly felt they couldn't exhibit one. Part of the rationale for bringing architects in early is not just to shake up the suburban form, but to offer a visible alternative model. Deconstructing the bungalow is all well and good, but what if I love my front porch? When you ask me to live with less, how much are you really taking away? Which is why the models, which dutifully occupy the center of the gallery, are such a disappointment. Instead of getting me excited for a hybrid town-country, work-play, walk-bike future, they read as architectural shorthand. The recent vogue for shipping container architecture has made the studio practice of treating program as blocks as a form of 3D sketching into real buildings. Too many of the models looked like stacks of blocks, dressed up with transparent panels.
For me, the most interesting shared idea in "Foreclosed" came in the form of lists. The task embedded in “Simultaneous City,” the project led by architects Michael Bell and Eunjeong Seong of Visible Weather is the identification of what people really like about suburban living and the question, Can they do that with less? Their list includes outdoor space, privacy, and room to move. Their solution involved a higher-density, energy-efficient mixed use development, owned in common by the citizens via a public REIT.
At MoMA none are presented as particularly interesting visually (though there’s a certain amount of bleak "as is" imagery in the online presentations), but as interesting data sets, illustrative of specific suburban problems. There’s growth versus open space, new models of the family, high unemployment and low levels of home ownership, abandoned subdivisions. If you are in New York, it is worth going to the exhibition in person, but only a very patient visitor would be able to absorb the materials, ranging from The Buell Hypothesis (“Change the dream and you change the city.”), each team’s statement of purpose and diagrams of their site, plus hours of video, at the museum. Most of the material is online, and frankly more comfortably accessed in parts and while seated. (Do I sound old? A knee operation will do that to you.)
It also seems prescient. But I wonder if the museum, and the five interdisciplinary teams, haven’t tried to do too much in to a nine-month process, and into a single gallery. A preliminary read suggests terrific unpacking, but many question marks before we're able to put American housing back together.
Holiday Films’ director Lena Beug’s latest project, Nature City, premiered last week at the MoMA as part of the exhibition, Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream.
The exhibition is an exploration of new architectural possibilities for American cities and suburbs in the wake of the recent housing crisis. The spots, directed by Beug for urban planning firm WORKac via Wieden+Kennedy, New York, promote a theoretical environmentally friendly housing community in Oregon.
The exhibition is an exploration of new architectural possibilities for American cities and suburbs in the wake of the recent housing crisis. The spots, directed by Beug for urban planning firm WORKac via Wieden+Kennedy, New York, promote a theoretical environmentally friendly housing community in Oregon.
The aesthetic of the spots, with their clean and simplistic art direction and locked-down shots, reflects the back-to-basics nature of the project.
24 Feb, 2012 - (@abergrenmiller)
Is MOMA's _Foreclosed_ too critical of the suburbs? http://americancity.org/buzz/entry/337 …
Chris Hayes (CH): Part of what makes Detroit so symbolically powerful is the fact that it is the birthplace of the American car, and the car is one of the two pillars of the American Dream. The other, of course, is the detached single-family home. Such structures make up almost two-thirds of the nation’s housing stock, but more than that, the single-family home is an essential plot point in the story of the American Dream. We all know how it goes: you spend your twenties renting, aimless. You meet someone you love. You marry, settle down, get a career, and get a mortgage on a single family home in a suburb with a good school district and enough space for children. Of course, it was this aspiration that provided fuel for the maniacal engine of destruction that was the great housing securitization machine that Wall Street built during the last decade. The trauma of the housing bubble, and then the financial crisis and the foreclosure epidemic it has left in its wake, has created a landscape of ruin and abandonment. Half-completed developments of McMansions dot exurban cornfields. Blocks of vacant, boarded-up homes blight neighborhoods in inner-ring suburbs. And all of this forces us to reassess our fundamental adherence to the single-family suburban home as the cornerstone of American life. In a brilliant new exhibition at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, five teams of architects
were each assigned a suburban community with a higher foreclosure rate than the national average and asked to imagine in the design a vision for what sustainable, vibrant, post-crisis communities could be if we rethink our most fundamental beliefs about the American house.
were each assigned a suburban community with a higher foreclosure rate than the national average and asked to imagine in the design a vision for what sustainable, vibrant, post-crisis communities could be if we rethink our most fundamental beliefs about the American house.
The Hypothesis has already affected the real world with MoMA’s Foreclosed exhibition, an art/architecture exhibition which takes Diotima’s PowerPoint case studies of a few suburbs around the United States and imagines alternate futures for five of them. Read Foreclosed's inspiration, The Buell Hypothesis, in its entirety at the Buell Center’s site.
A few days ago, New York City’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) unveiled its newest exhibition, Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream. A collection of five architectural plans that reimagine how five different suburbs in America could have benefitted significantly from Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) funds, Foreclosed is an amazing exhibition that melds art and architecture, politics and place. Today, I’m going to discuss the impetus of this exhibition—The Buell Hypothesis. The Hypothesis is an amazing hybrid publication created by Columbia University’s Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture. According to the publication’s graphic designers, The Buell Hypothesis is “part socratic dialogue, part contemporary screenplay, part media scape and part power point slide presentation.” This hybrid production, with its emphasis on collaboration and reinterpretation, is an appropriate point of genesis for Foreclosed.
26 Feb, 2012 - (@dotcitizen )
Yesterday @MuseumModernArtand visited #BuellHypothesis. Great analysis. Yet, what about the projects? http://www.moma.org/interactives/e …
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/buell_hypothesis
PH: “It’s creative, but how is it a solution to foreclosures?”
Barry Bergdoll (BB): “The show, I should say, in general is not trying to solve the mortgage crisis. That’s for the banks to sort out. We’re saying that, since we also have learned from it, that the way we build is part and parcel of this massive foreclosure crisis.”
Barry Bergdoll (BB): “The show, I should say, in general is not trying to solve the mortgage crisis. That’s for the banks to sort out. We’re saying that, since we also have learned from it, that the way we build is part and parcel of this massive foreclosure crisis.”
27 Feb, 2012 - (@nboccia)
"But 'Foreclosed' seethes with disdain for the suburbs..." - @NextAmCity's Diana Lind on MoMA's new exhibit. http://americancity.org/buzz/entry/337 …
The content of the show tracks closely with a preview presentation held last September at PS1, MoMA's contemporary annex. The participating teams—headed by architects Jeanne Gang, Michael Bell, Andrew Zago, partners Amale Andraos and Dan Wood (of partnership WORKac), and Hilary Sample and Michael Meredith (MOS Architects)—have taken real tract developments, in locations across the U.S., and turned them into theaters for conceptual intervention. Using models, renderings, and videos, the group leaders and their co-designers demonstrate how creative real estate contracts and innovative architectural solutions could combine to forge a revitalized suburbia, one inoculated against the kind of economic shocks that precipitated the current real estate crunch.
The work of the Estudio Teddy Cruz, McMansion Retrofitted (2008),which is referred to in this exhibition, is linked to this very question: if a resident could buy a house, would they buy a typical McMansion? The market, in recent years, has developed its image in order to look like the built form of a dream which is then sold as an aspiration. In this sense the MoMA exhibition carries out an important function: it puts these questions back in the hands of the architects and asks them to come up with new and original ideas.And this is done in an intelligent way, as each team has been asked to come up with architectural and planning proposals, but these teams have also been supported in this enterprise by other experts (each project looks at economic questions, and proposed alternatives to traditional concepts of property ownership, resource use and so on). In this way the various answers proposed are not aimed at simply creating a new typology or a new urban form, but also try and understand how the economic, legal and administrative system needs to be changed in order to support these new models.
Anonymous
In a world with an ever diminishing attention span, notoriety is best achieved with one-liner gimmicks featuring a calculated mix of simplistic graphics, pseudo-intellectual pretension and the requisite shock value that appeals primarily to adolescents. Fashionable nonsense and superficiality trumps substance every time. We’ve seen it from Ville Radieuse to Pruitt Igoe and to other slums designed by self-styled “intellectuals” lacking the compassion and talent to create meaningful places and homes. ‘Foreclosed’, the latest incarnation of ill-informed ideas rooted in the abstract ruminations of amateurs with (mostly) little or no real world building experience, fits this sad mold exactly. Remarkable principally for its lack of insight in the research and dignity on the end products, it comes across as the work of self-indulgent poseurs proposing novelty for novelty’s sake as though ‘invention’ is somehow synonymous with ‘solution’. Candy-colored shape-making is offered in lieu of sincerity.
The use of charged buzzwords words and phrases like “activist” and “socially or environmentally conscious dimension” suggests some serious import where none is evident in the work itself. It is a common liberal ploy to distract from any more intuitive thought processes that would likely conclude that these ill-conceived experiments will almost certainly be the slums of tomorrow.
Dr. D.S. Abrams
New York City
3/23/2012 12:31 PM CDT
The use of charged buzzwords words and phrases like “activist” and “socially or environmentally conscious dimension” suggests some serious import where none is evident in the work itself. It is a common liberal ploy to distract from any more intuitive thought processes that would likely conclude that these ill-conceived experiments will almost certainly be the slums of tomorrow.
Dr. D.S. Abrams
New York City
3/23/2012 12:31 PM CDT
Anonymous
While I very much appreciate MoMA's and the Smithsonian Cooper Hewitt's efforts to infuse activism more forcefully into their programs, I have been unsatisfied with exactly the topic of this article - their modes of display. Anonymous - I couldn't disagree more that exhibiting a "socially conscious" project (such as the schools or transportation systems included in "Small Scale, Big Change" for example) is exactly the same as exhibiting a "conventional" building (perhaps a high-end residential building here in New York). As Ms. Stephens acknowledges, what's supposedly on display in an exhibition about architecture is much more than the form of the building. And it is exactly the differences between these complex political, economic, and cultural processes in the so-called developing world that make these projects worth trying to understand. Unfortunately, and this is where I disagree with Ms. Stephens, the exhibitions here under analysis do little to differentiate how a high-end residential tower in New York and a school in West Africa are summed up and displayed to an unfamiliar public. For me, the title of the article has yet to be proven, and the subtitle remains as an unfulfilled challenge for these institutions within what is otherwise a worthy cause.
Jacob Moore, New York, NY
3/21/2012 9:25 AM CDT
Jacob Moore, New York, NY
3/21/2012 9:25 AM CDT
As is typical in socially oriented exhibitions, Foreclosed includes a good deal of nonvisual material: One gallery is devoted solely to presenting data underpinning the show's program.
Like the Rising Currents show, the Foreclosed exhibition put MoMA in an activist role, actually commissioning speculative solutions, developed through a workshop process. Bergdoll, who organized the project with Reinhold Martin, Director of Columbia University's Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture, isolated five geographical areas in the U.S., from Florida to California, where the banking mortgage crisis of 2007–08 led to stalled projects and swaths of publicly held land now available for development. For each of the five sites—identified based on Buell Center research—Bergdoll and Martin assigned a team, led by architects and including experts in finance, housing, planning, and infrastructure. Each team created proposals meant to provoke new ways of thinking about housing and dense community living: Bergdoll wants to engage the public in understanding “how architects think.”
ARCHITECTURAL EXHIBITIONS aimed at a general audience are hard to pull off. Small-scale representations—photographs, models, drawings, and, increasingly, video—can only approximate the sense of the full-size work. Like art objects, they need to captivate the museum visitor while acknowledging the thicket of constraints—program, site, budget—that shape the form. If the projects have a socially or environmentally conscious dimension, the challenge is tougher: The display may lack the wow factor—the visual panache of extravagantly innovative or elegant architectural works and objects that make museum visitors stop in their tracks. And the danger lurks that providing the necessary information to appreciate the projects displayed will make the show look like a walk-in book.
Still reeling from this display, your correspondent rounded a corner to the main room of the exhibition. The gallery presents a new vision for each of the five suburbs. The first project is for the Oranges, in New Jersey. The curators' decision to lead with this design is unwise, particularly as its only proper place is the dustbin. MOS, an architecture firm based in New York, came to the astounding conclusion that the roads of the Oranges should be filled with new buildings. The monolithic new structures would have walls that zig and zag, making it impossible to see if someone was lurking behind a corner. With no conventional streets, there are only narrow paths for bicyclists and walkers. Heaven help residents if a fire ever broke out. Perhaps the firefighters could use scooters?
Presumably the curators chose to display certain pages because they were particularly enlightening. “For despite what you may have heard,” Socrates explains, “we do not live in a cave. In fact, in this country there is a term for the place in which we live. It is called the American Dream.” If this is the best of the screenplay, one shudders to think of the rest of the 436-page manuscript.
EVERY exhibition aspires to make a strong impression. “Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream” at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) manages to bowl over the visitor within the first 15 seconds. Unfortunately, the impression is one of intermingled bemusement and nausea. For this viewer, the feeling has yet to subside.
The exhibition is disappointing largely because its premise is so fascinating. Barry Bergdoll, MoMA's chief curator of architecture and design, and Reinhold Martin, director of Columbia University's Buell Centre, set out to explore five struggling suburbs. These pockets of the American landscape are in the midst of a transformation. Yes, they were ravaged by the housing crisis, but they were changing even before the recession. Suburban poverty rose by 53% from 2000 to 2010, compared with a 26% jump in cities. In many suburbs, white, nuclear families have been replaced by multigenerational Hispanic ones. The old car culture has become unsustainable, as petrol guzzles a greater share of families' budgets and the need for exercise becomes ever more apparent. All this begs for new types of transport and housing. MoMA wisely seized the chance to imagine a new future for the suburbs. The result, unfortunately, is absurd.
The exhibition is disappointing largely because its premise is so fascinating. Barry Bergdoll, MoMA's chief curator of architecture and design, and Reinhold Martin, director of Columbia University's Buell Centre, set out to explore five struggling suburbs. These pockets of the American landscape are in the midst of a transformation. Yes, they were ravaged by the housing crisis, but they were changing even before the recession. Suburban poverty rose by 53% from 2000 to 2010, compared with a 26% jump in cities. In many suburbs, white, nuclear families have been replaced by multigenerational Hispanic ones. The old car culture has become unsustainable, as petrol guzzles a greater share of families' budgets and the need for exercise becomes ever more apparent. All this begs for new types of transport and housing. MoMA wisely seized the chance to imagine a new future for the suburbs. The result, unfortunately, is absurd.
DAVID N, WEST SPRINGFIELD, MA, USA
4/3/2012 3:59
THIS IS THE UGLIEST STUPIDITY I'VE EVER SEEN, BRING IN AN ARTIST TO PAINT YOU CANVAS I THINK A SMALL CHILD WITH CRAYONS COULD HAVE DONE A BETTER JOB. WHAT IS NEEDED IS TO ALLOW THE MASSES TO BE EXPOSED TO BEAUTY THAT THE ELITE CLASS ENJOY TODAY, WHAT YOUR TRYING TO DO IS HELL
THIS IS THE UGLIEST STUPIDITY I'VE EVER SEEN, BRING IN AN ARTIST TO PAINT YOU CANVAS I THINK A SMALL CHILD WITH CRAYONS COULD HAVE DONE A BETTER JOB. WHAT IS NEEDED IS TO ALLOW THE MASSES TO BE EXPOSED TO BEAUTY THAT THE ELITE CLASS ENJOY TODAY, WHAT YOUR TRYING TO DO IS HELL
Don, Whitehorse, Canada
3/3/2012 20:16
Ewww, absolutely no character and downright ugly. My ideal home is a Hobbit house,...go Tolkien for inspiration.
Ewww, absolutely no character and downright ugly. My ideal home is a Hobbit house,...go Tolkien for inspiration.
V. Pollard, Bristol
3/3/2012 15:46
Ugly. There need to be more artistic architects and with a sense of culture. Not merely technicians.
Ugly. There need to be more artistic architects and with a sense of culture. Not merely technicians.
K.M., Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, USA
3/3/2012 13:31
Truly hideous architecture.
Truly hideous architecture.
AverageBrit, UK
3/3/2012 13:18
Awful...
Awful...
Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream recently opened at the Museum of Modern Art, featuring new housing design proposals for five suburban sites across the country. But if you spend too much time staring at the show's fancy architectural models or sleek renderings, you may miss the curators' point. The physical exhibition and even its title are "decoys" at the center of a series of open workshops and symposia, designed to provoke public discussion on the future of housing in the United States. As MoMA curator Barry Bergdoll put it, "Gone is the idea of an exhibition that opens and closes in the galleries."
What is so fascinating about the exhibit is the way the design teams take all of these criticisms to heart and seek to remedy the problems of overbuilding and density through five architectural designs that really are about as different as they are similar. As to be expected, they all feature people living closer together and becoming more sustainable, but they differ enormously in how the communities are designed from an aesthetic level. I took a look at all five exhibits (virtually, of course, until I can make the trip to New York), and came away impressed with some of the projects and more skeptical of others. The five exhibits are broken down below:
Foreclosed's great achievement is the strong signal it sends to the culture-consuming public: in two of our most important architectural institutions, there’s an ambition for architecture to take on a more socially and financially relevant role. This is exciting. It will be even more so if Foreclosed helps to create structures of legitimation and appreciation for much more ambitious attempts to take on these questions in practice.
Such an ambitious show is bound to have weaknesses. The most glaring for me is that the exhibition is not really about the foreclosure crisis; instead, the crisis acts as an opportunity for architects to reclaim disciplinary territory ceded to other professions.
Nature City captivated viewers. A series of brief video advertisements by the advertising firm Weiden & Kennedy accompanied the model. The irony of the ads kept them from seeming market-ready, but WORKac nonetheless showed how much images and media must be mastered to construct desire for new suburban prototypes.
I took these images at the MoMA exhibit, ‘Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream”. They had these tabletop displays of re-imagined urban living spaces where everything was more communal, economical and efficient. What struck me about the mock ups was not their architectural design, though impressive, but the little snapshots of life within them. It gave me an almost Laforet-esque feeling on the microcosm of how we live amongst the urban sprawl. It was a great exhibit, I highly I recommend if your able to go
Unfortunately the architects in this show only intermittently make a persuasive case for their visions. Bell inventively harnesses Florida’s subtropical climate and lifestyle in his design, “Simultaneous City,” but the models and drawings are about as alluring as a sanatorium.
Zago fell in love with too-clever pixelated imagery as he pursued the valuable idea of rethinking public and private property rights to create more amenities at lower cost.
Zago fell in love with too-clever pixelated imagery as he pursued the valuable idea of rethinking public and private property rights to create more amenities at lower cost.
5. Studio Gang, "The Garden in the Machine"
Here, Studio Gang proposes literally deconstructing an existing factory to salvage its materials and build a new mixed-use group of buildings. I liked the image style very much.
Here, Studio Gang proposes literally deconstructing an existing factory to salvage its materials and build a new mixed-use group of buildings. I liked the image style very much.
4. WORKac, “Nature-City”
(Another GSAPP-related firm) I didn't look at the text for this one as thoroughly as I should have, but I blame this on the craziness of the visual material. I'm not totally sure what's going on, but it seems pretty cool. The ensemble of weird shapes makes me think of Koolhaas, specifically of “City of the Captive Globe,” while the main site model really begged for having a model train going around it. I can't say that the project made sense, but it was fun to look at.
(Another GSAPP-related firm) I didn't look at the text for this one as thoroughly as I should have, but I blame this on the craziness of the visual material. I'm not totally sure what's going on, but it seems pretty cool. The ensemble of weird shapes makes me think of Koolhaas, specifically of “City of the Captive Globe,” while the main site model really begged for having a model train going around it. I can't say that the project made sense, but it was fun to look at.
3. Zago Architecture, “Property with Properties”
This is another project that left me feeling unconvinced. The talk about “misregistration” and flexible boundaries etc. didn't seem to do much to change the overall standard suburban layout of the proposed subdivision. The models were amazing, although Seussical in their color choices and shapes.
This is another project that left me feeling unconvinced. The talk about “misregistration” and flexible boundaries etc. didn't seem to do much to change the overall standard suburban layout of the proposed subdivision. The models were amazing, although Seussical in their color choices and shapes.
2. Michael Bell and Visible Weather: "Simultaneous City" in Temple Terrace, FL
Michael Bell is another critic at GSAPP, but not one I've had before. Although his group's proposal was filled with slick renderings, I was not at all convinced, because it didn't look like anyone on the team had really thought about or looked at Florida's climate. There was text saying that the project would do this or that regarding climate, but one look at the images was enough to show that it would be ridiculous in Temple Terrace. All that glass would need to be washed continuously! Besides that, where is the vegetation in the renderings? Nothing in Florida looks like the images below - stark white and reflective - because it would blind you, and vegetation takes over whenever it gets a chance. Maybe it's just the style of the images, but it looks to me like no one on the design team had been to Florida.
Michael Bell is another critic at GSAPP, but not one I've had before. Although his group's proposal was filled with slick renderings, I was not at all convinced, because it didn't look like anyone on the team had really thought about or looked at Florida's climate. There was text saying that the project would do this or that regarding climate, but one look at the images was enough to show that it would be ridiculous in Temple Terrace. All that glass would need to be washed continuously! Besides that, where is the vegetation in the renderings? Nothing in Florida looks like the images below - stark white and reflective - because it would blind you, and vegetation takes over whenever it gets a chance. Maybe it's just the style of the images, but it looks to me like no one on the design team had been to Florida.
greybeard
03/20/12 09:52 AM
@guest #6: Agree. When you remove the Yours/Mine designation, it devolves to the:"Its yours to maintain, but mine to use" mentality. The resultant building imagery looks like a Tim Burton claymation model--and not in a good way. This is an interesting idea, but the result is more pastiche than real content.
@guest #6: Agree. When you remove the Yours/Mine designation, it devolves to the:"Its yours to maintain, but mine to use" mentality. The resultant building imagery looks like a Tim Burton claymation model--and not in a good way. This is an interesting idea, but the result is more pastiche than real content.
Anonymous
03/19/12 03:27 PM
Gorgeous renderings, but I can't imagine houses like this actually selling or being nice to be in, not that the current suburban developer offerings are so nice but at least they are what people want.
Gorgeous renderings, but I can't imagine houses like this actually selling or being nice to be in, not that the current suburban developer offerings are so nice but at least they are what people want.
ZA took a subtle approach, "creating a richer mix of uses, housing types, living situations, and landscapes than the serial repetition of an individual home with a driveway and patch of lawn would allow." The blurred look in the renderings is intentional misregistration ("a printing-process error that leads to blurred images") used metaphorically. The team also allowed a little more nature in via seasonal rivers and natural wildlife routes and made the roads narrower and "more circuitous."
21 Mar, 2012 - (@cubiclegirl)
Re-imagined areas devastated by housing crisis for MOMA http://bit.ly/yr57AO << Brilliant use of a digital narrative
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
One would be hard-pressed to find a more jarring juxtaposition to the new exhibit "Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream" than the venue itself: New York's Museum of Modern Art. MoMA is pre-High Line Big Apple contemporary, with glass, steel and high-end patrons. It is located in a very high-end neighborhood, a far cry from cities like Rialto, Calif., and Cicero, Ill. discussed in the exhibit. One is far more likely to be standing next to a Carioca discussing her new downtown condo than suburbanites wondering about foreclosure or falling property values. At $25 a ticket, an hour of museum entrance fees on a typically busy weekday could probably buy an entire block in many of the hard-hit suburban communities across the country.
That said, it is high time that a high-profile American cultural institution took on the question of housing and the future of the American Dream, and the exhibit does an admirable job of asking some important questions.
That said, it is high time that a high-profile American cultural institution took on the question of housing and the future of the American Dream, and the exhibit does an admirable job of asking some important questions.
Unfortunately, most of these ideas get lost in the pretty models and large-scale renderings, buried under architectural gloss and the dominance of design. I have the utmost respect for the goals of the Buell Hypothesis, and I would argue that most of us at Polis are attempting to engage in a new public conversation on urbanism. However, I question the degree to which the exhibit pushes this conversation forward. Perhaps it is my own distrust of high architecture, or of architecture and architects as the primary drivers of this conversation. Much is made in the Buell text of the history of modernism and public housing, a history that made many non-designers like myself inherently distrustful of a conversation about changing cities that seems to foreground physical models.
The failure of this exhibit to highlight a fact that it clearly knows, and instead fall back on the enticing eye candy of design, is all the more frustrating because of its location. New York City has long been home to some of the most innovative ideas in collective property ownership, from co-ops to mutual housing associations.
27 Mar, 2012 - (@hvanbiber )
I can't stop looking at the models. http://www.moma.org/interactives/e …(Read about it here: http://www.thepolisblog.org/2012/03/new-yo …) #LIFEINTHEFUTURE???
01 Apr, 2012 - (@davidbarrie)
gr8 project by @studiogang: Closed factory dismantled & parts used to build combinable living spaces > http://bit.ly/H88gIn #MoMAForeclosed
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/cicero/
04 Apr, 2012 - (@negingm)
5 fantastic US housing research and urban/suburban design proposals http://www.moma.org/interactives/e …
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
06 Apr, 2012 - (@Publicyte)
Smart cities: MoMA art exhibit rethinks suburban America - http://bit.ly/IgbWBr
06 Apr, 2012 - (@EverythingMS )
Foreclosed: MoMA Exhibition Re-Thinks Suburban American Life http://bit.ly/I7TuQK
06 Apr, 2012 - (@DataCenterBlogs )
Foreclosed: MoMA Exhibition Re-Thinks Suburban American Life: The recent foreclosure crisis has taken a heavy t... http://bit.ly/HYOD3V
The displays include placards with statistics that show how housing in five different suburban communities has become financially unsustainable and environmentally unsound. Wall mounted texts feature excerpts from an imagined conversation between Socrates and one of his students-which takes place in a traffic jam-about how to change dominant cultural narratives that disparage public housing and public transportation.
Architectural models offer stylized solutions to suburban ills. Suburbs accessible by proposed high-speed rail corridors are retrofitted with high-density developments, which in some cases are stripped of streets. Instead of oversized single-family suburban houses narrowly tailored for the nuclear family, the show provides a variety of housing models for people in different groupings, such as empty nesters and extended families.
Architectural models offer stylized solutions to suburban ills. Suburbs accessible by proposed high-speed rail corridors are retrofitted with high-density developments, which in some cases are stripped of streets. Instead of oversized single-family suburban houses narrowly tailored for the nuclear family, the show provides a variety of housing models for people in different groupings, such as empty nesters and extended families.
Commenting on the architects’ renderings — tiered gray blocks of aerated concrete — both Ms. Jackson and Ms. Gidigbi compared them to what one might find in the third world. And on that note, Mr. Meredith suggested it was the Orange officials who were in need of a reality check.
“You could say parts of Orange look like a third-world country already,” he said. “It’s incredibly tragic what’s going on there, what some people have to do to survive.”
“You could say parts of Orange look like a third-world country already,” he said. “It’s incredibly tragic what’s going on there, what some people have to do to survive.”
Angie
On April 16, 2012 at 7:26 pm
Um, where is historic preservation in this conversation???? HP must be a part of the conversation for community sustainability.
Um, where is historic preservation in this conversation???? HP must be a part of the conversation for community sustainability.
However, the approaches appear somewhat utopistic and idealistic. For instance, the proposed model for Oranges, New Jersey would eliminate almost all of the streets which of course would have ecological benefits, but this is hardly realizable. Although car dependency in the suburbs is an issue – which needs to be tackled – it would have been important to also see some ideas which actually could be realized immediately. Within this model cars would not be able to exist at all in the center of the city. In addition, the model Nature City proposes that organic waste should be burned which in return would produce Methan and, thus, create fuel. However, it is questionable if this is realizable in a city due to the smell which is released. Moreover, the proposed housing solutions for Cicero, Illinois are great since they give an individual freedom, however, standardized housing solutions often create issues in reality.
18 Apr, 2012 - (@fadishayya )
Amazing work by @Workac& others at Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream at http://MoMA.org http://bit.ly/tO5FUi
22 Apr, 2012 - (@andyypark)
Foreclosed exhibit @ MoMA - Museum of Modern Art http://instagr.am/p/JvMhFViGXk/
24 Apr, 2012 - (@akjkim)
An exhibit I saw at MoMA. Very interesting and impressive architectural project. :) Foreclosed at http://MoMA.org http://bit.ly/wQpxaR
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
01 May, 2012 - (@Bernd_Fesel )
A MUST: #MoMAExhibition "Half of America live in suburbs - treated as inhospitable wilderness" - http://bit.ly/whHkX2 /@NYMAG
01 May, 2012 - (@Bernd_Fesel )
Policy: Can #Architecture#Innovationsave Suburbs? MoMA for new alliance of planning & building #cities. http://bit.ly/whHkX2
01 May, 2012 - (@LABKULTUR )
[POLICY] Can Architecture Innovation save Suburbs? #MoMAfor new alliance of planning #citieshttp://bit.ly/whHkX2 /RT @Bernd_Fesel
Those not paying attention have seemed to mistake it for a standard architectural exhibition, and in their defense it does have some very swish models-this is MoMA, after all. But this is not a show about form, in the old MoMA tradition. It is about shifting expectations, somewhat more challenging terrain. Its underlying thesis is something called the Buell Hypothesis, the product of Columbia University architecture students and faculty, that argues that the American dream must be reinvented wholesale for the 21st century.
06 May, 2012 - (@brownwilliamart )
MOMA Exhibition. Foreclosed. Rehousing the American Dream. MOS’s Thoughts on a Walking City pr http://pinterest.com/pin/2426314986 …
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
07 May, 2012 - (@addam)
foreclosed: rehousing the american dream @ Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) http://instagr.am/p/KVh-tVFBxw/
On a second visit, I was relieved to notice evidence of a persistent engagement with reality, which is remarkable for MoMA. There was, in each display, a small video screen showing scenes—very dreary, very believable—of the five towns in question. However, each of those screens is paired with one immediately beneath it, which was showing footage of impromptu studio talks given by the architects. Michael Meredith, for instance, was explaining the Pez-shaped buildings that MOS has crammed into the streets of the Oranges, in New Jersey: “This informality of the repetition of this module allows for these gaps of public space….” These jargon-filled videos had the unintended effect of making the architects seem even more divorced from reality than they are. It’s what happens when you pair architect-speak with, say, scenes of boarded-up houses. The juxta-position is, I guess, an argument in favor of MoMA’s customary shunning of the real.
When I walked into the press opening of Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream at MoMA, an endless panel discussion was underway, and all I could do was tiptoe from model to model—from Studio Gang Architects’ charming Kenner Building Set take on Cicero, Illinois, to Andrew Zago’s new strategy for Rialto, California, which is represented by a batch of oddly shaped, multicolored boxes that don’t appear to say anything specific about housing. I spent time pondering Nature- City, the Keizer, Oregon, project designed by a team led by Amale Andraos and Dan Wood of Work AC. Its biomorphic form reminded me of Arcosanti, the Paolo Soleri “city” that has been rising in the desert north of Phoenix for decades, and its concept evoked the long-postponed eco-city of Dongtan, China, near Shanghai. Then I shrugged and walked away. A play on that old line from Roman Polanski’s Chinatown came to mind: “Forget it, Jake. It’s MoMA.”
Or as the financier put it, “It’s like a commune, except that no one is standing around playing hacky sack.” Maybe he meant Frisbee, but no matter. It’s interesting that it took an expert in finance to see the genuinely visionary idea that’s buried deep in this exhibition. I don’t think the models that fill most of the gallery have the power to upend convention—at this point, it would take a pretty outrageous architectural idea to shake up a MoMA visitor. However, given the paranoid tenor of our time, in which the president is routinely accused of being a socialist for bailing out Chrysler, and Tea Party types commonly regard efforts to reduce sprawl as a United Nations–driven attack on our freedoms, a museum show proposing the collective ownership of front lawns is wonderfully and unexpectedly subversive.
The exhibit is small, but its significance is especially immense, introducing visitors to the mortgage crisis that is plaguing the suburbs. The exhibit emphasizes the importance of the suburbs in the development of the American Dream.
18 May, 2012 - (@laurenglasscock)
Checking out: "Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream" (@ Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) w/ 24 others) [pic]: http://4sq.com/JSUVkm
Accompanied by a friend who's as obsessed with architecture as myself, I was drawn into the vortex of a one-room mind-fuck called "Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream".
This exhibition highlights the marriage of utility and aesthetics. It strives to promote five distinct prototypical solutions to the current ills of the foreclosure market, and brings them into the context of artistic expression as a tangible, visual, and thought-provoking platform. The solutions all revolve around one central theory: the Buell Hypothesis, which suggests that if you change the dream, you change the city. It challenges modern day conceptions of “The American Dream,” advocating for denser, more sustainable, more affordable, and more livable communities rather than the rampant single-family units scattered across America’s expanse today. The work of a dream team cast of academics, urban planners, designers, ecologists, and architects (including urban economist Edward Glaser, author of Triumph of the City), the legitimate and highly professional exhibit expresses hope for impoverished communities and developing metropolises alike.
The Ranch Mine
MAY 29, 2012 • 6:38 AM
Fantastic post, you hit all my thoughts on this exhibition. I first lost it when looking at the Rialto, CA project that had an elephant in the project section. After all, nothing scales a project in Southern California better than an elephant.
Fantastic post, you hit all my thoughts on this exhibition. I first lost it when looking at the Rialto, CA project that had an elephant in the project section. After all, nothing scales a project in Southern California better than an elephant.
The show’s mission was “to come up with inventive solutions for the future of American Suburbs.” Great, we thought, let’s see some solutions!
MOMA, we love you. Really, we do. We are card carrying members of the Museum of Modern Art and we diligently pay you a visit each and every time we’re in Manhattan. You’ve been a fixture on our Modern List from the start and we’re constantly sending family, friends and colleagues your way. We have no intention of changing any of this. But you did it again. We were just there and we saw the train wreck with our own eyes. You took a critical issue of social and architectural importance and turned it into a theoretical art project. The last time you did this was with the Prefab Housing Exhibit (July-October 2008) which announced prefabricated architectural solutions to real housing issues; but really it was just an art project masquerading as something purposeful. It took three Negronis, two Compari & sodas, and a shrimp cocktail at the MOMA bar to doctor the wounds from that show.
29 May, 2012 - (@roopaonline)
Aft'noon @Foreclosed, v. thoughtful show on alternative suburban living by @columbiaunivarchitect Prof. Martin @MOMApic.twitter.com/3Ugp1A25
29 May, 2012 - (@ArchiDame)
Foreclosed:#Housing the #American Dream – mixing urbanism, debt & #architecture archinect.com/features/artic…
29 May, 2012 - (@maryhillmuseum )
#Keizer#Oregonfeatured in amazing @MuseumModernArt#sustainable#housingexhibit featuring @WiedenKennedyhttp://ow.ly/bdkCI
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
It sounds a tad academic, but the exhibition has been pulling in crowds
with its use of appealing architectural models, videos, artists’ renderings, and large-scale graphics. Even a Rubik’s Cube plays its part, helping to explain Studio Gang’s presentation for Cicero, Ill., an aging suburb outside Chicago. The cube, with its shifting components, represents the plan’s modular “recombinant” housing, mostly within an abandoned factory; the concept allows residents to buy only those parts of a dwelling that they need, adding or subtracting rooms as their families grow or shrink.
with its use of appealing architectural models, videos, artists’ renderings, and large-scale graphics. Even a Rubik’s Cube plays its part, helping to explain Studio Gang’s presentation for Cicero, Ill., an aging suburb outside Chicago. The cube, with its shifting components, represents the plan’s modular “recombinant” housing, mostly within an abandoned factory; the concept allows residents to buy only those parts of a dwelling that they need, adding or subtracting rooms as their families grow or shrink.
Therein lies the problem. Since cities began to rapidly expand more than a century ago, urban thinkers have proposed transit-oriented, neighborhood-based development as the antidote, packaged in architectural wrapping appropriate to innovative thinking of the time. Obviously, we’re missing something. The strongest piece on this exhibit wall is a deceptively simple ad campaign. The actual buildings of Foreclosed range from whimsical to indecipherable; a few might be at home in Manhattan or downtown Chicago, but none would be adopted by a suburban developer today. While we lament the lack of popular design sophistication, visitors flock to the model with blinking lights and tiny people, and miss the more important underlying ideas. We architects are left talking with ourselves, once again.
The problem is the architecture. I’ll explain.
The large scale of these projects, their abstract white renderings, and even their titles suggest that the best way to support ailing suburbs is to transform them into cities. Is there a way to develop suburbs as suburbs, a way to build less densely but also responsibly?
This prologue to the Hypothesis and the Foreclosed designs does a great job of explaining how the mortgage crisis is based on global finance -- ergo, so is home ownership. It also illustrates how suburbs are increasingly city-like, in terms of demographics, economics, and social conflict. Therefore changing conditions locally and globally necessitate a reconsideration of the suburban milieu, not just quick fixes to the existing infrastructure. But do the five designs point to effective "dreams" for Americans to consider?
Think of Foreclosed, then, as a highly controlled laboratory experiment, a mapping of constraints and a documentation of erasures. It represents one contribution that a university and a museum can make together, as participants in the public sphere, or the multivalent space in which public opinion — and "common sense" — is formed and contested. Whether it contributes to anything like a shift in the dominant paradigm remains to be seen. Thus far, indications are that it has touched a nerve. Whether that translates merely into a nervous reaction or into strategies for structural transformation from below, from above, and from the sides — this is our mutual challenge to take up in this discussion, and beyond.
Now you could rightly object that this merely reproduces architecture’s ideological role as a regressive image-machine by emphasizing "dreams" over material or economic processes. But the point is not that a collective fantasy or narrative like the "American Dream" defines or produces the single-family house and its all-too-real plumbing, wiring, driveways, roads, subdivisions, and so on.
Instead, the dream is conjured out of these material things and fed back into them as a guiding norm. Similarly, architectural projects, no matter how fanciful or abstract, are real, material things (models, drawings, and videos, in this case) that put ideas (and maybe dreams) on the table for detailed debate by interested parties. Yes, this too could be a distraction, and the still unmet challenge is to assemble all of the parties, from residents to public officials to investment bankers, in an agonistic yet equitable setting. Nevertheless, the large models of large-scale proposals sitting on tables in a MoMA gallery represent a deliberate curatorial decision, since models have a way of generating discussion and assembling publics around themselves. The tables on which the models sit might even foreshadow our efforts with this online roundtable, which the Buell Center has convened in collaboration with Architects, Designers, and Planners for Social Responsibility to explore the contours that configure the debate surrounding housing and suburbanization itself.
Instead, the dream is conjured out of these material things and fed back into them as a guiding norm. Similarly, architectural projects, no matter how fanciful or abstract, are real, material things (models, drawings, and videos, in this case) that put ideas (and maybe dreams) on the table for detailed debate by interested parties. Yes, this too could be a distraction, and the still unmet challenge is to assemble all of the parties, from residents to public officials to investment bankers, in an agonistic yet equitable setting. Nevertheless, the large models of large-scale proposals sitting on tables in a MoMA gallery represent a deliberate curatorial decision, since models have a way of generating discussion and assembling publics around themselves. The tables on which the models sit might even foreshadow our efforts with this online roundtable, which the Buell Center has convened in collaboration with Architects, Designers, and Planners for Social Responsibility to explore the contours that configure the debate surrounding housing and suburbanization itself.
The results of the experiment are on display at MoMA and at this interactive online exhibit. The exhibit caused some controversy when it first opened for being “unrealistic” (planners said it would be impossible to change zoning laws to permit denser development patters in inner-ring suburbs, for example). But it’s also been hailed as innovative and visionary. I found it fascinating to read through and to look at the pictures and renderings that envision incredible possibilities for changes in our everyday spaces.
Sometimes the most important things are not the easiest things to display. This can be particularly apparent in attempts at presenting economic or social policy ideas in a museum exhibit, an inherently visual venue.
But beyond the architecture, landscaping and infrastructure, which were all inventive, it's more in the fine print of the exhibits and in the catalog that gets to the more radical reimagining of the American dream. Many teams experimented with altering the standard system of home ownership through a bill of sale for land and a home, with a conventional bank-financed mortgage. The teams called for "portable mortgages," a "public real estate investment trust," a "community land bank," a "public-private partnership," and a "limited equity cooperative." These alternative ownership systems take a clear cue from the Columbia University manifesto, and strive to give alternatives to individual homeownership by emphasizing the public and long-term ownership of housing by a given community or government. This is real change.
Unfortunately this aspect of the show is only given a few sentences in the exhibit catalog, as well as the website and physical exhibit. A more detailed description of ideas such as "portable mortgages" or "public real estate investment trusts" would have taken the conversation further into the intersection of buildings and the communities that inhabit them. More than changing zoning or the physical walls around people's kitchens and bedrooms, expanding more the possibilities of new types of housing tenure would have been helpful. This would have provided a clearer path to showing how they propose we ground these new American dreams financially and legally.
Unfortunately this aspect of the show is only given a few sentences in the exhibit catalog, as well as the website and physical exhibit. A more detailed description of ideas such as "portable mortgages" or "public real estate investment trusts" would have taken the conversation further into the intersection of buildings and the communities that inhabit them. More than changing zoning or the physical walls around people's kitchens and bedrooms, expanding more the possibilities of new types of housing tenure would have been helpful. This would have provided a clearer path to showing how they propose we ground these new American dreams financially and legally.
03 Jul, 2012 - (@Jodie_Parmar)
“Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream” at the Museum of Modern Art http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2012/03/suburban-design …#MoMA#urbanism#suburbanpic.twitter.com/ygjQltVL
11 Jul, 2012 - (@jmanvalenz)
#MoMA#NYC#manhattan#models#ecodesign#architecture#foreclosed:r @
New York Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) http://instagr.am/p/M9NGmfw4xH/
11 Jul, 2012 - (@ScottBerka )
One of the most interesting museum exhibits I've ever seen: Foreclosed at http://MoMA.org http://bit.ly/wQpxaR @MuseumModernArt
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
14 Jul, 2012 - (@AMusingCanadian)
@VisionVancouver@greenestcityMaking silk purses out of sows' ears? MOMA, "Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream" http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/exhibitions/1230 …
19 Jul, 2012 - (@jamojo)
MoMA Foreclosed - http://bit.ly/Q7OpwH - great exhibit! - #cplan#design#architecture#housing#sustainability
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
4eva, .-.. --- ...- . --..-- / -. --- - / .... .- - ., 2995 Fans
09:18 AM on 07/23/2012
Thank you.
The MOMA exhibit seems more like advertisment for avante garde architects than anything else.
My links below show a different approach.
Thank you.
The MOMA exhibit seems more like advertisment for avante garde architects than anything else.
My links below show a different approach.
None of these designs is likely to be built, and their individual merits and aesthetic appeal are largely beside the point. The point is the exercise that produced them: setting aside the conditions that have constrained our housing choices -- applicable zoning, traditional ownership structures and standard financial models -- to imagine what communities could become were architects free to consider only fruitful living and the best usage of resources.
26 Jul, 2012 - (@jmvolland)
MOMA's Foreclosed, a thematic exhibition on new models of housing in response to mortgage crisis, closes soon: http://bit.ly/wQpxaR
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
28 Jul, 2012 - (@draw_the)
Need a break from the Olympics? Only 2 days left to see @MuseumModernArt's Foreclosed exhibit. http://ow.ly/cz2lo
Now why did this exhibit fascinate my 11 year old daughter? The answer is not that she has studied these issues in 5th grade nor is it that I have spent time with her talking about foreclosures. The answer is that the exhibit included "a wide array of models, renderings, animations, and analytical materials" that captured her attention and her interest.
Very often disciplines divide serious issues, which are then studied in one silo when the problem and the solution transcend many silos and disciplines. As the exhibit clearly demonstrates, we can "rehouse the American dream" but certainly not by doing the same old things in the same old ways. See the exhibit before it closes on August 13th or pick up the book which has the same title. Economics and architecture never looked better together.
Very often disciplines divide serious issues, which are then studied in one silo when the problem and the solution transcend many silos and disciplines. As the exhibit clearly demonstrates, we can "rehouse the American dream" but certainly not by doing the same old things in the same old ways. See the exhibit before it closes on August 13th or pick up the book which has the same title. Economics and architecture never looked better together.
The exhibit at the MoMA includes film presentations, interactive multimedia, and incredibly detailed scale models, which are surely the highlight of it all. A blog also shares insider perspectives on the work done by the teams, as well. Whether or not any of the five ideas come to fruition, Foreclosed is definitely a not-to-miss stop among the collections. On display through August 13th, with a closing lecture scheduled that day, there is still time to enjoy the exhibit this summer.
02 Aug, 2012 - (@OPlaw)
From the Museum of Modern Art in New York's exhibition on Foreclosure...http://t.co/huK8wTwk http://fb.me/19v8pOS4v
03 Aug, 2012 - (@TheBGates)
From the "Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream" exhibit. #MoMA@MuseumModernArthttp://lockerz.com/s/230921079 http://lockerz.com/s/230921093
04 Aug, 2012 - (@MistressCabesh)
@rachelsloerts Thinking of you at the #MoMAexhibit, http://MoMA.org/foreclosed http://instagr.am/p/N6jZShS_Ts/
Open through August 13, Foreclosed engages the Buell Hypothesis by attempting to assess whether a change in cultural assumptions has the potential to allay the effect of the foreclosure crisis and diminish the impracticality of the suburbs. Each of the projects employs the hypothesis as a call for change by harnessing its potential to redefine suburban sprawl. Tucked away in a room on the third floor of MoMA, Foreclosed illuminates a new opportunity for unrestrained innovation in response to the housing crisis.
BL: The five teams, although each one of them in their own way tried to saddle up to the issue of public housing, no one really took it dead-on. No one really looked at it square in the eyes and ran at it, because it is so controversial, or that would be my guess from being on one of the teams and watching the other four teams work closely. It still has such a stigma to it. There is still such reluctance by the architectural community to reengage this issue of public housing that everyone kind of walked up to the edge and then shied back from it.
MJ: We cannot assume that the quality of transit-oriented development is a given. While I don’t want to end on that note, it’s worthwhile insofar as it’s cautionary. It reminds us that we can take nothing for granted. Rehousing also challenges us not to take anything for granted, to think not only about the ways out of the foreclosure crisis, but also ways out of the suburban cul-de-sac we’ve been trapped in during the post-World War II period. It’s a forceful statement that we needn’t assume nor accept more of the same, that we can alter the path of and look and feel and underlying meaning of our homes and communities. And, for that reason, we should embrace its provocations.
MJ: While we didn’t fall prey to the siren song of large-scale master plans, our fine-grain plans have sometimes also proven to be small-bore. And although we’ve done much better in recent years, fine architecture has been far more the exception than the rule. And that’s where this project serves as a wonderful provocation. It reminds us not to allow the urgency of the crisis and the need for immediate solutions to blind us to the larger opportunities the crisis presents to us.
Because the teams were tasked with presenting provocations and not solutions to the foreclosure crisis, we were able to use their proposals as a starting point for a discussion at MoMA on June 13 with Marc Jahr, President of the NYC Housing Development Corporation, and Brian Loughlin, Chief Architect, Jersey City Housing Authority. Marc and Brian reflected on ways in which the five Foreclosed team proposals could be applied to the New York and New Jersey regions, both to help emphasize the fact that the projects were intended to be seen as representational archetypes as opposed to proscriptive solutions, and to shift the emphasis from the national to the local agenda.
disclosureproject
creating art out of any situation is always good
18 Aug, 2012 - (@_ElijahPorter)
Some Photos from MoMA's "Foreclosed" exhibition http://www.flickr.com/photos/elijahporter/sets/72157631131622762/ …
Family (25)
As the barriers to entry into the American Dream – interpreted as a house in the suburbs – rise, the Foreclosed project tackles the question of “what if” we could dream a bit differently. The suburb was built on the notion of the nuclear family that lived and worked within a relatively small geographic area, but, in the past 50 years, as ring upon ring of suburb spirals out into all the space zoning codes permit, residents of the suburbs are increasingly remote from the places where they work.
“The drive everywhere for cheaper and cheaper things mentality is unsustainable. It’s getting more crowded and a huge portion of the income goes into transportation,” Dufaux said.
“The drive everywhere for cheaper and cheaper things mentality is unsustainable. It’s getting more crowded and a huge portion of the income goes into transportation,” Dufaux said.
These efforts make a broader point about the quality of place. In cities across the country, from New York to New Orleans, we’ve seen when artists move in, others follow—from families looking to raise their children in dynamic, diverse neighborhoods to young creative professionals with skills that are essential to the 21st-century global economy.
Instead of cookie cutter houses that are oriented towards an outdated concept of the nuclear family, the different teams suggested adding a variety of housing types that would provide shelter for people in different groupings such as empty nesters and extended families. Sidewalks and walkways would be added to make communities more pedestrian friendly, while the incorporation of retail and light industrial infill developments would aid in reducing dependence on cars.
macphile
I live in the sprawlingest (yes, it's a word) city there is, let me tell you, and there has to come a point where we stop. People already have 1-hour commutes or more, all so they can have their perfect (cheaply built) house in good school districts. If they go much further, they'll be in the district of the next city over. Quality of life isn't just about keeping your kids away from the minorities and "teh gayz." It should also be about how much of your life you're spending in traffic jams and whether there's any nature left for your kids to see because you've bulldozed it all (just so you can complain when the neighborhood is "invaded" by wild animals). And those lawns...and those deed restrictions. It's all a blight. A blight, I say.
December 20, 2011 at 5:44 pm
December 20, 2011 at 5:44 pm
Her son-in-law and two of her grandchildren are out of work because of the Wall Street crash a few years ago. Right now, amazingly, all of her 15 grandchildren and 27 great-grandchildren live within a 10-minute drive of her home. But she fears that will change.
The suburban dream isn't the same for them, she said.
"It'll never happen again," she said of the suburban boom.
And that's too bad: "It was a much nicer way of living."
The suburban dream isn't the same for them, she said.
"It'll never happen again," she said of the suburban boom.
And that's too bad: "It was a much nicer way of living."
Here’s where design comes in. Most of Cicero’s housing is detached, single-family homes. But these are too expensive for many immigrants, so five or six families often squeeze into one of Cicero’s brick bungalows. This creates unstable financial situations, neighborhood tensions and falling real estate values.
As anyone familiar with the tragic history of public housing in Chicago knows, high-rise housing has often proved ill-suited to the needs of low-income families, especially large families. A mother on the 10th floor can't look out her kitchen window and keep a close eye on her child playing in the backyard. Unsupervised children often play in elevators, causing them to break down.
As Jeanne Gang and Greg Lindsay point out in their New York Times op-ed piece, zoning codes are inimical to many of the policies that allow for redevelopment – not growth. They cite the Chicago suburb of Cicero, Illinois. Issues facing Cicero are “typical of most suburbs, including the segregation of residential, commercial and industrial facilities; prohibitions on expanding and reusing buildings for new homes and businesses; and tight restrictions on mixed-use properties. Cicero’s code also defines ‘family’ in a way that excludes the large, multigenerational groupings now common across the country.” By redefining these codes to allow for development of underutilized property, the suburbs can become a thriving community that reuses structures and reimagines them as beneficial to humanity, instead of the abandoned structures that currently exist on the outskirts of cities across the US.
The other star of the exhibition is Jeanne Gang, the Chicago architect. She and her teammates tackled the problems of Cicero, an older Chicago suburb that is filled with rotting industrial facilities but not the kind of housing needed by its large immigrant population. They decided to play to Cicero’s strengths, as what Gang calls an “arrival city,” by creating modular housing that can go up or down in size as families evolve. They also reclaimed industrial facilities as gardens and, like most of the teams, came up with an unconventional financing scheme. Like the very different WORKac proposal, Gang’s Cicero proposal seems practically shovel-ready, even though, as she pointed out in a New York Times op-ed, it remains illegal under Chicago’s zoning code.
Many of the town's families are crammed into bungalows and two-flats (left), doubling and tripling up as they struggle to pay mortgages taken on during the boom years. They have converted basements and attics into bedrooms or, in a further attempt to make ends meet, transformed garages into makeshift workspaces for car repairs and other odd jobs. Technically, such arrangements violate the thrust of the town's zoning code, which calls for a strict separation of homes and businesses.
TomPaine4
11 months ago
What crap. For example, says Jeanne Gang, "Cicero’s code also defines "family" in a way that excludes the large, multigenerational groupings." Too much trouble to look? Here is the definition, from the Cicero Illinois Code of Ordinances, sec 46-466:
"Family means a single individual, doing his own cooking, and living upon the premises as a separate housekeeping unit, or a collective body of persons doing their own cooking and living together upon the premises as a separate housekeeping unit in a domestic relationship based upon birth, marriage, or other domestic bond, as distinguished from a group occupying a boardinghouse, lodginghouse, club, fraternity or hotel."
So, multigenerational, and related by birth? That's a family. Large? Not in the definition. Not related by blood, nor by marriage, but cooking and living together, based on a domestic bond? Family, again.
I have no love for Cicero, but Jeanne Gang can make municipal ordinances look reasonable by comparison.
Let's go on to the very next phrase, "now common across the country." Are we to believe that large multigenerational groupings are now common across the country? If they are common, then these onerous regulations aren't having much effect. If they aren't common, then we have Jeanne Gang reporting what she wishes were true, in place of what is. Tool.
What crap. For example, says Jeanne Gang, "Cicero’s code also defines "family" in a way that excludes the large, multigenerational groupings." Too much trouble to look? Here is the definition, from the Cicero Illinois Code of Ordinances, sec 46-466:
"Family means a single individual, doing his own cooking, and living upon the premises as a separate housekeeping unit, or a collective body of persons doing their own cooking and living together upon the premises as a separate housekeeping unit in a domestic relationship based upon birth, marriage, or other domestic bond, as distinguished from a group occupying a boardinghouse, lodginghouse, club, fraternity or hotel."
So, multigenerational, and related by birth? That's a family. Large? Not in the definition. Not related by blood, nor by marriage, but cooking and living together, based on a domestic bond? Family, again.
I have no love for Cicero, but Jeanne Gang can make municipal ordinances look reasonable by comparison.
Let's go on to the very next phrase, "now common across the country." Are we to believe that large multigenerational groupings are now common across the country? If they are common, then these onerous regulations aren't having much effect. If they aren't common, then we have Jeanne Gang reporting what she wishes were true, in place of what is. Tool.
CH: One of the other architects, Jeanne Gang, who did a project in Cicero in the exhibit, makes this great point that I never thought about in these terms. She said that you’re sort of making a casino bet when you buy a house. You’re betting that it’s going to rise in value. That was a bet that a lot of people made, and now they’re on the wrong side of that bet. But, you’re also betting about what your life is going to look like. How many people are going to inhabit that house? You’re putting money down—you’re putting all your wealth in most cases—into this structure that says, “I am going to be married with the two kids and the dog” or whatever. And the fact is that new family members come in as immigrants possibly or you get divorced or you lose your job or your kids have to move back because they can’t get jobs. So the house is insufficiently flexible to deal with the changing American family.
MB: People have looked toward changing or improving the suburbs
for a long time. You can go back to the 1970s, and academics are often
lambasted for not being sensitive about it. But the reason I’m bringing
this up is that what is different at this point in time is everything from
globalization in terms of where is production happening, what are the
jobs. When you talk about housing, you ultimately always—even if you’re
an architect—end up talking about jobs. What will secure that loan in the
future? So, flexibility comes in. But the difference now, I think, is that
what people realize… And the foreclosure crisis is an awful thing, it is
absolutely a crisis, but it does start to create a situation where people
start to imagine that what we have is not inevitable. And, in fact, it was
produced, and it was dreamed. I think, people don’t like change in housing,
and they should worry about change in housing, but what we have is also
not terribly secure. And, so, I think that’s what you’re bringing up, and
Jeanne was bringing that up quite brilliantly.
CH: One of the things I think Detroit forces us to think of is the fact that
the things we think are natural are contingent.
MB: People have looked toward changing or improving the suburbs
for a long time. You can go back to the 1970s, and academics are often
lambasted for not being sensitive about it. But the reason I’m bringing
this up is that what is different at this point in time is everything from
globalization in terms of where is production happening, what are the
jobs. When you talk about housing, you ultimately always—even if you’re
an architect—end up talking about jobs. What will secure that loan in the
future? So, flexibility comes in. But the difference now, I think, is that
what people realize… And the foreclosure crisis is an awful thing, it is
absolutely a crisis, but it does start to create a situation where people
start to imagine that what we have is not inevitable. And, in fact, it was
produced, and it was dreamed. I think, people don’t like change in housing,
and they should worry about change in housing, but what we have is also
not terribly secure. And, so, I think that’s what you’re bringing up, and
Jeanne was bringing that up quite brilliantly.
CH: One of the things I think Detroit forces us to think of is the fact that
the things we think are natural are contingent.
Any honest attempt to fix the suburbs has to start with facing up to why so many Americans live in the suburbs in the first place, and who those Americans are. Suburban families are bigger than urban families; they like their space; and they like living in places where they’re a good distance from their neighbors and a long way indeed from people of other social classes.
Neo Urban Planner
Mar 24th 2012, 11:25
I have been working on new style of urban planing among capital cities. The fundamental difference between urban city and suburb has almost similar meaning of difference between individual-life style and nuclear family-life style. Urban city needs excitement. Suburb needs relax. It is good to be focused on Hispanic-Family's tradition for re-developing suburb community environment. Is there any support to business start-up for those new residents ? Maybe they should develop those project with economists and/or investors to be real american dream makers.....
I have been working on new style of urban planing among capital cities. The fundamental difference between urban city and suburb has almost similar meaning of difference between individual-life style and nuclear family-life style. Urban city needs excitement. Suburb needs relax. It is good to be focused on Hispanic-Family's tradition for re-developing suburb community environment. Is there any support to business start-up for those new residents ? Maybe they should develop those project with economists and/or investors to be real american dream makers.....
SometimesLeftSometimesRight
Mar 3rd 2012, 13:35
I saw the show two days ago with my husband and kids (9 and 11). It's been the topic of conversation since then. I hate to think about what sort of world we are leaving our children, not only are our cities and infrastructure falling apart but more importantly there seems to be nobody proposing an alternative to our current state of decay. Although they look very well considered, I'm not sure all the proposals are reasonable, but it's wonderful to have people seriously proposing an alternative to our sinking status quo. I wish there was more of exhibitions like this forcing us to think how we are all responsible for the construction of our world, our cities and suburbs. And more importantly that urban development and infrastructure are our legacy we leave our children.
I saw the show two days ago with my husband and kids (9 and 11). It's been the topic of conversation since then. I hate to think about what sort of world we are leaving our children, not only are our cities and infrastructure falling apart but more importantly there seems to be nobody proposing an alternative to our current state of decay. Although they look very well considered, I'm not sure all the proposals are reasonable, but it's wonderful to have people seriously proposing an alternative to our sinking status quo. I wish there was more of exhibitions like this forcing us to think how we are all responsible for the construction of our world, our cities and suburbs. And more importantly that urban development and infrastructure are our legacy we leave our children.
typingmonkey
Mar 2nd 2012, 19:31
It looks to me like the Orange NJ proposal is to place buildings in the centers of certain street segments to create
1 - density
2 - mixed use (neighborhood retail/commercial services)
3 - capillary cul-de-sacs (where kids can play without through traffic)
These could put services close to residents, and make walking/biking to them more attractive at the same time. This, in turn, could reinvigorate the local economy and sense of community. Not an easy task in existing grids, so we must begin thinking of unconventional solutions. Fire engines, by the way, routinely serve cul-de-sacs.
I have also long championed flexibility in housing to better accomodate the diverse life paths taken in modern times and other cultures. The American Dream/white picket fence/Mayberry suburb fails badly at this, making your Cicero concept another valuable exercise. In 2012 America, we have a working class that may marry 3 times or not at all. We are all step-this and step-that. College kids might need to return home for years. Grandma might need closer care. Families aren't really nuclear, they are fissile, fusile, orbital and subatomic. So bring back the courtyard, with apartments around it.
The reintegration of nature into our communities is another worthy goal. I think creek daylighting, community gardens, and village greens are all good ideas. The cougar idea must be whimsy, but it helps us avoid getting trapped in the fallacy that land is a purely human medium.
CH, I advise you to spend more time off the island of Manhattan. Go to Alaska. Go to Detroit. Go to a hutong. And go to a desolate American suburb. Then go back to MoMA and tell me what you see.
It looks to me like the Orange NJ proposal is to place buildings in the centers of certain street segments to create
1 - density
2 - mixed use (neighborhood retail/commercial services)
3 - capillary cul-de-sacs (where kids can play without through traffic)
These could put services close to residents, and make walking/biking to them more attractive at the same time. This, in turn, could reinvigorate the local economy and sense of community. Not an easy task in existing grids, so we must begin thinking of unconventional solutions. Fire engines, by the way, routinely serve cul-de-sacs.
I have also long championed flexibility in housing to better accomodate the diverse life paths taken in modern times and other cultures. The American Dream/white picket fence/Mayberry suburb fails badly at this, making your Cicero concept another valuable exercise. In 2012 America, we have a working class that may marry 3 times or not at all. We are all step-this and step-that. College kids might need to return home for years. Grandma might need closer care. Families aren't really nuclear, they are fissile, fusile, orbital and subatomic. So bring back the courtyard, with apartments around it.
The reintegration of nature into our communities is another worthy goal. I think creek daylighting, community gardens, and village greens are all good ideas. The cougar idea must be whimsy, but it helps us avoid getting trapped in the fallacy that land is a purely human medium.
CH, I advise you to spend more time off the island of Manhattan. Go to Alaska. Go to Detroit. Go to a hutong. And go to a desolate American suburb. Then go back to MoMA and tell me what you see.
Kim, Toronto
4/3/2012 15:01
I would not want my kids to grow up in that cold lifeless compound looking mess. I bet those designers do not have kids. Who paid for this really. I bet they have a evil plans for total control. This makes me sick to my core. All on Earth should be put on notice of this future evil plan.
I would not want my kids to grow up in that cold lifeless compound looking mess. I bet those designers do not have kids. Who paid for this really. I bet they have a evil plans for total control. This makes me sick to my core. All on Earth should be put on notice of this future evil plan.
Tony, Bristol, UK
3/3/2012 15:12
People aspire to live in their own homes - not apartment blocks, not condos. They want a house, with a garden for their kids. Stop with the unrealistic idea that you can force people into these sorts of housing projects.
People aspire to live in their own homes - not apartment blocks, not condos. They want a house, with a garden for their kids. Stop with the unrealistic idea that you can force people into these sorts of housing projects.
Timothy
07/07/2012 07:58 AM
The exhibit on Nature City in particular was so good/real my children (honor roll twins headed into 7th grade) asked about the possibility of moving there and I am disappointed to find it was all a dream...what a wonderful reality this would be.
The exhibit on Nature City in particular was so good/real my children (honor roll twins headed into 7th grade) asked about the possibility of moving there and I am disappointed to find it was all a dream...what a wonderful reality this would be.
The different models include infrastructure additions that seem too rational and essential to not be in tact already; indispensable items such as recycling centers, co-generating electrical plants, light rails, and even gardens for people to grow their own food. They display structures that could house families or groups of all shapes and sizes as that is the reality of the situation. The nuclear family is a thing of the past and possibly never truly existed. Life is not that simple and frankly never has been.
Another salutary aspect of the exhibition was the designers' recognition that both old and new suburbs fail to meet the growing diversity of housing needs — e.g., extended families, granny flats, home offices, group living, etc. Both "Nature-City," designed by WORKac for a site in Oregon, and "Property with Properties," by Zago Architecture for a site in Southern California, feature units of different sizes, types and densities. Niche demand (including dispersed rural communities, and supportive and transitional housing) can be more nimbly met by entrepreneurial non-profits working with government support than by top-down housing authorities. But even so-called traditional families would benefit from having more choice with regard to housing providers — with government serving as a watchdog against discrimination and retaliation. When public housing is the only housing provider — the provider of last resort, as it often is today — government itself can become the agent of discrimination, as is the case when it imposes “zero tolerance” rules for minor drug possession — the kind of rule that often results in poor families being evicted. While Reinhold Martin wonders whether we can any longer "imagine an architecture without developers," we would argue that to substitute "government" for "developers" seems an insufficiently nuanced proposition, and that government can have more impact by promoting a diversity of public-serving private developers than by commissioning architecture itself.
(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
(2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.
— Article 25, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, United Nations
(2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.
— Article 25, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, United Nations
January, 83 Fans
12:53 PM on 07/23/2012
"...someplace where people do need to work together and have lived there a couple of generations, you will find community."
That reminds me of the small rim-city in the Boston area where I lived for just 3 years. Families were buying properties in advance of their kids' growing up, so they could live close by. It was an old city, so it looked run-down. And it had its problems. But it also had its strengths because the families stayed tight.
"...someplace where people do need to work together and have lived there a couple of generations, you will find community."
That reminds me of the small rim-city in the Boston area where I lived for just 3 years. Families were buying properties in advance of their kids' growing up, so they could live close by. It was an old city, so it looked run-down. And it had its problems. But it also had its strengths because the families stayed tight.
smeeeee, 133 Fans
07:50 AM on 07/23/2012
What builds community is working together, and families intermarrying. But we don't need to work together, since survival needs are all provided for on the whole, plus we have this American mythos of individual independence. And we move around a lot, that is also a disadvantage. If you go someplace where people do need to work together and have lived there a couple of generations, you will find community.
What builds community is working together, and families intermarrying. But we don't need to work together, since survival needs are all provided for on the whole, plus we have this American mythos of individual independence. And we move around a lot, that is also a disadvantage. If you go someplace where people do need to work together and have lived there a couple of generations, you will find community.
VenusBivinsJohn
MariJman, on the other hand, if you have children entering college, you can sell or refinance your home to pay for it
Government & Policy (144)
Foreclosed is situated in the midst of this drama, which is also playing out around the “American Dream” of suburban home ownership. It asks, gently but firmly: What are the rules by which housing ought to be designed, produced, and made available in the United States? To whom? By whom? To what end? What ought to be the role of governments in these processes? Of markets? Of architecture? Of urbanism?
Maybe you’ve read about what’s been happening lately in classical Athens. Or maybe you’ve heard about legislators in our own, neoclassical capital attempting to negotiate a new federal budget that would be, as The New York Times put it, “credible enough to assure investors worldwide that Washington is getting serious about taking care of its financial health.” Whether it’s the IMF enforcing austerity in Greece, or markets pressuring Congress to cut Medicare, society’s script is being rewritten with draconian new rules.
republic4all
03:04 PM on 08/10/2011
The American Dream has always been based on the freedom to pursue your dreams and the enabler for the American Dream has always been our Constitution, the rule of law, and economic liberty. Our free enterprise system lifted more people out of poverty than any other system this earth has ever known. Government exists to protect your rights and to prevent other people from interfering with your pursuit of these dreams, free of harm.
The American Dream is different for every person in this country. For some it is to own a home. For some it is to have a successful business. Whatever that Dream is to be achieved through your own personal perseverance, drive, determination and responsibility. It's not anybody else's job to deliver your American Dream to your doorstep, and that includes the government. The American government is in the business of protecting the freedom of its citizens to pursue their dreams.
The American Dream has always been based on the freedom to pursue your dreams and the enabler for the American Dream has always been our Constitution, the rule of law, and economic liberty. Our free enterprise system lifted more people out of poverty than any other system this earth has ever known. Government exists to protect your rights and to prevent other people from interfering with your pursuit of these dreams, free of harm.
The American Dream is different for every person in this country. For some it is to own a home. For some it is to have a successful business. Whatever that Dream is to be achieved through your own personal perseverance, drive, determination and responsibility. It's not anybody else's job to deliver your American Dream to your doorstep, and that includes the government. The American government is in the business of protecting the freedom of its citizens to pursue their dreams.
Christine Shackelton
08:03 AM on 08/10/2011
Similarly, the Institute's political allegiances: top personnel maintained called a sentimental relationship to the Soviet Union (the Institute saw its goals as higher than that of Russian foreign policy. Stalin, who was horrified at the undisciplined, "cosmopolitan" operation set up by his predecessors, cut the Institute off in the late 1920's, forcing Lukacs into "self-criticism," briefly jailing him as a German sympathizer during World War II.
Lukacs survived to briefly take up his old post as Minister of Culture during the anti-Stalinist Imre Nagy regime in Hungary. Of the other top Institute figures, Herbert Marcuse are typical. He started as a Communist; became a protégé of philosopher Martin Heidegger even as the latter was joining the Nazi Party; coming to America, he worked for the World War II Office of Strategic Services (OSS), and later became the U.S. State Department's top analyst of Soviet policy during the height of the McCarthy period; in the 1960's, he turned again, to become the most important guru of the New Left; and he ended his days helping to found the environmentalist extremist Green Party in West Germany.
In all this seeming incoherence of shifting positions and contradictory funding, there is no ideological conflict. The invariant is the desire of all parties to answer Lukacs' original question: "Who will save us from Western civilization?"
-------------
Wall St now at the bourse
THE BULLS ARE LOCKED WITH THE OPPOSITE-- WE ARE DOING WELL-- IT IS NEUTRAL
Similarly, the Institute's political allegiances: top personnel maintained called a sentimental relationship to the Soviet Union (the Institute saw its goals as higher than that of Russian foreign policy. Stalin, who was horrified at the undisciplined, "cosmopolitan" operation set up by his predecessors, cut the Institute off in the late 1920's, forcing Lukacs into "self-criticism," briefly jailing him as a German sympathizer during World War II.
Lukacs survived to briefly take up his old post as Minister of Culture during the anti-Stalinist Imre Nagy regime in Hungary. Of the other top Institute figures, Herbert Marcuse are typical. He started as a Communist; became a protégé of philosopher Martin Heidegger even as the latter was joining the Nazi Party; coming to America, he worked for the World War II Office of Strategic Services (OSS), and later became the U.S. State Department's top analyst of Soviet policy during the height of the McCarthy period; in the 1960's, he turned again, to become the most important guru of the New Left; and he ended his days helping to found the environmentalist extremist Green Party in West Germany.
In all this seeming incoherence of shifting positions and contradictory funding, there is no ideological conflict. The invariant is the desire of all parties to answer Lukacs' original question: "Who will save us from Western civilization?"
-------------
Wall St now at the bourse
THE BULLS ARE LOCKED WITH THE OPPOSITE-- WE ARE DOING WELL-- IT IS NEUTRAL
Caniculus
10:50 AM on 08/10/2011
The problem is not government. The problem is government controlled by the corporation. If government was more powerful than the oil companies, we would have begun investing in alternative energy sources decades ago and we wouldn't have destroyed the Gulf of Mexico's ecosystem. If government was more powerful than the military industrial complex, we could have had high-tech marvels of peace, like high speed rail systems, cures for cancer, an inspirational space program, universal broadband, and modernized cities. If government was more powerful than Wall Street, banks would be carefully helping individuals and small businesses succeed rather than voraciously pursuing profit and jeopardizing the world economy. And if government paid for elections with public money instead of corporate money, politicians would serve the public instead of the corporations.
Do you really believe that the poor, unemployed and infirm are the problem? When did they become so politically powerful? Who are their paid lobbyists? Which network do they own? How many unemployed does Obama consult when deciding economic policy? You probably can't name more than a handful of politicians who even care about these people. If you sincerely wonder who is responsible for the decline of America, just follow the money. I think you'll find that trail leads -- surprise! -- to the wealthy.
The problem is not government. The problem is government controlled by the corporation. If government was more powerful than the oil companies, we would have begun investing in alternative energy sources decades ago and we wouldn't have destroyed the Gulf of Mexico's ecosystem. If government was more powerful than the military industrial complex, we could have had high-tech marvels of peace, like high speed rail systems, cures for cancer, an inspirational space program, universal broadband, and modernized cities. If government was more powerful than Wall Street, banks would be carefully helping individuals and small businesses succeed rather than voraciously pursuing profit and jeopardizing the world economy. And if government paid for elections with public money instead of corporate money, politicians would serve the public instead of the corporations.
Do you really believe that the poor, unemployed and infirm are the problem? When did they become so politically powerful? Who are their paid lobbyists? Which network do they own? How many unemployed does Obama consult when deciding economic policy? You probably can't name more than a handful of politicians who even care about these people. If you sincerely wonder who is responsible for the decline of America, just follow the money. I think you'll find that trail leads -- surprise! -- to the wealthy.
Keizer's Joe
August 13, 2011 at 5:18 PM
I like this design a lot better than our current Keizer Station layout. I almost dread going to Keizer Station because I always take the long way to get to where I am going. I just can’t figure out the roads. It’s confusing.
A tourist from Georgia once confronted me in the Lowes parking lot and asked me how to get to Target because he had seen it from the freeway. He seemed intelligent enough. I laughed because I told him that I live in Keizer and still can’t figure it out. I gave him the best directions I could and wished him luck. He said “Thank you for the directions and hope I can find my way back to the freeway”. I wished him good luck yet again.
I am dependent on my automobile to go from one store to the next. I love going to Bridgeport Village. Parking is a problem but once you park, it’s a pleasure to walk from store to store. And there is such variety. I can even take in a movie after shopping. It’s just an attractive place to visit. It’s inviting. The footprint of Bridgeport is so small compared to Keizer Station. It’s just a total waste of land. Too bad we can’t just start over.
I just can’t wait for the Mayor’s, Chamber of Commerce’s and the council’s Walmart to be built. Doubt that Walmart was envisioned initially but we have to please Chuck Sides. Hey, doesn’t he owe the city back taxes? Oh, he is immune to paying taxes. Too bad, the city could use the money.
I like this design a lot better than our current Keizer Station layout. I almost dread going to Keizer Station because I always take the long way to get to where I am going. I just can’t figure out the roads. It’s confusing.
A tourist from Georgia once confronted me in the Lowes parking lot and asked me how to get to Target because he had seen it from the freeway. He seemed intelligent enough. I laughed because I told him that I live in Keizer and still can’t figure it out. I gave him the best directions I could and wished him luck. He said “Thank you for the directions and hope I can find my way back to the freeway”. I wished him good luck yet again.
I am dependent on my automobile to go from one store to the next. I love going to Bridgeport Village. Parking is a problem but once you park, it’s a pleasure to walk from store to store. And there is such variety. I can even take in a movie after shopping. It’s just an attractive place to visit. It’s inviting. The footprint of Bridgeport is so small compared to Keizer Station. It’s just a total waste of land. Too bad we can’t just start over.
I just can’t wait for the Mayor’s, Chamber of Commerce’s and the council’s Walmart to be built. Doubt that Walmart was envisioned initially but we have to please Chuck Sides. Hey, doesn’t he owe the city back taxes? Oh, he is immune to paying taxes. Too bad, the city could use the money.
The exact boundaries of the MOS study have yet to be set, but the team intends to include an area large enough to include the rail station and Interstate 280, which runs nearby. “The state has promised funds to encourage higher densities within a half-mile radius of light railroad transit stations, and we wanted to be as practical as we could be.”
estosage
September 18, 2011 at 12:46PM
This sounds like a lot of over paid elitists trying to decide how everyone else should live. My suggestion is that all members of this elite team be required to move their families to this new development and reside there for at least five years as part of their contract. The most troubling is, as Fairfield Fox points out, the use of taxpayer dollars to fund this boodoggle. Who are they to declare that suburban living is dead? Then the usual outlandish lie: " many long-standing critics of the American suburb — who see it as environmentally toxic, energy wasteful and just too expensive (especially because it’s paid for by taxing the cities) " All evidence points to the suburban taxpayer as supporting the urban ghettos so your analysis is an ouit right lie. Abbot schools and other urban renewal activities are primarily supported by taxpayers from the suburbs.
This sounds like a lot of over paid elitists trying to decide how everyone else should live. My suggestion is that all members of this elite team be required to move their families to this new development and reside there for at least five years as part of their contract. The most troubling is, as Fairfield Fox points out, the use of taxpayer dollars to fund this boodoggle. Who are they to declare that suburban living is dead? Then the usual outlandish lie: " many long-standing critics of the American suburb — who see it as environmentally toxic, energy wasteful and just too expensive (especially because it’s paid for by taxing the cities) " All evidence points to the suburban taxpayer as supporting the urban ghettos so your analysis is an ouit right lie. Abbot schools and other urban renewal activities are primarily supported by taxpayers from the suburbs.
FairfieldFox
September 18, 2011 at 11:43AM
Gosh, urban redevelopment with state financing. When will we ever learn? I guess Two Ton Tony Galento would be skeptical of these plans for his old stomping grounds. Samuel Bush, patriarch of the Bushs, and a colleague of the Rockefellers, would likely be quite pleased. As the only Orangian who became part of the Federal Reserve, Old Sammy Bush would like the idea of the government borrowing money...but only if he got a piece of the action.
Gosh, urban redevelopment with state financing. When will we ever learn? I guess Two Ton Tony Galento would be skeptical of these plans for his old stomping grounds. Samuel Bush, patriarch of the Bushs, and a colleague of the Rockefellers, would likely be quite pleased. As the only Orangian who became part of the Federal Reserve, Old Sammy Bush would like the idea of the government borrowing money...but only if he got a piece of the action.
THE RECENT FLURRY of programming activity around urbanism comes in part as a reaction to the mortgage crisis. “The whole ‘Foreclosed’ project is a kind of past-conditional, a critique of the stimulus package of 2009,” says Bergdoll. "What if it had been used to foster innovative thinking rather than to patch holes?”
Jennifer Chung · Birkbeck, University of London
The intertwined modern relations between museums and capitalism is probably mostly the governments' fault across the globe. The versatility of the name of art provided endless potential for private company to back a show or even an institution. Fronting for things has become basic survival skills for modern museums (need not to mention those privately owned mega museum brands). When the states traded glorious fiscal reports and balance sheets with the greater good of humanity, museums were like being exposed to a new kind of lethal virus.... 'mutation' is the key for survival, either museums look the other way and suck it up or close its doors.
The only way to fight this would be to have mainstream media to spread article and discussion like this piece, so people would actually paid more attention and begin to question things.
November 21, 2011 at 9:58pm
The only way to fight this would be to have mainstream media to spread article and discussion like this piece, so people would actually paid more attention and begin to question things.
November 21, 2011 at 9:58pm
The teams also suggested alternative models to prevalent development strategies such as the public-private partnership. One team, Visible Weather, questioned the model that the city of Temple Terrace, Florida, used to develop a 29-acre retail property. Instead of turning the property over to a private developer, the city might have created a real estate investment trust that would share the income with the residents of the city of Temple Terrace. By retaining control of the property, the city would also be in a better position to build a more environmentally sustainable development.
Some mortgage industry analysts are now predicting that one out of five mortgages will eventually end in default if our elected officials don’t take action. The surge in Occupy Wall Street demonstrations is a powerful signal that growing numbers of people want radical change to the status quo. And four years into the crisis, government officials have been unable to effectively deal with the extensive blight in communities afflicted with high rates of foreclosure.
Barb
My parents owned 3 Levitt houses in the 50s. In the 90s I bought a Levitt cape around the block from where my parents' houses were (they'd sold and moved back closer to NYC).
To respond to the way the blocks are designed, Levittown blocks are a bit of a labyrinth, which makes it difficult for criminals seeking to rob homes to navigate. If any home is robbed, it's usually an inside job. Levittown is surrounded by low-crime neighborhoods demographically, so there's no "spillage" of crime over its borders, and as someone pointed out, has no direct connection to the LIRR, so yes, it's insular, and this is why there is a very low crime rate. This is a reason why I bought in Levittown.
Why else did I buy in Levittown? THE SCHOOL DISTRICT. Levittown's teachers' union had a landmark case in the U.S. Supreme Court, and as a result, their teachers are paid at the top of the Long Island pay scale, on par with districts like Great Neck. In education you get what you pay for!
My daughter, a Levittown graduate, attends Harvard and seminars at MIT. Levittown schools worked with me to groom her and remediate a learning disability she had. So whomever said nobody from Levittown becomes a professional is WRONG. I'm surprised the writer of this article missed mentioning the excellent schools.
As for the Village Greens, it was also missed by the writer and in comments that libraries are often found at the Village Greens. And each family got a pool pass so they could swim FOR FREE all summer long. The Greens still have concerts during the summer, and have little shops. Levittown has some very nice perks.
I left after my family was raised, and after Nassau County re-assessed my property taxes and TRIPLED them over a period of three years. But dollar for dollar, Levittown served its purpose for me. My child got an excellent education in a non-violent, quiet, fairly unspoiled and unpretentious community. Oh, and for the record, the "white trash" element hasn't been able to afford to live in Levittown since the 80s.
December 21, 2011 at 8:51 pm
To respond to the way the blocks are designed, Levittown blocks are a bit of a labyrinth, which makes it difficult for criminals seeking to rob homes to navigate. If any home is robbed, it's usually an inside job. Levittown is surrounded by low-crime neighborhoods demographically, so there's no "spillage" of crime over its borders, and as someone pointed out, has no direct connection to the LIRR, so yes, it's insular, and this is why there is a very low crime rate. This is a reason why I bought in Levittown.
Why else did I buy in Levittown? THE SCHOOL DISTRICT. Levittown's teachers' union had a landmark case in the U.S. Supreme Court, and as a result, their teachers are paid at the top of the Long Island pay scale, on par with districts like Great Neck. In education you get what you pay for!
My daughter, a Levittown graduate, attends Harvard and seminars at MIT. Levittown schools worked with me to groom her and remediate a learning disability she had. So whomever said nobody from Levittown becomes a professional is WRONG. I'm surprised the writer of this article missed mentioning the excellent schools.
As for the Village Greens, it was also missed by the writer and in comments that libraries are often found at the Village Greens. And each family got a pool pass so they could swim FOR FREE all summer long. The Greens still have concerts during the summer, and have little shops. Levittown has some very nice perks.
I left after my family was raised, and after Nassau County re-assessed my property taxes and TRIPLED them over a period of three years. But dollar for dollar, Levittown served its purpose for me. My child got an excellent education in a non-violent, quiet, fairly unspoiled and unpretentious community. Oh, and for the record, the "white trash" element hasn't been able to afford to live in Levittown since the 80s.
December 21, 2011 at 8:51 pm
Levittown2011
It does not appear that anyone who has posted what has happened in Levittown or the current decaying condition that will lead to it's future death. The average taxes of a home in Levittown is currently 12,000 a year in 2011. The taxes of a Levittown home will be 20,000 a year in 2020. There are 17,286 homes in Levittown and over 2,000 of them are in some form of foreclosure today the highest of any town on Long Island. The town has lost most of it's retail business due to the high Levittown School District taxes which are currently a average of 8,500 of the 12,000 2011 taxes. The Levittown School District Teachers Union is currently in the 10th year of a average 7.5% raise each year which has or will double all their salaries in just 9 years. You hear about how teachers do not get a fair salary across america, that is true for every teacher that does not work in Levittown. The community asked the teachers union to take a pay freeze for the last 2 years and the teachers union only statement was that " They did not cause the economic crisis in America, why should we take a pay freeze? " The current yearly school budget is 200 Million a year. Of the 600 current teachers employed in Levittown 375 are paid a least 135,000 a year. The condition of the homes has declined over the last couple years due to the high cost of the taxes and you can drive down any street and view the homes that are falling apart before your eyes. The american dream is dead in Levittown and it has turned into the american nightmare. The fraud has been revealed that the school district does match up to exceed other surrounding school districts that have better education provided at lower cost to the homeowners in their towns. The teachers salaries make up 80% of the yearly school budget and as a current board member stated this year " I had to explain to my children that they will not have the same education that other children had in the past, they will has less and the community will pay more for it due to the teachers salaries that will always be increasing due to what has been done in the past." The teachers salaries and retirement add a 4% increase to the school budget each year. The new New York state law of a 2% school tax cap may save other school districts, but it came 10 years too late for Levittown. People have posted what the current price of a Levitt home is it is between 250,000 and 300,000 today but it was over 500,000 just 6 years ago when the real estate market was at it's peak.
December 22, 2011 at 12:28 am
December 22, 2011 at 12:28 am
TWood
This is 2011 rehash of college entry-level sociology. The Levittown complex, a series of look-alike home comunities that flourished during the post-WWII days. Many of these communities still exist beyond Levittown. In my area two such neighborhoods or cities Greenbelt and Rockville, MD have these neighborhoods which still thrive. Perhaps this concept needs to be revived for the returning Vets of today. Let the govt divert war dollars to funding housing for this breed of soldier. JOBS! JOBS! JOBS!
December 20, 2011 at 4:03 pm
December 20, 2011 at 4:03 pm
sol
Yes, the government f the american dream with regulation. Thankfully, my grandfather left brooklyn in 1948 and made it overseas. Now I dont have to f worry about regulation or whine aobut 'sub-urbia'
be rational–the future is gated communities–there is not 'community' or 'society'...just a bunch of f trying to get ahead by either playing the victim card or getting elected to congress or the executive branch.
The equivalent of a bunch of mentally re-tarded third graders run america. So yea, I think thed solution is for everyone to give one big middle finger to everyone that wants to tell other people how to live, and if they keep at it, move–
THERE ARE SEVERAL PLACES AROUND THE PLANET that are looking for professionals, america is not the only happy pie-
they give you too much sh-t, you leave. GIVE ONE BIG MIDDLE FINGER to all the little angry faced third graders as the economy sours. They dont deserve your taxes. The f idiots can't get out of a cardboard box.
December 20, 2011 at 3:47 pm
be rational–the future is gated communities–there is not 'community' or 'society'...just a bunch of f trying to get ahead by either playing the victim card or getting elected to congress or the executive branch.
The equivalent of a bunch of mentally re-tarded third graders run america. So yea, I think thed solution is for everyone to give one big middle finger to everyone that wants to tell other people how to live, and if they keep at it, move–
THERE ARE SEVERAL PLACES AROUND THE PLANET that are looking for professionals, america is not the only happy pie-
they give you too much sh-t, you leave. GIVE ONE BIG MIDDLE FINGER to all the little angry faced third graders as the economy sours. They dont deserve your taxes. The f idiots can't get out of a cardboard box.
December 20, 2011 at 3:47 pm
Urban History
Actually, I think the a major part of the whole Levitt phenomenom was that they invented this easy, fast way to build inexpensive homes. There was a huge housing shortage in the country at that time, and that problem could have been solved, and houses would have been less expensive today, had the concept been allowed to expand. However, the building industry was horrified at the idea of "prefabs," since 'it didn't want to have its profit margin cut, and worked to stifle the Levitt building concept by lobbying the government to enact legislation against "prefabricated".
December 25, 2011 at 2:05 am
December 25, 2011 at 2:05 am
Brian
While true, but the original idea was private business. The government played a reserve role, one that they did wonderfully at.
December 20, 2011 at 11:57 am
December 20, 2011 at 11:57 am
Hank Lauritsen
One of many things that would not have happened without "Big Govt" backing. They are the job creater, behind our progress in my lifetime of depression kid, WWII vet, GI bill etc.
December 20, 2011 at 11:06 am
December 20, 2011 at 11:06 am
From 1947 to 1951, Levitt built more than 17,000 homes in Levittown. The U.S. Federal Housing Administration encouraged the boom by backing the mortgages of returning veterans, allowing them to put virtually no money down. That let Dwyer and her husband chase a new American dream.
The concept builds on the knowledge that large predators are often instrumental in maintaining the structure, resilience, and diversity of ecosystems through initiating “top-down” ecological (trophic) interactions. In turn, they require resources, including nesting and foraging areas and water sources along with large cores of protected landscape and connectivity to insure long-term viability. This re-wilding would be achieved by employing the zoological park as a suburban amenity. In a collaborative endeavor between the developer and federal government, the government would finance habitat links to the suburb, and in return the development would incorporate knuckles with intensified habitat zones and productive ecosystems, providing jobs, public amenities, and regional habitat resources.
I was seeking ways of bridging ecological knowledge with suburban design, shifting the paradigm of these exurban sites from one that disregards the surrounding environment to one that takes advantage of the adjacent conditions and the process of suburbanization. This includes the material flows, construction activities, and potential for human management of ecosystems over time. It is inevitable that we will continue to develop and build houses. Can we develop new practices that improve the social, economic, and ecological function of these communities? For example, federal funding could be combined with private development practices to create a new suburban model based around the fostering of ecosystem benefits rather than disregarding these values and reacting to consequences.
Alexander J Felson
MARCH 21, 2012, 12:40 P.M.
First, I really appreciate the commentary from both KB (12/15) and DK (03/07) regarding the rewilding concepts in relation to suburbanization. I would like to respond first to DK’s point of building dense and compact cities and leaving the “hinterland and wilderness as intact as possible” is the ideal and I certainly do not disagree with this position. That said this is not what is taking place on the ground. Urbanization is continuing to spread into the hinterlands here in the US, in China, India, and Brazil and around the globe. The proposal here is to consider the potential for these exurban developments to adopt an ecological mandate.The focus on the MOMA exhibit and analysis is also very specific and thus the proposal needs to be seen in its context. We were specifically tasked with looking at foreclosure housing projects and how as designers and scientists we might bring federal funding to address some of the issues faced. Thus the site was selected for us, and due to its proximity to the San Bernardino National Forest and the ecologically intact conditions of the surrounding context including the Lytle Creek Wash, we saw the notion of creating a neighborhood focused in part on ecological management as an opportunity for collaboration between developers, the federal government and future homeowners.A third factor to consider is climate change and global warming. The earth is changing in part through large-scale anthropogenic causes. These are creating pressures and constraints on the hinterland ecosystems and organisms. Already, there are discussions of how to foster species migration as their ranges shift north. This is an area that scientists are keenly interested in the role they might play. Consider the species introductions, assisted migrations and other efforts scientists are already participating with the goal of enhancing ecosystems. In other words, just leaving the hinterlands out there “undisturbed” by the built environment does not mean they remain undisturbed, and to maintain ecosystems and organisms human interventions will likely be an important component. Consider John Foley’s diagram of the changing landscape conditions – where is the “hinterlands” in his diagram?Finally, Rewilding (and this goes back to KB’s comments) is a radical proposal and one that is debated amongst ecologist. Much of the issue arises from the concern over human – wildlife conflict that would likely ensue if we were to reintroduce large carnivores etc. to the US. At the same time, most ecologists would agree that top down predation would benefit ecosystem health and lead to greater diversity of species. Thus the issue is one of public acceptance. As a result, getting this concept out there through a variety of venues (given that Rewilding is in the “marketing” stage) should mostly benefit the cause. It is a much more radical concept than simply allowing people to manage biological systems at the urban fringe and is intended to create debate and discussion.The MoMA exhibit is pervaded by architectural discourse of the suburb and could use this layer of integration of knowledge into new suburban forms. The architect and their modes of working and analysis were prioritized and sites open to large development were sites for new visions. Still, the rewilding concept is part of the exhibit, which means that tens of thousands of museumgoers visiting the exhibit will have the opportunity to reflect on what role people can play in managing ecosystems in their neighborhoods, and on the potential value of rewilding as a concept to consider for promoting ecosystem function.
First, I really appreciate the commentary from both KB (12/15) and DK (03/07) regarding the rewilding concepts in relation to suburbanization. I would like to respond first to DK’s point of building dense and compact cities and leaving the “hinterland and wilderness as intact as possible” is the ideal and I certainly do not disagree with this position. That said this is not what is taking place on the ground. Urbanization is continuing to spread into the hinterlands here in the US, in China, India, and Brazil and around the globe. The proposal here is to consider the potential for these exurban developments to adopt an ecological mandate.The focus on the MOMA exhibit and analysis is also very specific and thus the proposal needs to be seen in its context. We were specifically tasked with looking at foreclosure housing projects and how as designers and scientists we might bring federal funding to address some of the issues faced. Thus the site was selected for us, and due to its proximity to the San Bernardino National Forest and the ecologically intact conditions of the surrounding context including the Lytle Creek Wash, we saw the notion of creating a neighborhood focused in part on ecological management as an opportunity for collaboration between developers, the federal government and future homeowners.A third factor to consider is climate change and global warming. The earth is changing in part through large-scale anthropogenic causes. These are creating pressures and constraints on the hinterland ecosystems and organisms. Already, there are discussions of how to foster species migration as their ranges shift north. This is an area that scientists are keenly interested in the role they might play. Consider the species introductions, assisted migrations and other efforts scientists are already participating with the goal of enhancing ecosystems. In other words, just leaving the hinterlands out there “undisturbed” by the built environment does not mean they remain undisturbed, and to maintain ecosystems and organisms human interventions will likely be an important component. Consider John Foley’s diagram of the changing landscape conditions – where is the “hinterlands” in his diagram?Finally, Rewilding (and this goes back to KB’s comments) is a radical proposal and one that is debated amongst ecologist. Much of the issue arises from the concern over human – wildlife conflict that would likely ensue if we were to reintroduce large carnivores etc. to the US. At the same time, most ecologists would agree that top down predation would benefit ecosystem health and lead to greater diversity of species. Thus the issue is one of public acceptance. As a result, getting this concept out there through a variety of venues (given that Rewilding is in the “marketing” stage) should mostly benefit the cause. It is a much more radical concept than simply allowing people to manage biological systems at the urban fringe and is intended to create debate and discussion.The MoMA exhibit is pervaded by architectural discourse of the suburb and could use this layer of integration of knowledge into new suburban forms. The architect and their modes of working and analysis were prioritized and sites open to large development were sites for new visions. Still, the rewilding concept is part of the exhibit, which means that tens of thousands of museumgoers visiting the exhibit will have the opportunity to reflect on what role people can play in managing ecosystems in their neighborhoods, and on the potential value of rewilding as a concept to consider for promoting ecosystem function.
This exhibition features proposals for the future of cities by Studio Gang, MOS, WORKac, Visible Weather and Zago Architecture. All conceptualized large-scale proposals for specific regions in the nation. The nature of the task inherently requires a top-down approach, which immediately leads to issues in terms of feasibility. Therefore, it is necessary to view these projects less so as solutions and more as catalysts of change. Spatially, I expect to see extensive transportation infrastructures and dense high-rise apartments. With the expertise of interdisciplinary teams, I am interested to see the proposed governmental and environmental policies.
Land trusts have thrived on a small scale in New York City and Chicago, among other places. The federal government should now scale up the efforts by transferring some of the nearly 250,000 foreclosed homes acquired by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Housing Administration into a national trust or a series of local trusts.
RECENT efforts to fix the housing market — including Thursday’s $26 billion settlement with five of the nation’s biggest banks — have focused purely on the financial aspects of the slump. A permanent solution, however, must go further than money to address issues that have been at the core of the crisis but have been wholly ignored: design and urban planning.
But precisely because the groups tackled their missions from multiple angles, they maximized the number of opponents who could prevent any of these projects from getting built. That’s the paradox of trying to transform the suburbs: The only way to get it done is by rewriting laws, rationalizing markets, reforming the construction industry, and changing the culture all at once—which probably can’t be done.
Anonymous
The problem: Americans were given what they wanted in terms of market economy-based city planning for decades, and "eggheady" liberal architects and planners were ignored.
The solution (according to the people responding to this article): Ignore the "eggheady" liberal architects and do what the American people want: ie more of the same.
No wonder America is so incompetent when it comes to healthy cities. Only a small minority of intelligent liberal green architects and planners embrace a healthy productive path forward, and an overwhelming majority of ignorant architects and free market thinkers couldn't care less or think the solution to the problem is to ignore the solutions and embrace the problem as the only answer - I guess because Ronald Reagan told them to (during a period in his life when he had a debilitating mental illness I might add).
2/13/2012 5:40 PM CST
The solution (according to the people responding to this article): Ignore the "eggheady" liberal architects and do what the American people want: ie more of the same.
No wonder America is so incompetent when it comes to healthy cities. Only a small minority of intelligent liberal green architects and planners embrace a healthy productive path forward, and an overwhelming majority of ignorant architects and free market thinkers couldn't care less or think the solution to the problem is to ignore the solutions and embrace the problem as the only answer - I guess because Ronald Reagan told them to (during a period in his life when he had a debilitating mental illness I might add).
2/13/2012 5:40 PM CST
Anonymous
There's not a big enough return on investment for projects that benefit the general public in America. That's why America's wealthy don't invest in them. The only way to have healthy cities and suburbs is to plan them via the government, and therefore use the wealthy's money via taxes to subsidize them. There's no other way to access the money needed to build green cities. The market economy looks out for the rich, and only the rich. The rich won't build healthy cities and suburbs. So they've left us with no other recourse than the government. The only people with enough power and money to build green are the people we elect and put in office. So choose people who believe in progress and green cities. And if not, then the vast majority of Americans will live in sickness and decay as a "reward" for their conservative political beliefs. They probably deserve it. Unfortunately their children don't.
2/13/2012 5:30 PM CST
2/13/2012 5:30 PM CST
Anonymous
It's always amusing to read the anti-socialist nonsense from bloggers in response to articles like this. Urban planning is a socialist activity, and should be proud of it. It's about limiting the damage that developers do. Every country in the world that has a healthy urban and suburban planning system is either fully Socialist or a Social Democracy. The reason America has been so incompetent in terms of planning is precisely because of the "Big Lie" that the markets should decide how development occurs. The market is just a synonym for "the rich" in our modern economy. They're the ones doing the buying that developers want a piece of. The issue of planning in architecture is by definition a question of whether sensible Socialist policies will begin to be adopted in America or not. If not, then America will continue to fail in terms of responsible planning. There's no magic bullet, no way of playing along with the market economy to get around that fact. It's either embrace some Socialist policies, or don't plan anything. The laissez-faire capitalists of course want to disguise that reality, but it's there regardless. The welfare of the 99% will be ignored in modern America, unless via politics and therefore planning they make their voices heard. End of story.
2/13/2012 5:22 PM CST
2/13/2012 5:22 PM CST
Anonymous
Central Planning in Beijing might be a better place for this exhibit. Are these Utopians sure we are all too anti-social and numb to survive as a species? Are we dummies so brainwashed by the old-fashioned we just can't let go of streets, fences, single family homes and going to the store for produce? Clientless design imposed on the "masses" is not the answer to fixing the world that embarrasses these folks...the answer is not to answer the unasked question....and I am sure none of the pathetic low incomers that I know asked to live in a decommissioned pile of box cars. Architecture is evolving at a nice evolutionary rate; leave it to do so. Fix federal regulation and banking and leave this type of "creativity" in North Korea where it works so well.
2/13/2012 2:27 PM CST
2/13/2012 2:27 PM CST
As Jeanne Gang and Greg Lindsay point out in their New York Times op-ed piece, zoning codes are inimical to many of the policies that allow for redevelopment – not growth. They cite the Chicago suburb of Cicero, Illinois. Issues facing Cicero are “typical of most suburbs, including the segregation of residential, commercial and industrial facilities; prohibitions on expanding and reusing buildings for new homes and businesses; and tight restrictions on mixed-use properties. Cicero’s code also defines ‘family’ in a way that excludes the large, multigenerational groupings now common across the country.” By redefining these codes to allow for development of underutilized property, the suburbs can become a thriving community that reuses structures and reimagines them as beneficial to humanity, instead of the abandoned structures that currently exist on the outskirts of cities across the US.
The other star of the exhibition is Jeanne Gang, the Chicago architect. She and her teammates tackled the problems of Cicero, an older Chicago suburb that is filled with rotting industrial facilities but not the kind of housing needed by its large immigrant population. They decided to play to Cicero’s strengths, as what Gang calls an “arrival city,” by creating modular housing that can go up or down in size as families evolve. They also reclaimed industrial facilities as gardens and, like most of the teams, came up with an unconventional financing scheme. Like the very different WORKac proposal, Gang’s Cicero proposal seems practically shovel-ready, even though, as she pointed out in a New York Times op-ed, it remains illegal under Chicago’s zoning code.
Gang calls the situation a "housing mismatch," and she correctly diagnoses Cicero's response to the foreclosure crisis as inadequate. While the town has used subsidies from the federal Neighborhood Stabilization Program to rehab and sell foreclosed homes, only about 10 homes have been fixed up, town officials acknowledge. As Gang points out, Cicero's deeper problem is industrial decline, as exemplified by the fate of the long-gone Hawthorne Works plant, where the Western Electric manufacturing arm of AT&T once employed as many as 45,000 people.
Another contributor, a man wearing glasses and black sweatshirt and standing beneath a beamed ceiling, holds up a text neatly printed in architect's block caps on a large pad of gridded paper:
I am 62 years old.
I have worked honestly & hard my whole life (since I was 14) because that is how you "realize the American Dream."
I was a home builder & designer.
In 1980, the "Savings & Loan Crisis" forced me out of work & out of business. (The gov’t helped the banks survive ...)
In 2007, the "Sub-prime Mortgage Crisis" crushed me again. I lost my home, my wife & my belief in that "American Dream." (The gov’t saved the banks again ...)
I am 62 years old.
I have worked honestly & hard my whole life (since I was 14) because that is how you "realize the American Dream."
I was a home builder & designer.
In 1980, the "Savings & Loan Crisis" forced me out of work & out of business. (The gov’t helped the banks survive ...)
In 2007, the "Sub-prime Mortgage Crisis" crushed me again. I lost my home, my wife & my belief in that "American Dream." (The gov’t saved the banks again ...)
While the too-big-to-fail banks and government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have received substantial support in the form of low-cost loans, guarantees and toxic asset purchases, defaulting homeowners have received comparatively little government assistance.
FS: Essentially you’re creating public housing here, which doesn’t have great connotations. Historically speaking, it hasn’t worked out that well.
MB: The big issue I would get across here is that all housing is financially constructed. And in the United States, the single-family house for purchase with a mortgage is public. The mortgage deduction on your annual taxes means that everybody in this country has subsidized housing.
FS: Well, the homeowners do anyway.
MB: The big issue I would get across here is that all housing is financially constructed. And in the United States, the single-family house for purchase with a mortgage is public. The mortgage deduction on your annual taxes means that everybody in this country has subsidized housing.
FS: Well, the homeowners do anyway.
J. James R.
Feb 22, 12 5:26 pm
Builders, developers and real estate people have been telling people how to live for years....it's obvious now, more than ever, thats how things are done....people don't know what they want...
If you think it's just builders and developers telling people how to live, you're clearly missing a larger picture. Retailers are a huge factor here too. The problem with suburbia is the lack of "real job" creation.
The problem comes from the concept that many retailers sell products that more-or-less require single-unit, single-family housing units— lawnmowers, automobiles, chest freezers, full-sized appliances, furniture et cetera. The code for this word is "durable goods." And anytime you hear the government, planners or business-types talking about the increase in the purchase of durable goods or stimulating the durable goods market... they're clearly talking about suburbia.
And many of the companies that sell the tools of suburbia actively influence policy development by funding various non-profit and non-governmental organizations. We don't know who does what but there are fair examples.
Cato Insitute, a supporter of laissez-faire capitalism, is quite a staunch critic of urban planning is or has been supported by the likes of General Motors, ExxonMobile, Toyota, Visa, Wal-mart, Volkswagon, Honda, FedEx and Time Warner. None of these companies want to see functioning cities.
And we end up the paradox of...
If most of the jobs are low-wage, who's buying goods and services?
And where do the armies of wage workers live if new suburban development is too expensive?
Builders, developers and real estate people have been telling people how to live for years....it's obvious now, more than ever, thats how things are done....people don't know what they want...
If you think it's just builders and developers telling people how to live, you're clearly missing a larger picture. Retailers are a huge factor here too. The problem with suburbia is the lack of "real job" creation.
The problem comes from the concept that many retailers sell products that more-or-less require single-unit, single-family housing units— lawnmowers, automobiles, chest freezers, full-sized appliances, furniture et cetera. The code for this word is "durable goods." And anytime you hear the government, planners or business-types talking about the increase in the purchase of durable goods or stimulating the durable goods market... they're clearly talking about suburbia.
And many of the companies that sell the tools of suburbia actively influence policy development by funding various non-profit and non-governmental organizations. We don't know who does what but there are fair examples.
Cato Insitute, a supporter of laissez-faire capitalism, is quite a staunch critic of urban planning is or has been supported by the likes of General Motors, ExxonMobile, Toyota, Visa, Wal-mart, Volkswagon, Honda, FedEx and Time Warner. None of these companies want to see functioning cities.
And we end up the paradox of...
If most of the jobs are low-wage, who's buying goods and services?
And where do the armies of wage workers live if new suburban development is too expensive?
toasteroven
Feb 21, 12 11:42 am
sustainable developers?? developers follow incentives and try to minimize risk - without government subsidizing sprawling (i.e. cheap & low capacity) infrastructure and overly restrictive zoning laws they'd very likely build far more high-density mixed-use buildings without parking (but also without green space). without utilities, roads, and other services land is pretty much worthless - and developers typically don't like challenging zoning unless they know the municipality is on board.
also - high-density outside of the city center presents another challenge because of the capacity of the existing services. Some towns in the northeast have put a moratorium on any new building because their existing water and sewer systems cannot handle any additional load. when you think of it, suburban development is often a function of how big the sewer systems are, or how much space is needed for a septic and/or leech field and buffer.
perhaps if as a culture we had a much healthier relationship with our own poop...
sustainable developers?? developers follow incentives and try to minimize risk - without government subsidizing sprawling (i.e. cheap & low capacity) infrastructure and overly restrictive zoning laws they'd very likely build far more high-density mixed-use buildings without parking (but also without green space). without utilities, roads, and other services land is pretty much worthless - and developers typically don't like challenging zoning unless they know the municipality is on board.
also - high-density outside of the city center presents another challenge because of the capacity of the existing services. Some towns in the northeast have put a moratorium on any new building because their existing water and sewer systems cannot handle any additional load. when you think of it, suburban development is often a function of how big the sewer systems are, or how much space is needed for a septic and/or leech field and buffer.
perhaps if as a culture we had a much healthier relationship with our own poop...
toasteroven
Feb 16, 12 11:22 am
ending the subsidies that drastically lower the true cost of many aspects of the suburban lifestyle would be a very strong incentive for many people to move into apartments and denser neighborhoods. If you want urban-style services and utilities with the luxury of low density you should have to pay a premium for it. otherwise there are ways of living more "off the grid" if you're willing to do your own maintenance and pay a little more up front for these systems.
many people do have the dream of living in a detached single-family home, and I think this should be available to people if they can afford it, but I think until the crash people were pretty delusional about how much this lifestyle actually costs (i.e. taking out loans they couldn't afford), and how much it has been costing our country.
ending the subsidies that drastically lower the true cost of many aspects of the suburban lifestyle would be a very strong incentive for many people to move into apartments and denser neighborhoods. If you want urban-style services and utilities with the luxury of low density you should have to pay a premium for it. otherwise there are ways of living more "off the grid" if you're willing to do your own maintenance and pay a little more up front for these systems.
many people do have the dream of living in a detached single-family home, and I think this should be available to people if they can afford it, but I think until the crash people were pretty delusional about how much this lifestyle actually costs (i.e. taking out loans they couldn't afford), and how much it has been costing our country.
RB: And it’s not just design. That’s my only gripe with the MoMA thing. You’ve got to have a political system, and I’m sure they raised that, which supports that level of intervention. So that architecture is meaningful socially.
LP: And architecture becomes the way that people will trust their government or trust their institutions.
RB: It can.
LP: And architecture becomes the way that people will trust their government or trust their institutions.
RB: It can.
Making use of the existing infrastructure, Gang came up with “The Garden in the Machine”, which demonstrates how the remains of Cicero’s industry, its lands, building materials, and existing rail infrastructure could be the foundation for a new and better town. The new vision calls for an influx of vegetation, trees and gardens to improve the green space of the area. Housing would largely transition to new live/work units and would require a change in zoning and regulations to allow a different form of ownership — one that allows citizens to purchase and sell shares corresponding to the live/work units they occupy. A variety of flexible housing options would be occupied by families of all sizes and a new economy would be created through residents who live and work in the same area. Rather than raze the entire area and start again, Gang sees that the existing infrastructure can be utilized to build a better, more sustainable city.
Jeannie Kim
Reaction to (and, at times, shrill critique) of) the recently opened exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, “Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream,” might suggest that – yes – perhaps designers are better off sticking to the 1% that they know well, given architecture’s repeated historic failures to address complex urban (and suburban) challenges. After all, as Steven Holl apparently said in a 2010 interview, “It’s always about the clients. Without good clients you can’t have good architecture,” (quoted in Nicolai Ouroussoff, “By the Architects, for the People: A Trend for 2010s,” The New York Times, May 3, 2010) and the 99% is a notoriously difficult client. Yet the most innovative architects have and, thankfully, will continue to engage these questions, whether speculatively or with actual “blueprints” rather than just “visions”. OWS and the 99% have been galvanized by mortgage foreclosures, setting up camp at the same time the MoMA teams were first presenting their proposals (nee “visions”) last fall. Any design activity that engages these questions needs to be linked to radical changes in fiscal policy and transit infrastructure as well, however. The announcement that the Obama administration will be unveiling new standards this week for now banks treat the millions of people facing foreclosure may help, therefore, but it’s just a step toward addressing a vast problem that architects and designers alone cannot solve.
Wednesday, February 22 at 6:05pm
Wednesday, February 22 at 6:05pm
oboe
re: Second look at the suburbs:
We need to stop demonizing the suburbs and start recognizing that we are all in this together. Is it better to annihilate suburbia or perfect it? Pragmatic solutions, like changing zoning to encourage density, more sustainable landscaping and agriculture, could be relatively easy to enact and would go a long way to improving the vitality of the suburbs
I think this misses the critique by a long shot. The problem of the suburbs is not that it's being demonized, and being "nicer" to the suburbs ain't going to redeem them.
The suburbs will be "fixed" when an overwhelming political majority of suburbanites buy into the "pragmatic solutions" the author listed. The question is whether that will happen or not. That someone somewhere made fun of Applebee's is irrelevant.
What stuns me, though, is the claim that things like zoning changes would be "relatively easy to enact". In the absence of democracy this is clearly the case. That's not the world we live in, though. Hell, DC has arguably one of the most liberal, pro-urban voting populations in the country, and implementing such changes here, in the heart of the city, are almost impossible.
(As an example, there's been an almost decade long struggle to allow a 2000 square foot day care facility to operate just north of Lincoln Park on Capitol Hill. There was angry resistance when neighbors found the newly opened Hill Center planned on allowing wedding receptions until midnight. The examples are endless).
The idea that it will be relatively ease" to get existing suburban homeowners on board with such radically changes of policy is naive. Frankly, I'm stunned whenever a place like DC or Arlington manages to eke out a minor pro-urbanist victory. The cynic in me says meaningful change in the suburbs are orders of magnitude more difficult, and is contingent on outside factors like resource depletion. And there's a further argument to be made that a suburbs without the resources to maintain itself certainly hasn't got the resources to reinvent itself.
Feb 22, 2012 10:20 am
We need to stop demonizing the suburbs and start recognizing that we are all in this together. Is it better to annihilate suburbia or perfect it? Pragmatic solutions, like changing zoning to encourage density, more sustainable landscaping and agriculture, could be relatively easy to enact and would go a long way to improving the vitality of the suburbs
I think this misses the critique by a long shot. The problem of the suburbs is not that it's being demonized, and being "nicer" to the suburbs ain't going to redeem them.
The suburbs will be "fixed" when an overwhelming political majority of suburbanites buy into the "pragmatic solutions" the author listed. The question is whether that will happen or not. That someone somewhere made fun of Applebee's is irrelevant.
What stuns me, though, is the claim that things like zoning changes would be "relatively easy to enact". In the absence of democracy this is clearly the case. That's not the world we live in, though. Hell, DC has arguably one of the most liberal, pro-urban voting populations in the country, and implementing such changes here, in the heart of the city, are almost impossible.
(As an example, there's been an almost decade long struggle to allow a 2000 square foot day care facility to operate just north of Lincoln Park on Capitol Hill. There was angry resistance when neighbors found the newly opened Hill Center planned on allowing wedding receptions until midnight. The examples are endless).
The idea that it will be relatively ease" to get existing suburban homeowners on board with such radically changes of policy is naive. Frankly, I'm stunned whenever a place like DC or Arlington manages to eke out a minor pro-urbanist victory. The cynic in me says meaningful change in the suburbs are orders of magnitude more difficult, and is contingent on outside factors like resource depletion. And there's a further argument to be made that a suburbs without the resources to maintain itself certainly hasn't got the resources to reinvent itself.
Feb 22, 2012 10:20 am
AWalkerInTheCity
@ oboe "Frankly, I'm stunned whenever a place like DC or Arlington manages to eke out a minor pro-urbanist victory. The cynic in me says meaningful change in the suburbs are orders of magnitude more difficult, and is contingent on outside factors like resource depletion. And there's a further argument to be made that a suburbs without the resources to maintain itself certainly hasn't got the resources to reinvent itself."
Arlington is only out of the category of "suburban" (to the extent it is) due to the large scale urbanist victories there.
in fact lots of suburban jurisdictions are making urbanist changes -in greater DC (excluding arlington and City of Alex as urban) we have them in Fairfax, in City of Falls Church, in MoCo, and even in PG (and even a tiny bit in Loudoun). Now, those are often only in select locations, or are balanced by antiurbanist decisions. But see, thats where the demonization blinds people - if you can accept that auto centric suburbia is going to continue to be the preferred way to live for many (possibly the majority) then the fact that only 5-10% say, of Fairfax, is going to end up walkable TOD may be an acceptable result.
As for demonization mattering to the political process, I think it does. I have participated in such discussions with fellow NoVans, and I think the more extreme viewpoints including have left people very defensive, and believing things about urbanism that give ammo the antiurbanists, and make their job of persuasion easier. These include the impressions that urbanists beleive A. that everyone should be carfree B. That no one should live in a SFH C. That everyplace on Greater Washington outside of the district is "bad" regardless of density, etc, etc.
Obviously there are larger, real issues that drive suburban politics, not just these discourse focused issues, and obviously there are things in the discourse on these issues that are unhelpful aside from extremist urbanism memes. But they are not trivial in their impact, IMO. And as someone who values urbanism, I find the distortion of urbanism involved in those memes particularly troubling. It makes a sophisticated vision of a reinvented metropolitan america sound like the ravings of naive hipsters.
Feb 22, 2012 10:47 am
Arlington is only out of the category of "suburban" (to the extent it is) due to the large scale urbanist victories there.
in fact lots of suburban jurisdictions are making urbanist changes -in greater DC (excluding arlington and City of Alex as urban) we have them in Fairfax, in City of Falls Church, in MoCo, and even in PG (and even a tiny bit in Loudoun). Now, those are often only in select locations, or are balanced by antiurbanist decisions. But see, thats where the demonization blinds people - if you can accept that auto centric suburbia is going to continue to be the preferred way to live for many (possibly the majority) then the fact that only 5-10% say, of Fairfax, is going to end up walkable TOD may be an acceptable result.
As for demonization mattering to the political process, I think it does. I have participated in such discussions with fellow NoVans, and I think the more extreme viewpoints including have left people very defensive, and believing things about urbanism that give ammo the antiurbanists, and make their job of persuasion easier. These include the impressions that urbanists beleive A. that everyone should be carfree B. That no one should live in a SFH C. That everyplace on Greater Washington outside of the district is "bad" regardless of density, etc, etc.
Obviously there are larger, real issues that drive suburban politics, not just these discourse focused issues, and obviously there are things in the discourse on these issues that are unhelpful aside from extremist urbanism memes. But they are not trivial in their impact, IMO. And as someone who values urbanism, I find the distortion of urbanism involved in those memes particularly troubling. It makes a sophisticated vision of a reinvented metropolitan america sound like the ravings of naive hipsters.
Feb 22, 2012 10:47 am
24 Feb, 2012 - (@BurtonJM)
RT @JenniferRaitt: Rehousing proposals. Can zoning/ local policies support them? "Foreclosed" opens at MoMA http://bit.ly/ztBuCN
MB: There’s the Glass-Steagall Act which segregated commercial and
investment banking. There’s the Wagner-Steagall Act which funded public housing. Steagall was on both.
CH: Interesting.
MB: It’s very interesting.
CH: Now we’ve got huge conglomerate banks and no public housing.
investment banking. There’s the Wagner-Steagall Act which funded public housing. Steagall was on both.
CH: Interesting.
MB: It’s very interesting.
CH: Now we’ve got huge conglomerate banks and no public housing.
TS: The mortgage deduction incentivizes buying the biggest lot you can and putting the biggest, 3,000-square-foot house that you can on it. Bob is right. If we’re going to move to a future where that’s not what the model is—it’s maybe scaled down a little bit more, maybe more demure—then, we should reincentivize the way the tax cut—
CH: The future of the American home and the American Dream which are sort of married together, I think. One of the things this exhibition makes you think about is the underlying financial structure and policy structure that gives rise to the American suburb and the single-family home, because we all think of it as “They grow like corn in cornfields, right?” Particularly during the housing bubble, where I was living in Chicago, you’d go eighty miles west, and they are. They’re just being built, and it’s almost like an organic process. No one said, “Oh. Let there be McMansions. Let there be sub-developments.” But actually there is a structure underneath. There is a public policy structure, particularly the mortgage interest deduction that helps produce this.
MB: […] One of the big points of the show for anyone who deals with housing issues academically is, yeah, that deduction makes basically a
huge amount of American housing public housing at some level. It’s a far
bigger expenditure on the federal level than, for example, funding for HUD
for homelessness.
TS: It’s about $80 billion or something, right?
MB: It’s about $80 billion. Low-income housing tax credits, I think, are
probably $30 billion. So, the federal government at this point in time really
does not build directly public housing any longer. It incentivizes it through
tax credits.
CH: And it incentivizes for people to purchase their own homes and take
out a lot of debt, the interest of which they can then take off against their
taxes.
MB: […] One of the big points of the show for anyone who deals with housing issues academically is, yeah, that deduction makes basically a
huge amount of American housing public housing at some level. It’s a far
bigger expenditure on the federal level than, for example, funding for HUD
for homelessness.
TS: It’s about $80 billion or something, right?
MB: It’s about $80 billion. Low-income housing tax credits, I think, are
probably $30 billion. So, the federal government at this point in time really
does not build directly public housing any longer. It incentivizes it through
tax credits.
CH: And it incentivizes for people to purchase their own homes and take
out a lot of debt, the interest of which they can then take off against their
taxes.
Thomas Schaller (TS): Are you envisioning a resuburbanization of America in the next twenty or thirty years? At its peak, houses got gluttonous and big, and the physical footprints that those houses were sitting on got really big. So, I’m wondering if it’s going to be smaller plots? Smaller homes? A little bit of both?
CH: Increased density?
MB: All five projects in the show deal with density, and they also deal with trying to find housing that is probably more financially and size-wise appropriate to its user, but also that would use dramatically less energy to basically dramatically lower carrying costs. But I think many of the people, including ourselves, we were looking at ways to take underutilized property, publicly held or publicly controlled, and increase density around infrastructure because the public has already paid for all of that infrastructure and isn’t using it.
CH: Increased density?
MB: All five projects in the show deal with density, and they also deal with trying to find housing that is probably more financially and size-wise appropriate to its user, but also that would use dramatically less energy to basically dramatically lower carrying costs. But I think many of the people, including ourselves, we were looking at ways to take underutilized property, publicly held or publicly controlled, and increase density around infrastructure because the public has already paid for all of that infrastructure and isn’t using it.
CH: What does that mean? I think we sort of have a sense of the automobile, the sort of oil-fueled world of post-World War II America and suburban sprawl as these kinds of the things that have conspired to build the great sprawling American suburban landscape. What does rethinking that involve from a design perspective? From a policy perspective?
MB: […] In the 1990s you had a booming economy, you had a kind ofpush to alter, if not end, the welfare state. By the 2000s, you have a real estate bubble. And today you have a foreclosure crisis. But in all of these situations, there are a couple things that have been consistent. The amount of money people spend on housing and transportation is immense. They can’t afford it. You don’t want to tell people they can’t afford something and say that’s the reason to change. You want to be more positive than that. But there are many, many factors about affordability, about energy consumption, and frankly about the role of design in any of it. The American single-family house is a commodity product that has virtually no research and development, no design. Architects, in a spec house in Houston in the late 1990s—their fee was about twelve dollars per house. These are mass-produced commodities. There is no professional engagement. […] I think most of the people in this exhibition are quite
positive and excited about the suburbs. We know it’s a deeply, deeply important part of the American ethos, if not just everyday life of course. But, they’re not inevitable. And the financial underpinnings of them have really dramatically shifted in the last five, ten, fifteen years—not just the last two.
CH: Talk about that R&D thing. You made a point in the video in the exhibition that blew my mind about the comparison between how much money in R&D goes into your iPhone or anti-lock brakes versus an American home.
MB: I did mention anti-lock brakes. For many commodities, before they hit the market, there are billions of dollars that might precede it, whether it’s Clorox or whether it’s an iPhone or a Honda Civic which is quite an ingenious product. Housing as we know it has kind of ironed all of that
out of it, and it did it a long time ago. […] They are paying Mercedes Benz prices for a twenty-year-old used car. The single-family house market atomizes out all of the financial processes, and you still are spending large sums of money, but you’re not getting the sophisticated product. It’s not that it’s not a nice product or something people love, but it could be much, much better in energy and everything else.
MB: […] In the 1990s you had a booming economy, you had a kind ofpush to alter, if not end, the welfare state. By the 2000s, you have a real estate bubble. And today you have a foreclosure crisis. But in all of these situations, there are a couple things that have been consistent. The amount of money people spend on housing and transportation is immense. They can’t afford it. You don’t want to tell people they can’t afford something and say that’s the reason to change. You want to be more positive than that. But there are many, many factors about affordability, about energy consumption, and frankly about the role of design in any of it. The American single-family house is a commodity product that has virtually no research and development, no design. Architects, in a spec house in Houston in the late 1990s—their fee was about twelve dollars per house. These are mass-produced commodities. There is no professional engagement. […] I think most of the people in this exhibition are quite
positive and excited about the suburbs. We know it’s a deeply, deeply important part of the American ethos, if not just everyday life of course. But, they’re not inevitable. And the financial underpinnings of them have really dramatically shifted in the last five, ten, fifteen years—not just the last two.
CH: Talk about that R&D thing. You made a point in the video in the exhibition that blew my mind about the comparison between how much money in R&D goes into your iPhone or anti-lock brakes versus an American home.
MB: I did mention anti-lock brakes. For many commodities, before they hit the market, there are billions of dollars that might precede it, whether it’s Clorox or whether it’s an iPhone or a Honda Civic which is quite an ingenious product. Housing as we know it has kind of ironed all of that
out of it, and it did it a long time ago. […] They are paying Mercedes Benz prices for a twenty-year-old used car. The single-family house market atomizes out all of the financial processes, and you still are spending large sums of money, but you’re not getting the sophisticated product. It’s not that it’s not a nice product or something people love, but it could be much, much better in energy and everything else.
This is just as much a government-spawned mess as the mortgage crisis itself. When you bring up the idea of stateless societies, one of the very first things people ask is “What about infrastructure and roads?” The answer is that a stateless society would have a very different physical setup. Roads may be needed a lot less…or not at all.
(This is proving as faulty as the government’s attempts to pitch home buying — with increasingly long payment times — as investment instead of what it really is: debt-based consumption of a durable good.)
The curators at MOMA are definitely thinking about the box. They are thinking beyond the old arrangements. We are pretty sure they are not thinking of a stateless city per se…but they are thinking beyond the crutch that governments insist governments must provide: roads.
For Martin, the vitriol on the Internet illustrates how public discourse on housing crumbles at its foundation. “What hasn’t been asked is, what is the role of the government in addressing the housing crisis?” Martin says. “Again, that’s a question we’re barely able to enunciate in public because of the stigmas associated with public housing and the durability of the fetish of the single-family home. You can see from some of the reactions that we were denounced for asking that. There was a certain amount of name-calling. That is not surprising, but it’s interesting; event though these are hypothetical projects, they draw out the political contours of the country. They draw out different strategies: more activist strategies that consider this to be fiddling while Rome burns, purely academic speculation that doesn’t take into account the voices of the people who would actually live in these places.
But for Martin, one possibility was conspicuously absent. “In my view, some options were overlooked, like public housing. I’m not surprised, but it’s a fact. Despite our encouragements – we even provided publicly owned land, and identified sites that were either publicly owned or under the supervision of the local municipalities – in virtually all cases that alternative was sidestepped. So the results have proven that it’s very difficult to contemplate options outside the market. That’s the bottom line: the option of public housing is not currently available in the mainstream.”
Of course, for an idea to be sustainable, it also has to be realistic. Much of the MoMA show fails that criterion miserably. Orange, N.J., is not going to build long strings of apartments in the middle of its streets, as suggested by MOS Architects’ Michael Meredith, AIA, and Hilary Sample, AIA. Neither is Keizer, Ore., going to bite on huge towers of three-story homes teetering atop each other—complete with indoor waterfalls—as put forward by Amale Andraos and Dan Wood, AIA, of Work AC. And are those elephants that Andrew Zago dropped in the backyards of Rialto, Calif.? Yes, they really are.
Robert
133 days ago
Here we go again - architects attempting to be the deciders on who lives in a cooked up utopian paradise. I agree with Dee - didn't we go through this before - actually several times before - go back to Lutyens and others pre-Victorian UK for other references. This argument is as old as time in architecture circles and frankly something I believe in my bones architects need to stay way far away from.
The problems associated with the current debacle in housing goes way beyond just cooking up alternatives to a model that for decades had worked pretty well until the restraints of the banking system and the policy makers in DEE CEE were unshackled. Thank you Barney Frank, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Sarbanes / Oxley, CRA, Derivatives, MBS, CDO's, Wall Street, Glass Steagle (no more), FHA, HMA, Phil Gramm, Rudman, Fannie, Freddie, National Assoc. of Realtors, Mortgage Banking Association, TARP, QE whatever, Helicopter Ben, HARP, HAMP, Obama and the porkulus - the list of imposters posing as statesmen and policy wonks and their attendant fixes goes on and on. To just read this article on the surface and agree would be in my humble opinion horribly misguided and naive.
Wake up architects - putting the design blinders on only will not serve you nor your clients well. A much broader and active view is needed - bone up on economics, finance, politics, local government, proper spheres of authority, the scriptures - you name it. Without a broader and DEEPER view of the market the profession will continue to wallow in the ditch it finds itself in, unable to provide any added value to projects and their sponsoring clients. Clients want value - not just ideas!!! And one final thing......
I LIKE LIVING IN THE SUBURBS!!!
Here we go again - architects attempting to be the deciders on who lives in a cooked up utopian paradise. I agree with Dee - didn't we go through this before - actually several times before - go back to Lutyens and others pre-Victorian UK for other references. This argument is as old as time in architecture circles and frankly something I believe in my bones architects need to stay way far away from.
The problems associated with the current debacle in housing goes way beyond just cooking up alternatives to a model that for decades had worked pretty well until the restraints of the banking system and the policy makers in DEE CEE were unshackled. Thank you Barney Frank, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Sarbanes / Oxley, CRA, Derivatives, MBS, CDO's, Wall Street, Glass Steagle (no more), FHA, HMA, Phil Gramm, Rudman, Fannie, Freddie, National Assoc. of Realtors, Mortgage Banking Association, TARP, QE whatever, Helicopter Ben, HARP, HAMP, Obama and the porkulus - the list of imposters posing as statesmen and policy wonks and their attendant fixes goes on and on. To just read this article on the surface and agree would be in my humble opinion horribly misguided and naive.
Wake up architects - putting the design blinders on only will not serve you nor your clients well. A much broader and active view is needed - bone up on economics, finance, politics, local government, proper spheres of authority, the scriptures - you name it. Without a broader and DEEPER view of the market the profession will continue to wallow in the ditch it finds itself in, unable to provide any added value to projects and their sponsoring clients. Clients want value - not just ideas!!! And one final thing......
I LIKE LIVING IN THE SUBURBS!!!
When we look at contemporary suburbia, it looks more like private property than public property. The system of single family homes and marks vast areas of residential development in the US is an inefficient model, because the collective and investment costs needed to sustain it are not part of a system. The public-private proposal by Bell and Seong underlines a form of reality which is already there. The current system of property ownership, based on mortgages (backed by government through low interest rates) is actually a system of public or subsidized housing.
The central question today, in particular in the USA where this crisis began, is linked to the rethinking of an entire economic model, the very idea of property and the role of politics in terms of its global governance. More generally, this crisis has led to a rethinking of the myth of the American Dream and its implications in today's world.
Anonymous
People need to understand the point of these projects. A good article was written on this topic in Metropolis. The 1st point to make is that these are largely political and social problems that have to be tackled in that realm in order for architects to even have the ability to address them. For example, Americans can't keep electing people who don't believe in sustainability and who are beholden to oil companies if they want to solve these problems. Architects can't overcome the weight of political and legal restrictions holding them back without help from American voters. There need to be subsidies for green tech, mass transit, sustainable development, etc. These architects know enough about these issues to know this is the case. I have no problem with utopian solutions in this case, because the point of the projects are to reinforce what first needs to be done in order to get anywhere on these issues. Therefore mass transit is critical, even though it's nearly impossible in our current political climate. Does that means architects should abandon proposing ideas that make mass transit central to their designs? No. The point of projects like this is to reinforce what the model needs to be. Once people understand what the model needs to be, they can vote accordingly for people that will allow architects to move the country in that direction. People who are overly critical of utopian proposals are missing the forest for the trees. Utopian proposals have a critical role to play in making sure everyone is facing up to reality in terms of what our goals should be. If we cut architects off at the legs and force them to only propose ideas that work for today's developers, then we get nowhere and in reality architects aren't doing their jobs. They're just legitimizing bad developers and their values.
3/23/2012 1:52 PM CDT
3/23/2012 1:52 PM CDT
Ian jenkins, UK
3/3/2012 14:16
Foreclosures - done to benefit the banksters who pull the strings of whatever government is sitting in the White-house.
Foreclosures - done to benefit the banksters who pull the strings of whatever government is sitting in the White-house.
n an earlier era, the connection between the museum's exhibitions and housing policy was more direct: Catherine Bauer, a key contributor to MoMA's first architectural shows in the early 1930s, co-authored the Housing Act of 1937, and then continued to collaborate on MoMA housing exhibitions from her position within the newly created United States Housing Authority, the predecessor to HUD.
Hates Idiots
8th Mar
Do not get me started.
On the refi problems I have encountered because of rules changes made by the Dodd/Frank law.
The bottom line is simple.
Old refi rules = $120 a month savings.
New refi rules = $230 a month increase in mortgage.
And I am being forced into a refi because of circumstances beyond my control. Show Less -
Do not get me started.
On the refi problems I have encountered because of rules changes made by the Dodd/Frank law.
The bottom line is simple.
Old refi rules = $120 a month savings.
New refi rules = $230 a month increase in mortgage.
And I am being forced into a refi because of circumstances beyond my control. Show Less -
Hates Idiots
7th Mar
How about these in your face truths.
Government forced mandates made it legal for banks to offer mortgages to people that had no capability to pay back the loans.
The number of people artificially allowed into the housing market by these policies triggered crazy bidding wars, that I was a victim of, and artificially drove up real estate values.
Which in turn drove up rental costs which overall drove a spike in the national cost of housing.
Which resulted in a net loss of real income because wages did not keep up.
The loans the banks were legally allowed to sell to people who could not afford them had time bombs in them like adjustable rates and interest only loans that our poorly educated masses were too dumb to realize would financially destroy them.
And the biggest architect of this mess, Congressman Barney Frank of MA, is being allowed to retire and not go to prison for his part in building this mess.
How about these in your face truths.
Government forced mandates made it legal for banks to offer mortgages to people that had no capability to pay back the loans.
The number of people artificially allowed into the housing market by these policies triggered crazy bidding wars, that I was a victim of, and artificially drove up real estate values.
Which in turn drove up rental costs which overall drove a spike in the national cost of housing.
Which resulted in a net loss of real income because wages did not keep up.
The loans the banks were legally allowed to sell to people who could not afford them had time bombs in them like adjustable rates and interest only loans that our poorly educated masses were too dumb to realize would financially destroy them.
And the biggest architect of this mess, Congressman Barney Frank of MA, is being allowed to retire and not go to prison for his part in building this mess.
Ara Hovnanian set the stage by exploring his own company’s strategy for adapting new homes to a post-crisis reality: by building multi-generational, multi-household homes for boomerang children, aging parents, and older siblings. Joe Rose followed, arguing the Buell Hypothesis of “Change the dream and you change the city” might be better adapted to “Respect the dream and you change the city,” suggesting that dismissing the suburban dream would never lead to a suburban makeover.
Nottosmart
134 days ago
A modern Eastern Europe apartment complex, Chinese, Russian? The architects would be better off spending their idle time finding ways to rid themselves of our current legislators, economic development leadership and others, and begin to lure businesses into the area that will hire locals in huge quantities, companies that will not depend on government handouts and pay their employees a living wage plus benefits.
A modern Eastern Europe apartment complex, Chinese, Russian? The architects would be better off spending their idle time finding ways to rid themselves of our current legislators, economic development leadership and others, and begin to lure businesses into the area that will hire locals in huge quantities, companies that will not depend on government handouts and pay their employees a living wage plus benefits.
Anybody who visits the exhibit can see that nothing remotely along the lines of the buildings being proposed is ever going to be realized — Orange, New Jersey, for instance, is not going to replace its roads with long strips of narrow housing. But what’s less obvious is the way in which all of these projects are also a huge financial stretch. They were charged with coming up with innovative forms of home finance, but all those innovative solutions tend to boil down to the same basic idea: get the local municipal government to borrow hundreds of millions of dollars and then spend that money on a massive housing development which will, somehow, generate the income needed to service the debt.
One at a time, we must try to save homes from foreclosure and save communities from collapse, but we must also recognize that these are band-aid measures unless they include long-term sustainable strategies and policies for sheltering Americans in homes they can afford within communities where they can work. Acknowledging this epidemic scale, it is relevant to note that the Occupy movement is not merely a grassroots initiative; it is a network from the bottom calling for action at the top.
Of course large-scale, system-wide, policy-based approaches to the crisis of foreclosure and housing affordability should require and enable local participatory processes, community input, and context specificity.
In rather simplistic terms, one can categorize that conflict with a series of dichotomies: public/private, large/small, national/local, and most popularly top-down/bottom-up. In many ways, American Suburbia has long been the locus of this conflict. It is, after all, the birthplace of NIMBYism, which requires at minimum the imagined territory of a backyard.
asdf
March 22, 2012, @ 1:05 am
This is a democracy. We have nobody to blame but the 51% of people who elect those who allow the 1% to exploit us and steal from us. Tighter financial regulations, more low cost/free public programs, subsidizing green energy and public transport as well as other welfare programs… these are values. One party in America cares about them, one doesn’t.
These aren’t architectural problems. They are political and social problems. The cities we live in represent the values of the people in America, unfortunately. If/when Americans evolve some and start looking forward rather than backwards, and start making political decisions to match, these problems with irresponsible development will be a long way towards being resolved.
As the American dream evolves, so too will the American landscape. But essentially, this is about politics in the end. Architects can only point out the root problems and propose solutions that point to them, as this article suggests. I don’t have any problem with utopian proposals. Architects aren’t the financiers and architects aren’t the home buyers. It’s up to the wealthy and to average Americans to change their values. Most architects are already much farther down the evolutionary path on that front than the average American voter.
This is a democracy. We have nobody to blame but the 51% of people who elect those who allow the 1% to exploit us and steal from us. Tighter financial regulations, more low cost/free public programs, subsidizing green energy and public transport as well as other welfare programs… these are values. One party in America cares about them, one doesn’t.
These aren’t architectural problems. They are political and social problems. The cities we live in represent the values of the people in America, unfortunately. If/when Americans evolve some and start looking forward rather than backwards, and start making political decisions to match, these problems with irresponsible development will be a long way towards being resolved.
As the American dream evolves, so too will the American landscape. But essentially, this is about politics in the end. Architects can only point out the root problems and propose solutions that point to them, as this article suggests. I don’t have any problem with utopian proposals. Architects aren’t the financiers and architects aren’t the home buyers. It’s up to the wealthy and to average Americans to change their values. Most architects are already much farther down the evolutionary path on that front than the average American voter.
smart dog
03/19/12 05:11 PM
How does this "Fix" anything?
The problems are economic stupidity and corruption, not architecture.
How does this "Fix" anything?
The problems are economic stupidity and corruption, not architecture.
Anonymous
Paradigm shift. Foreclosures aside for a moment, if you will allow me, the last 50 or so years have seen the continuing expansion of our population into suburbia, into safe, reasonably secure, more open aired environments where one could drive to work in a reasonable amount of time, shop close to home and educate your children at a local school.
This study, I have not read it, seems to advocate a reversal of that movement. A compaction of the habitable structures into higher density areas with less reliance on the automobile but with the option of public transportation.
Those first two words came from a long conversation I had with a loosely knit group of home builders and developers over coffee one morning.
Consensus was that without a paradign shift in buyer attitude about whether they could expect the livibility, security and comfort and a level of freedom in a high density housing project as they would expect in a "normal" development, it had limited appeal. (Their demographic target(s) were the first/second time home buyer with children).
I don't believe that shift will occur without a far more serious change than the foreclosure crisis. And, knowing a bit about govmint and how it "thinks" I'd venture a guess that their stereotypes of high density housing is limited to a condominium complex with a swimming pool and 2car attached garages. Ciao
This study, I have not read it, seems to advocate a reversal of that movement. A compaction of the habitable structures into higher density areas with less reliance on the automobile but with the option of public transportation.
Those first two words came from a long conversation I had with a loosely knit group of home builders and developers over coffee one morning.
Consensus was that without a paradign shift in buyer attitude about whether they could expect the livibility, security and comfort and a level of freedom in a high density housing project as they would expect in a "normal" development, it had limited appeal. (Their demographic target(s) were the first/second time home buyer with children).
I don't believe that shift will occur without a far more serious change than the foreclosure crisis. And, knowing a bit about govmint and how it "thinks" I'd venture a guess that their stereotypes of high density housing is limited to a condominium complex with a swimming pool and 2car attached garages. Ciao
But during a panel on March 8 at the museum sponsored by the Forum for Urban Design, two developers, an architecture professor, and a real estate lawyer reacted soberly to the adventurous and optimistic schemes. Though the panelists agreed that the foreclosure crisis will lead to major changes in suburban development, they all thought new patterns are less likely to be brought about by a revised American dream than by economic and demographic factors. And all said it would be very difficult to change zoning laws to permit denser new development patterns, especially in existing “inner-ring” suburbs.
They are responding to the Buell Hypothesis, a long and somewhat loopy text in the form of a Socratic dialogue, put forward by the Buell Center at Columbia University whose aim is to “change the dream” of property ownership in America. Its maxims are perverse but enjoyable and often hit the mark. “The private house,” it states, “[is] just as institutionalized within social and economic policy as a public housing complex”.
One of the main themes in "Foreclosed" is that the car-dependent suburban house is a form of public subsidy, since the federal mortgage tax deduction and low-interest government housing loans helped fuel the bubble. Although private developers built and profited from most of the sprawl, taxpayers subsidized its infrastructure with roads, utility lines and water mains.
This exhibit comes at a critical time. Right-wing organizations like the Heritage Foundation have been churning out polemics against public transportation and zoning for higher density development. A GOP-dominated Congress is also on the attack. Last year it cut funding slated for the 2009 stimulus bill's signature infrastructure project, the high-speed rail initiative. House Republicans appear to have given up on their attempts to include a mass-transit-crushing amendment in their controversial five-year, $260 billion transportation bill. Still, a paralyzed Congress is on the verge of allowing the current bill to expire on March 31 without any new legislation for continued funding.
SV: Does this MoMA place have some sort of tax subsidy? Does it?
AU: They probably don't pay taxes because it's a nonprofit institution.
SV: That's a form of subsidy, isn't it?
AU: They probably don't pay taxes because it's a nonprofit institution.
SV: That's a form of subsidy, isn't it?
SV: I want to live the way I wish to live. I want society to evolve the way it wishes to evolve.
AU: You care about where your tax dollars go, don't you?
SV: Yes, and I'll vote to make sure they go in the right place.
AU: Yes, well maybe right now too many tax dollars have been going to the suburbs, and maybe it's time to have the tax payer dollars to go to cities and making certain suburbs more sustainable and more like cities.
AU: You care about where your tax dollars go, don't you?
SV: Yes, and I'll vote to make sure they go in the right place.
AU: Yes, well maybe right now too many tax dollars have been going to the suburbs, and maybe it's time to have the tax payer dollars to go to cities and making certain suburbs more sustainable and more like cities.
AU: It's our housing policy too. Do you like your tax dollars subsidizing these developers building these tract houses in the suburbs---
SV: Yes.
AU: --- that are completely financially unsustainable?
SV: Who says they're completely financially unsustainable? Who says this?
AU: Well, why is poverty increasing at double the rate in suburbs as it is in cities?
SV: Because maybe poor people have moved out of the city and gotten a place in suburbs.
AU: Well that's the only place they can afford to buy houses.
SV: Yes.
AU: --- that are completely financially unsustainable?
SV: Who says they're completely financially unsustainable? Who says this?
AU: Well, why is poverty increasing at double the rate in suburbs as it is in cities?
SV: Because maybe poor people have moved out of the city and gotten a place in suburbs.
AU: Well that's the only place they can afford to buy houses.
Stuart Varney (SV): It seems to me that this exhibit is from the elites telling us how we should live. We should all live in cities, and if we don't live in cities we should turn our suburbs into cities. That's the way we should live. Isn't that the elites going at us and telling us how we mere mortals should live?
Alex Ulam (AU): No, it's not the elite. It's the way our tax...It's the way our housing policy has been oriented for the last twenty or thirty years. It's unsustainable---
SV: We should not be organizing ourselves and where to live. Now the elites are telling us how we should be doing it.
AU: They are making some suggestions, but -- listen -- it's unsustainable for people to live in suburbs.
SV: Who says?
AU: Well most Americans actually spend more money on transportation than they do on medical care or on taxes. The average family of four that makes $50,000 spends somewhere between $7,900 and---
Alex Ulam (AU): No, it's not the elite. It's the way our tax...It's the way our housing policy has been oriented for the last twenty or thirty years. It's unsustainable---
SV: We should not be organizing ourselves and where to live. Now the elites are telling us how we should be doing it.
AU: They are making some suggestions, but -- listen -- it's unsustainable for people to live in suburbs.
SV: Who says?
AU: Well most Americans actually spend more money on transportation than they do on medical care or on taxes. The average family of four that makes $50,000 spends somewhere between $7,900 and---
All these communities had received stimulus money in 2009, and the designers were often approaching the sites after the money had already been spent. Though this makes the exhibit seem like a critique of irreversible and shortsighted choices in spending, it is hopeful in offering new solutions to the American Dream. Michael Bell, who worked on the Temple Terrace project near Tampa, compared the hundreds of millions of dollars of research that has gone into Honda Accords and iPhones to the tiny amount of money ("probably about $5000") that has gone into the research of single family housing. Moma's exhibit doesn't offer itself up as a solution to the lack of research, either; the design ideas in "Foreclosed" are often both practical and applicable, but they are ultimately more speculative and visionary. GetawayStyle also aspires to this new dream -- that housing can suit our everchanging lives while also having an awareness of the greater world outside our walls.
The following excerpt from the Foreclosed videos on the MOMA website is from the presentation by Michael Bell of Visible Weather. He challenges some of our most basic and entrenched beliefs about the built environment, most significantly that the free market has not served us properly in how it has built our housing and developed our neighborhoods. He’s right, look around: the free market has built crap for over half a century, and we still unquestioningly stand by it. He says the American house is a lousy commodity, that we need to use channels that work to improve it including the involvement of government.
lady brett
On April 17, 2012 at 6:31 am
fascinating! just great – i want to watch all of these.
i live in a city that is wholly embracing (sub)urban sprawl – it's a small city, so this is a (relatively) recent development. the difficult part is that it feels so unstoppable when the entire system of city government is set up to encourage single-use, encourage sprawl (things like zoning laws that make home business illegal, or lack of impact fees, so that developers don't have to pay a cent to get utilities run to new developments outside the current city). and discourage historic preservations, as angie said (or, more accurately, only encourage it in affluent neighborhoods).
this from someone who has wholly embraced the home part of the american dream, if not the other parts. but owning a home has been a dream of mine for…ever – and it is just as amazing as i always thought. the thing that really strikes me is the number of homeowners i know who don't actually like owning a home (or at least none of the details that come with the concept).
fascinating! just great – i want to watch all of these.
i live in a city that is wholly embracing (sub)urban sprawl – it's a small city, so this is a (relatively) recent development. the difficult part is that it feels so unstoppable when the entire system of city government is set up to encourage single-use, encourage sprawl (things like zoning laws that make home business illegal, or lack of impact fees, so that developers don't have to pay a cent to get utilities run to new developments outside the current city). and discourage historic preservations, as angie said (or, more accurately, only encourage it in affluent neighborhoods).
this from someone who has wholly embraced the home part of the american dream, if not the other parts. but owning a home has been a dream of mine for…ever – and it is just as amazing as i always thought. the thing that really strikes me is the number of homeowners i know who don't actually like owning a home (or at least none of the details that come with the concept).
This is Temple Terrace. This drawing shows the houses. The drawings show the roads that service those houses. This is the infrastructure. It’s paid for by the city, the state, the federal government. The houses are theoretically private although they are financed in ways that are ultimately public because of mortgage securities, etc. If you follow that as a financial trail and wonder about what’s public and what’s private, at some level it becomes really impossible to justify that much public money to support that much public housing.
We are arguing that Temple Terrace as a model ought to not only acquire the land but also to keep the land rather than handing the land back over to a private developer in the name of the free market; that there could be a way that the government actually could do redevelopment. What we argue is that the city should get much more control; that people should get much richer and much more complex projects; and that in fact if you do it right; it might be possible to do better than the market.
As I made my way through the gallery, I noticed that both Jeanne Gang’s project for Cicero and, in part, Andrew Zago’s for Rialto called for decoupling home ownership from ownership of the underlying land, which would, theoretically, cut home prices and create a new class of public property. This was the exhibition at its most provocative, addressing the forces that have most powerfully shaped suburbs and smaller cities: public policy, government regulations, zoning, the rules governing mortgages, the way roads and utilities are paid for. At its best, Foreclosed was not an architecture show at all. It was a mini-seminar on public policy—and an assault on conventional notions of private property.
Bell told me what his team was thinking: “One basic understanding of REITs that I often heard people criticize is that they’re essentially hedging instruments.” So the upswing in home prices in one part of the world might be played off a drop in value elsewhere. “Instead of real estate being held as a local asset, it gets bundled up as a global asset.
Bell told me what his team was thinking: “One basic understanding of REITs that I often heard people criticize is that they’re essentially hedging instruments.” So the upswing in home prices in one part of the world might be played off a drop in value elsewhere. “Instead of real estate being held as a local asset, it gets bundled up as a global asset.
The ongoing assault on the public sector relies upon a chorus of hackneyed themes: government is the problem, not the solution; welfare is socialism, etc. Reinhold Martin is advocating a direct response: strengthen the public sector in order to stand in solidarity with the poor and dispossessed. We would like to reframe the debate with a related but different emphasis: the public sector is essential to the protection of human rights, and housing is a human right.
Too often public and private are positioned as opposites, as extremes that lead to nothing less than different systems. (The right-wing rhetoric that's branded President Obama as "socialist" is only the latest example.) In this schema, high public good is equated with high government spending, high public debt, and ultimately low private value; likewise high private value is equated with high profit and minimal public good. But no matter its political uses, this sort of either/or thinking is unproductive; the rise of both the corporate social responsibility movement and the non-profit social enterprise sector underscore that public good and private value not only can coexist but can also be mutually reinforcing.
So I believe the hybrid approach is the likeliest way to achieve real innovation in housing as well as in real estate development practices. What might be the role of architects in this effort? The South African architect Iain Low has described a building as a manifesto, a declaration of what is possible. (“I work within the possibility of significantly transforming reality, as opposed to reinventing it," he said.) And indeed, the five projects in Foreclosed show us the possibilities of dreaming big.
So I believe the hybrid approach is the likeliest way to achieve real innovation in housing as well as in real estate development practices. What might be the role of architects in this effort? The South African architect Iain Low has described a building as a manifesto, a declaration of what is possible. (“I work within the possibility of significantly transforming reality, as opposed to reinventing it," he said.) And indeed, the five projects in Foreclosed show us the possibilities of dreaming big.
As a robust player in the housing market, public housing would not only ensure that everyone has adequate housing; it might also spur other housing sectors to better performance. In other words, if the private sector cannot meet the large social goal, then public agencies will develop housing and in this way make the market more competitive.
Another salutary aspect of the exhibition was the designers' recognition that both old and new suburbs fail to meet the growing diversity of housing needs — e.g., extended families, granny flats, home offices, group living, etc. Both "Nature-City," designed by WORKac for a site in Oregon, and "Property with Properties," by Zago Architecture for a site in Southern California, feature units of different sizes, types and densities. Niche demand (including dispersed rural communities, and supportive and transitional housing) can be more nimbly met by entrepreneurial non-profits working with government support than by top-down housing authorities. But even so-called traditional families would benefit from having more choice with regard to housing providers — with government serving as a watchdog against discrimination and retaliation. When public housing is the only housing provider — the provider of last resort, as it often is today — government itself can become the agent of discrimination, as is the case when it imposes “zero tolerance” rules for minor drug possession — the kind of rule that often results in poor families being evicted. While Reinhold Martin wonders whether we can any longer "imagine an architecture without developers," we would argue that to substitute "government" for "developers" seems an insufficiently nuanced proposition, and that government can have more impact by promoting a diversity of public-serving private developers than by commissioning architecture itself.
Prof. Martin argues that these kinds of strategies are often limited and even defined by the "now-dominant paradigm of privatization." But many of these housing strategies are effective in creating low-cost housing and in fact are tightly linked to government action. For example, "affordable housing" — with or without the scare quotes — would not exist without the federal Low Income Housing Tax Credit program, which was created in 1986. Similarly, inclusionary zoning puts private resources to explicitly public purposes, requiring developers to provide a fraction of newly-built units to low-income residents on or off site. In California, until recently, tax increment financing (generated by private businesses) allowed redevelopment agencies to provide the pre-development and gap funding that led to the creation of thousands of units of high-quality affordable housing.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights — which the newly founded United Nations adopted in 1948 — affirms that everyone has the right to housing, among other "necessary social services." Within the framework of international law, the ultimate responsibility for the protection of human rights rests with the public sector. But if it is the responsibility of the state to ensure that housing is universally provided, it is not necessarily the role of the state to build and operate housing directly. As with food aid (including food stamps), government-run programs implement the right to food, but do not require the state to own land and farm it. Similarly, government programs could implement the right to housing by strengthening existing mandates or incentives for inclusionary zoning, collective ownership, rent subsidies and regional housing plans — none of which requires public-built housing on public-owned land.
At ADPSR we agree with much of Prof. Martin’s analysis. As an organization — and also as individual practitioners — we too are dismayed by the unceasing rollback of social welfare programs (to cite just one example: here in cash-strapped California, the epicenter of the taxpayers revolt in the 1970s, legislators have recently eliminated all of the state's almost 400 redevelopment agencies) and by the right-wing and libertarian attack on the idea that government can be a locus of collective action and shared values. The steady and intensifying dismantling of American public housing — as exemplified not just by the demolition of Pruitt-Igoe but also by the wholesale destruction in the past decade of Chicago's postwar high-rise public housing — is certainly part of this rollback. And we would go even further: we believe it’s important to restore the perceived worth of public housing in order to validate and implement the fundamental human right to housing. Understanding the project of public housing within the larger human rights framework will advance Prof. Martin's position and help architects (and civilians) appreciate the value of Foreclosed as well. It will also expose the misbegotten faith in "individualism," which has distorted the politics of human rights.
(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
(2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.
— Article 25, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, United Nations
(2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.
— Article 25, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, United Nations
More specifically they were asked, gently but persistently, to design public housing on publicly owned or supported land identified in The Buell Hypothesis: not "affordable housing," or housing provided by "public-private partnerships," but genuinely public housing that learns even from notorious precedents like the Pruitt-Igoe and Cabrini-Green "experiments," as well as from far more successful examples that still endure in cities and suburbs across the country and around the world.
It is a sign of the times that this exhortation has proved controversial not because it reminds us of the economic inequity, the structural racism, and the gender violence that has marked every stage of so much welfare-state public housing, from inception to management, even as it challenges the apparent inevitability of such results. It is controversial because it suggests that the state, or the public sector — conceived along with civil society in terms of multiple, overlapping, virtual and actual publics — might play a more active, direct and enlightened role in the provision of housing and, by extension, of education, health care and other infrastructures of daily life in the United States. In other words, it is a direct challenge to the now-dominant paradigm of privatization. That the design teams did not entirely take up this challenge is, in my view, at least as interesting as what they actually did propose, and is perhaps symptomatic of how deeply the politics of privatization has shaped design culture. Simply put, can we no longer imagine architecture without developers?
It is a sign of the times that this exhortation has proved controversial not because it reminds us of the economic inequity, the structural racism, and the gender violence that has marked every stage of so much welfare-state public housing, from inception to management, even as it challenges the apparent inevitability of such results. It is controversial because it suggests that the state, or the public sector — conceived along with civil society in terms of multiple, overlapping, virtual and actual publics — might play a more active, direct and enlightened role in the provision of housing and, by extension, of education, health care and other infrastructures of daily life in the United States. In other words, it is a direct challenge to the now-dominant paradigm of privatization. That the design teams did not entirely take up this challenge is, in my view, at least as interesting as what they actually did propose, and is perhaps symptomatic of how deeply the politics of privatization has shaped design culture. Simply put, can we no longer imagine architecture without developers?
Mark Hogan
I posted this article on Facebook, and a friend who is not involved in planning or architecture commented on the theme of forgetting history, and how it is similar to the themes of the book "1984". The theatrical erasure of Pruitt Igoe has become a stand-in for the failure of modernism and public housing- I remember taking undergraduate planning classes at a very liberal university where public housing was being taught as being synonymous with failure. Everyone has bought into this fabricated history, and also to the new reality of public-private partnerships. That being said, I commend Amit Price Patel for taking a nuanced stance and recognizing that the fundamental goal is to provide housing and to recognize it as a right, rather than to quibble over the funding and ownership mechanisms.
We need more effective ways to build housing quickly and cheaply, and this requires both a design solution and a policy solution. Even in cities like San Francisco where there is a push by the local government to create housing for people at all income levels, the process works too slowly and leaves too many people out. Housing policy is a failure when there are thousands of people waiting for a home that they can afford.
06.26.12 at 02:51
We need more effective ways to build housing quickly and cheaply, and this requires both a design solution and a policy solution. Even in cities like San Francisco where there is a push by the local government to create housing for people at all income levels, the process works too slowly and leaves too many people out. Housing policy is a failure when there are thousands of people waiting for a home that they can afford.
06.26.12 at 02:51
HUFFPOST SUPER USER, blackranger,602 Fans
01:27 PM on 07/23/2012
cities and towns are run by the people you elect. if you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem
cities and towns are run by the people you elect. if you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem
bepa, human rights first, 117 Fans
12:32 PM on 07/23/2012
Laws can be changed if people want to change them. I hope you write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper to complain and send a letter to your elected representatives in your town. Tell everyone how unjust it was to fine someone for corn stalks...make it an issue
Laws can be changed if people want to change them. I hope you write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper to complain and send a letter to your elected representatives in your town. Tell everyone how unjust it was to fine someone for corn stalks...make it an issue
mule jenny, 3 Fans
07:21 AM on 07/23/2012
It is called "edible landscaping". It does not have to involve tall corn stalks. It is a very intriguing idea. I have done some of this type of landscaping. Every year I grow a hedge of indeterminate, small tomatoes that greets you as you come up to my door.
Too tall corn stalks? Maybe, maybe if they were blocking a view of traffic and causing a hazard. You can get into that situation with too tall shrubbery, as well.
It is called "edible landscaping". It does not have to involve tall corn stalks. It is a very intriguing idea. I have done some of this type of landscaping. Every year I grow a hedge of indeterminate, small tomatoes that greets you as you come up to my door.
Too tall corn stalks? Maybe, maybe if they were blocking a view of traffic and causing a hazard. You can get into that situation with too tall shrubbery, as well.
techBob, whatever happened to peace, love and understanding, 495 Fans
10:17 AM on 07/23/2012
I've been talking about the fact that there is no limit to the interest a homeowner can deduct. This is a big problem that reduces tax revenue. There should be a limit on the amount that can be deducted. Interest on the price of an average home should be deductible anything over that average amount excluded. $300,000.00 seems reasonable to me, any interest due to borrowing above that will not be deductible.
Had this been in place since day one homeowners would not have tried to get the biggest, tackiest house they can get a mortgage on and we may never have had this problem. There would be no demand and the contractors knowing this would not have built so many excess. Despite the banks trickery this would have prevented a lot of the carnage.
palaces they will never be able to sell. BTW my ex live near Tampa, was the first to buy in their new development, and now the surrounding, brand new homes having never been lived in are being torn down to prevent squatters and shooting galleries from taking over. My daughter bought a modest house in St Petersburg only to learn 2 years later that it's worth less than half of what they owe as almost every other house in the neighborhood was now
on the market at rock bottom prices. Fortunately they were able to do a short sale and move to Seminole which is a slightly more affluent area.
I've been talking about the fact that there is no limit to the interest a homeowner can deduct. This is a big problem that reduces tax revenue. There should be a limit on the amount that can be deducted. Interest on the price of an average home should be deductible anything over that average amount excluded. $300,000.00 seems reasonable to me, any interest due to borrowing above that will not be deductible.
Had this been in place since day one homeowners would not have tried to get the biggest, tackiest house they can get a mortgage on and we may never have had this problem. There would be no demand and the contractors knowing this would not have built so many excess. Despite the banks trickery this would have prevented a lot of the carnage.
palaces they will never be able to sell. BTW my ex live near Tampa, was the first to buy in their new development, and now the surrounding, brand new homes having never been lived in are being torn down to prevent squatters and shooting galleries from taking over. My daughter bought a modest house in St Petersburg only to learn 2 years later that it's worth less than half of what they owe as almost every other house in the neighborhood was now
on the market at rock bottom prices. Fortunately they were able to do a short sale and move to Seminole which is a slightly more affluent area.
techBob, whatever happened to peace, love and understanding, 495 Fans
10:17 AM on 07/23/2012
I've been talking about the fact that there is no limit to the interest a homeowner can deduct. This is a big problem that reduces tax revenue. There should be a limit on the amount that can be deducted. Interest on the price of an average home should be deductible anything over that average amount excluded. $300,000.00 seems reasonable to me, any interest due to borrowing above that will not be deductible.
Had this been in place since day one homeowners would not have tried to get the biggest, tackiest house they can get a mortgage on and we may never have had this problem. There would be no demand and the contractors knowing this would not have built so many excess. Despite the banks trickery this would have prevented a lot of the carnage.
palaces they will never be able to sell. BTW my ex live near Tampa, was the first to buy in their new development, and now the surrounding, brand new homes having never been lived in are being torn down to prevent squatters and shooting galleries from taking over. My daughter bought a modest house in St Petersburg only to learn 2 years later that it's worth less than half of what they owe as almost every other house in the neighborhood was now
on the market at rock bottom prices. Fortunately they were able to do a short sale and move to Seminole which is a slightly more affluent area.
I've been talking about the fact that there is no limit to the interest a homeowner can deduct. This is a big problem that reduces tax revenue. There should be a limit on the amount that can be deducted. Interest on the price of an average home should be deductible anything over that average amount excluded. $300,000.00 seems reasonable to me, any interest due to borrowing above that will not be deductible.
Had this been in place since day one homeowners would not have tried to get the biggest, tackiest house they can get a mortgage on and we may never have had this problem. There would be no demand and the contractors knowing this would not have built so many excess. Despite the banks trickery this would have prevented a lot of the carnage.
palaces they will never be able to sell. BTW my ex live near Tampa, was the first to buy in their new development, and now the surrounding, brand new homes having never been lived in are being torn down to prevent squatters and shooting galleries from taking over. My daughter bought a modest house in St Petersburg only to learn 2 years later that it's worth less than half of what they owe as almost every other house in the neighborhood was now
on the market at rock bottom prices. Fortunately they were able to do a short sale and move to Seminole which is a slightly more affluent area.
4eva, .-.. --- ...- . --..-- / -. --- - / .... .- - ., 2995 Fans
09:19 AM on 07/23/2012
This tax exemption just subsidizes more sprawl.
This tax exemption just subsidizes more sprawl.
bookreader451, "You can't ever have my books," she said., 1032 Fans
06:34 AM on 07/23/2012
So you would let Romney and his ilk continue to use every available loophole and remove the largest middle class tax tax exemption? You are pert of the problem, not the solution.
So you would let Romney and his ilk continue to use every available loophole and remove the largest middle class tax tax exemption? You are pert of the problem, not the solution.
HUFFPOST SUPER USER, PeterNPaul, Never trust a statist., 491 Fans
05:36 AM on 07/23/2012
Even better. Repeal the income tax.
Even better. Repeal the income tax.
MaryfromIL, 996 Fans
02:33 AM on 07/23/2012
This would destroy the pocket books of those holding existing mortgages, who count on that mortgage deduction. We could never have gotten our house without that $20K a year of itemized deductions.
This would destroy the pocket books of those holding existing mortgages, who count on that mortgage deduction. We could never have gotten our house without that $20K a year of itemized deductions.
sale bored, 169 Fans
12:52 AM on 07/23/2012
Toss out the tax exemption on mortgage interest and RE will bottom in 6 months. Cut the current exemption to two thirds the first year, then to one third the second and then to zero exemption for the third year, for all interest over $4k per year per house.
Toss out the tax exemption on mortgage interest and RE will bottom in 6 months. Cut the current exemption to two thirds the first year, then to one third the second and then to zero exemption for the third year, for all interest over $4k per year per house.
AmoreenaHogarth, 7 Fans
12:41 AM on 07/23/2012
I've never understood why anyone ever thought to pay so much to live in grids of look-alike homes... They look exactly like low income housing developments, really.
And the idea of criticizing people who use mass transit bus systems, but think it's not government to use the highways...
There's such a disconnect... I think a lot of people anymore don't connect how community & civilization aspects interact, and don't really understand how we have a civilization.
I've never understood why anyone ever thought to pay so much to live in grids of look-alike homes... They look exactly like low income housing developments, really.
And the idea of criticizing people who use mass transit bus systems, but think it's not government to use the highways...
There's such a disconnect... I think a lot of people anymore don't connect how community & civilization aspects interact, and don't really understand how we have a civilization.
antonymous, a man of wealth and taste, 736 Fans
12:34 AM on 07/23/2012
The Cicero plan sounds good on paper, but don't put a dime into that town until Larry Dominick is safely out of office and finally behind bars. He makes us next door in Chicago look clean.
The Cicero plan sounds good on paper, but don't put a dime into that town until Larry Dominick is safely out of office and finally behind bars. He makes us next door in Chicago look clean.
HUFFPOST SUPER USER, realitytrumpsbull, two 'alves of coconut!, 1330 Fans
12:23 AM on 07/23/2012
Since the mexican drug lords and international high-dollar real estate speculators have pretty much cornered the market on having a roof overhead, when can we expect The Government/associated business entities to start setting up the low-cost campsites and RV/trailer parks, or the high-capacity public confinement facilities/gas chambers/whatever?
Since the mexican drug lords and international high-dollar real estate speculators have pretty much cornered the market on having a roof overhead, when can we expect The Government/associated business entities to start setting up the low-cost campsites and RV/trailer parks, or the high-capacity public confinement facilities/gas chambers/whatever?
HUFFPOST SUPER USER, psnyder325, Yep, I'm a Socialist. Deal., 1429 Fans
05:06 AM on 07/23/2012
I'm not sure how I see the deflation of an over-inflated housing market brought about by greedy mortgage bankers and speculators has anything whatsoever to do with Obama. If we had kept sensible regulations in place during the Reagan/Bush/Clinton/Bush years, 2008's crash wouldn't have happened, and housing would not have shot through the roof. Obama is picking up the pieces. The previous 4 presidents and previous Congresses caused the problem through being in bed with the criminal international banking cartel.
I'm not sure how I see the deflation of an over-inflated housing market brought about by greedy mortgage bankers and speculators has anything whatsoever to do with Obama. If we had kept sensible regulations in place during the Reagan/Bush/Clinton/Bush years, 2008's crash wouldn't have happened, and housing would not have shot through the roof. Obama is picking up the pieces. The previous 4 presidents and previous Congresses caused the problem through being in bed with the criminal international banking cartel.
Most of the proposals on display would not be allowed under existing conditions. Zoning codes often require the separation of industrial and residential developments -- a legacy of efforts to protect households from the environmental hazards of smokestacks. But these restrictions now spawn modern environmental ills as people drive greater distances between home to work, spewing pollution. Our legal and financial apparatus is resistant to vague lines of ownership. This is the central insight of the exhibit: The rules at play are depriving us of potential solutions to our problems.
The exhibit is at root an attempt to exploit the trauma at hand -- a foreclosure crisis that has swept through suburbs with malevolent force -- as an opportunity to reexamine the conditions that got us here. For decades, homebuilders and their financiers marketed an appealing version of the American dream, the idea that nourishing family life plays out in new single-family homes, the trophies of upward mobility. That vision has gone cancerous. We are wasting hours in traffic and dollars on gasoline. We are squandering land on individual lots that could be used as broader green space. Government is surrendering vast sums to maintain highways when it could repurpose that money toward energy-efficient mass transit.
In the mythologized version of recent American history -- which is to say, the part where the suburbs devolved from the wholesome backdrop for family life into ground zero for a devastating foreclosure crisis -- we essentially got what we asked for.
Americans demanded gleaming houses on individual squares of lawn far removed from urban centers, and the people who finance and construct real estate delivered the goods. This is how we wound up with expanding rings of suburban sprawl orbiting every metropolitan area. This is how we turned ever-larger swaths of open space into grids of look-alike homes, the inventory that came to be tinder for the foreclosure inferno. The developers, bankers, salespeople and their government enablers were merely working to satisfy a public craving.
But the real estate bubble was in fact an orgy of profiteering run by and for the benefit of special interests that stuck the public with the cleanup. Investment banks poured money into housing because mortgages had become raw materials for a lucrative business churning out mortgage-backed securities. Homebuilders carved acreage into subdivisions far in excess of demand because money was free and volume was good for share prices. Money was free because the Federal Reserve kept interest rates low while Fannie and Freddie kept guaranteeing mortgages. Land was accessible because the government expanded highways and subsidized gas prices.
Americans demanded gleaming houses on individual squares of lawn far removed from urban centers, and the people who finance and construct real estate delivered the goods. This is how we wound up with expanding rings of suburban sprawl orbiting every metropolitan area. This is how we turned ever-larger swaths of open space into grids of look-alike homes, the inventory that came to be tinder for the foreclosure inferno. The developers, bankers, salespeople and their government enablers were merely working to satisfy a public craving.
But the real estate bubble was in fact an orgy of profiteering run by and for the benefit of special interests that stuck the public with the cleanup. Investment banks poured money into housing because mortgages had become raw materials for a lucrative business churning out mortgage-backed securities. Homebuilders carved acreage into subdivisions far in excess of demand because money was free and volume was good for share prices. Money was free because the Federal Reserve kept interest rates low while Fannie and Freddie kept guaranteeing mortgages. Land was accessible because the government expanded highways and subsidized gas prices.
Asking question such as, "What if we could create an entirely walkable suburb?" or "How can we live sustainably while close to nature?," the teams came up with truly unique, thought-provoking, and innovative proposals for addressing the crisis. My favorites were Nature City, which "combines the conveniences of urban life with the health benefits and access to agriculture of country living," and Simultaneous City, in which "publicly owned local land remains a public asset, and the income derived from development is shared with citizens" (-moma.org).
Audience Member: I used to be a homeowner in Fort Lee, but the taxes got to be too high. As you know in New Jersey the taxes for homes are among the highest in the country. So, I sold the home at a loss in this economy and received a HUD voucher to get a rental space. In my town, I was told there is a lack of public housing. If I were to go into a HUD building, I could move in but not move out. It would be better for someone of my age to get a HUD voucher and just try to find affordable housing with that voucher. Now that new development is not taking into consideration affordable housing, so my question to you is since the housing authority in my town said they cannot approach the developer, and the town that is making the deal with the developers cannot request affordable housing, can gentlemen like you make any suggestions? I understand that Governor Christie of New Jersey has the idea that affordable housing, the HUD program, is something where the developers that have put in money into the fund for these things, the funds have not been used, and that money he wants the government to take. So, the affordable housing in New Jersey is stagnant and looks like it’s going away. Can you make any suggestion how affordable housing can have a future and how there can be better communication with developers that are getting a great deal for people like me?
BL: What you essentially did in maybe two minutes is cut a broad swath right through just about every problem that we kind of touched upon up here and hopefully to some extent a lot of these projects started to poke at. I would, with all due respect to my colleagues, suggest they didn’t really get into that cut. And, when Barry said this would be a little more nuts and bolts, I didn’t realize we were talking this nuts and bolts, but you’re absolutely right. You point out a whole series of problems starting from the fact that you’ve been displaced, put in a position where you could no longer afford your house because of the taxes on that house. Now you’re being left with very few options. I would hope on a really basic level that your voucher is portable, so that you aren’t stuck just looking for housing in Fort Lee which I know can be somewhat challenging. […] The whole Affordable Housing Trust Fund is a problem because it’s like the old George Bernard Shaw play Major Barbara: It allows these guys to buy their way out of providing affordable housing. […] As long as you continue to take what amounts to developers’ ransom money, you’re going to continue to have segregated neighborhoods. You’re going to continue to have folks like yourself who are stuck, getting forced out of their neighborhood…
BL: What you essentially did in maybe two minutes is cut a broad swath right through just about every problem that we kind of touched upon up here and hopefully to some extent a lot of these projects started to poke at. I would, with all due respect to my colleagues, suggest they didn’t really get into that cut. And, when Barry said this would be a little more nuts and bolts, I didn’t realize we were talking this nuts and bolts, but you’re absolutely right. You point out a whole series of problems starting from the fact that you’ve been displaced, put in a position where you could no longer afford your house because of the taxes on that house. Now you’re being left with very few options. I would hope on a really basic level that your voucher is portable, so that you aren’t stuck just looking for housing in Fort Lee which I know can be somewhat challenging. […] The whole Affordable Housing Trust Fund is a problem because it’s like the old George Bernard Shaw play Major Barbara: It allows these guys to buy their way out of providing affordable housing. […] As long as you continue to take what amounts to developers’ ransom money, you’re going to continue to have segregated neighborhoods. You’re going to continue to have folks like yourself who are stuck, getting forced out of their neighborhood…
Reinhold Martin: So it’s an election year. The question is, really, as people kind of operating around municipal and regional public sectors, what it would take to move this discussion we’re having in the big city here out into America, broadly construed whether we’re calling that “suburbia” or not. In other words, out into a space, a sphere, a site of discussion, in which the underlying values are on the table in a manner that is at least comparable to the way the practice of finance is currently on the table or the way, say, healthcare was on the table a few years ago. It’s quite striking that, during an election year after four years of this crisis, housing is still not on the table. What do you think?
BL: One of the things I thought to do in preparation for this talk was to chart, from the Bush administration through the Obama administration, the number of times the word “housing” appears in the State of the Union address. I got really depressed, so I stopped. In essence—again, because it is so polarizing, and I can’t wait to see what they said on Fox News—you’re going to have to wait until December. You’re going to have to wait until he gets reelected. You’re going to have to wait until Shaun Donovan has four more years. Then we can start to have a meaningful discussion. But until then, I don’t think anything that you put on the national political agenda that talks about “public” or “housing” other than possibly bailing out mortgages and/or bailing out more bank —I don’t know how that’s going to gain any traction or do anything other than alienate more voters. But once December comes, then it’s a different story.
MJ: I wouldn’t disagree with that. I think there’s a curious rupture between the importance of housing in our lives and the importance of it in the political discourse, if you will. I think in New York City there are two things that are important to New Yorkers: real estate and romance. And real estate inevitably trumps romance. “Who’s got the right rent-stabilized apartment? I’ll take that one!” “Ok, you’re moving in with me. I’m not moving in with you.” Here it is so central to our lives. Go to a party in a single-family house in a neighborhood or something: “So, did you hear the house down the street went for so-many dollars?” It dominates our conversation in so many ways, and yet it’s so difficult for it to enter into the discussion even in the aftermath of this colossal, this calamity that has occurred. […] In some ways, when it gets into the public policy realm, it’s like “My eyes glaze over.” I’m talking about QRMs [Qualified Residential Mortgages], and you’re falling asleep. Let’s admit it. It is hard. It’s really hard to raise this issue in an effective manner.
BL: One of the things I thought to do in preparation for this talk was to chart, from the Bush administration through the Obama administration, the number of times the word “housing” appears in the State of the Union address. I got really depressed, so I stopped. In essence—again, because it is so polarizing, and I can’t wait to see what they said on Fox News—you’re going to have to wait until December. You’re going to have to wait until he gets reelected. You’re going to have to wait until Shaun Donovan has four more years. Then we can start to have a meaningful discussion. But until then, I don’t think anything that you put on the national political agenda that talks about “public” or “housing” other than possibly bailing out mortgages and/or bailing out more bank —I don’t know how that’s going to gain any traction or do anything other than alienate more voters. But once December comes, then it’s a different story.
MJ: I wouldn’t disagree with that. I think there’s a curious rupture between the importance of housing in our lives and the importance of it in the political discourse, if you will. I think in New York City there are two things that are important to New Yorkers: real estate and romance. And real estate inevitably trumps romance. “Who’s got the right rent-stabilized apartment? I’ll take that one!” “Ok, you’re moving in with me. I’m not moving in with you.” Here it is so central to our lives. Go to a party in a single-family house in a neighborhood or something: “So, did you hear the house down the street went for so-many dollars?” It dominates our conversation in so many ways, and yet it’s so difficult for it to enter into the discussion even in the aftermath of this colossal, this calamity that has occurred. […] In some ways, when it gets into the public policy realm, it’s like “My eyes glaze over.” I’m talking about QRMs [Qualified Residential Mortgages], and you’re falling asleep. Let’s admit it. It is hard. It’s really hard to raise this issue in an effective manner.
BL [in response to an audience question]: Quite frankly, the financiers don’t come without the policy. Maybe as a policymaker or someone who’s directly involved in policy, that might seem narcissistic if not naïve, but you did not see the widespread investment in personal mortgages until there was a tax break. You didn’t see the widespread investment and the ability for private public partnerships until there was a tax break. And those tax breaks were enabled with policy.
BL: The five teams, although each one of them in their own way tried to saddle up to the issue of public housing, no one really took it dead-on. No one really looked at it square in the eyes and ran at it, because it is so controversial, or that would be my guess from being on one of the teams and watching the other four teams work closely. It still has such a stigma to it. There is still such reluctance by the architectural community to reengage this issue of public housing that everyone kind of walked up to the edge and then shied back from it.
BL: What I think was really innovative about this project [“Simultaneous City”] was the coupling of mixed-income residential with various public amenities and civic spaces, and it’s not too far off from what is currently being pushed in the CHOICE Neighborhoods Initiative, which if you’re unfamiliar is essentially a follow-up to HOPE VI.
BL: With the second [Mt. Laurel] decision, it was one of the first states to not necessarily recognize housing as a need or as an inalienable human right, but what it did recognize was that a society or a community or a municipality has an obligation to its residents to provide low-income housing options. And so, in a way, it kind of turned the provision-of-housing argument in on itself and put that on the role of society which, in a lot of ways, is what The Buell Hypothesis argues. But the problem that New Jersey is running into—and this is an affordable housing development in Mt. Laurel—is that the infrastructure that is required to sustain that low level of density for low-income families is not really practical. That’s why COAH [Coalition on Affordable Housing] is being challenged. That’s why Mt. Laurel I and II are being challenged. That’s why a lot of this is being rethought. And I’m not saying that we should come down on one side or the other, but one thing I really enjoy about the comparison of these projects is what the issues of density mean to that debate.
MJ: But we’re still only tentatively seizing these opportunities. In some sense, when public bodies dither, private developers leap. In Huntington, Long Island in 2010, after three years of planning and endless meetings, a mixed-income, mixed-use rental and homeownership development proposed by Avalon Bay Communities and located less than a half-mile from the Long Island Rail Road station was defeated. The politics of change are extremely hard.
MJ: We can reverse engineer these communities, or as the HUD Secretary calls for, rebalance the mix of single-family and rental development with the financial tools we have at hand: discounted land prices, tax abatements and exemptions, capital subsidies, taxable bonds and tax-exempt bonds, housing revenue bonds, low-income housing tax credits and brownfield tax credits, inclusionary zoning strategies and long-term regulatory agreements and covenants that preserve the public investment and character of the developments. The techniques to fund these developments aren’t missing. What is needed are the necessary subsidies and their predicate political will.
MJ: But East Orange’s riff on transit-oriented development is a very smart proposal as well. It stretches our thinking, residing on the edge of the practical and the ideal. It proposes a politic trade: save revenue and therefore tax dollars by eliminating many of the neighborhood streets and the costs associated with maintaining them. Additionally, this approach radically diminishes the role of the automobile in the community. It treats the streets like we’ve treated vacant land in the city: as an opportunity for infill housing. It increases density in the area near an existing rail station and incorporates mixed uses enriching the area’s amenities while, again, reducing the residents’ reliance on the car to get things done. Curiously, however, while calling for the end of the ghetto enclave, its uninterrupted ribbon development results in a densely packed community that reminds me of my image of the kasbah, a true enclave, impenetrable from the outside, labyrinthine from the inside, and devoid of large, open, public spaces where people can meet and talk and relax. To relegate these opportunities, as they say in the paper, to the ground floors of new developments which might contain a variety of shops and services is to subordinate community to commerce.
It’s refreshing that the team unabashedly suggests that much of these new ribbons of housing would be developed as public housing. But if this is a serious idea, not simply a gesture or metaphor, then one must confront the fact that public housing in the United States, apart from unfortunately being in ideological disrepute, is also grossly underfunded.
It’s refreshing that the team unabashedly suggests that much of these new ribbons of housing would be developed as public housing. But if this is a serious idea, not simply a gesture or metaphor, then one must confront the fact that public housing in the United States, apart from unfortunately being in ideological disrepute, is also grossly underfunded.
MJ: In some ways, in its effort to strengthen the demographics of certain communities, the city used the crisis of the ’70s and ’80s to subtly suburbanize low- and moderate-income neighborhoods through its land disposition and financing strategy. It pushed the needle just a bit in the direction of homeownership, and under Mayor Bloomberg’s plan up until the real estate bubble burst, homeownership—single-family, cooperative, and condominium—continued to be integral to the plan. But what has been and remains truly integral to the plan has been a commitment to encourage mixed-income and mixed-use development based upon the belief that this strategy will result in stronger developments and more stable, durable, and healthier communities.
MJ: In fact, amidst the rubble and smoldering ruins of the South Bronx, building these 1950s, Beaver Cleaver, suburban tract homes was as provocative and improbable an act as building any of the five projects proposed in Foreclosed. It went contrary to and undermined every conceivable narrative about the South Bronx and the folks who lived there. It provided people with hope, an ineffable but indispensible quality that something could be done to roll back the firestorm of devastation. And it provided them with a model for how to do that: draw upon the ambition, energy, and resources of organized community residents, marry it with significant philanthropic and more importantly government resources and political will, and use those relationships to leverage private capital.
BB: These are all sites in metropolitan corridors. So, there are a number of characteristics that are incredibly important about these. First of all, obviously there is a substantial rate of foreclosure, well above the national average, in each of these regions and in the particular suburban locations that were chosen. All of them lie somewhere on or near—you remember high-speed rail? A once-projected vision of some kind of communal transport along corridors which might, in fact, rewrite some regional geographies. And, also, they all lay in metropolitan areas with substantial projected growth. So this is not an exercise in rust-belt downsizing or shrinking cities, but rather in places where to think about housing infrastructure-development actually made some sense even if they were invited to look at areas where there were large amounts of—and this is another important factor—large amounts of publicly held land that might be subject to development perhaps in a private-public partnership.
SheilaKhani
can we discuss the purpose of property tax? or table it for future topics?
Progressives_LoveAmerica
hp_blogger_Jonny Stewart, personally, I'd much prefer it if the government would EXPROPRIATE these homes & give them to the would-be victims of foreclosure, just to teach banks something about risk management.
toncuz
hopefully everyone knows that Fannie and Freddie were VICTIMS of Wall Street and Republican deregulation of derivatives...NOT the cause
tlstryker
same type of heist the same powers that be did at the great depression. they got the bailouts and the properties. total money grab by the rich.
SheilaKhani
Progressives_LoveAmerica, great idea! but not the same gov't that bailed them out - may be a pro socialist gov't
toncuz
Except FDR told those banks ...you are no longer in the loan business...the loans belong to us now...here's some chump change
MariJman
hp_blogger_Clay Chiles, they couldn't pay the taxes
Luanne_Taylor
Alabama gives you a year to come back and reclaim your home...
JamesPowers
look on the bright side if we end up homeless we can still get fed by the public in philly! hahaha that story really blows my mind
MariJman
I decided when I was a teenager never to buy a house because the government could take it away from me for not paying taxes if I lost a job etc. I feel you never can own it, only rent it from Uncle Sam
Eddie_VanderMolen
MariJman, there's an idea out there for a progressive property tax.
Enock_Zamora
I went to the 'slash and burn' chamber of commerce in the (8) district in Denver last night in the 'redevelopment' on Welton St.. The Renewal agency now say they are 'reformed'. What a concept.
MariJman
Eddie_VanderMolen, you know the banker fat cats and government lifers will never go for anything progressive when it comes to money
MariJman
VenusBivinsJohn, I agree renting is much less stressful because for the most part the government isn't there with their hand out
yeswecanjane
SheilaKhani, Added Bonus We get to help share the cost of their taxes:)
Homeownership (135)
“New paradigms of architecture, and regional and transportation planning could well be the silver lining in the crisis of home ownership,” Mr. Bergdoll said in a statement.
Foreclosed is situated in the midst of this drama, which is also playing out around the “American Dream” of suburban home ownership. It asks, gently but firmly: What are the rules by which housing ought to be designed, produced, and made available in the United States? To whom? By whom? To what end? What ought to be the role of governments in these processes? Of markets? Of architecture? Of urbanism?
However, as the exhibition moves forward and the emerging conversation surrounding foreclosure continues among cultural institutions, the creative minds at work must be cognizant of their objectives: to truly aid those who are losing their homes and to build a new platform on which Americans, and citizens internationally, can construct housing paradigms and approaches to ownership, investment and property.
If you asked your parents (doesn’t matter how old you are) to describe the American dream, they’d sooner or later talk about a house, a yard and a picket fence — a single-family home. George W. Bush, taking a line from Margaret Thatcher, called his administration’s easy credit policies “the ownership society,” one in which we’d all have the chance to work hard, prosper and buy a home.
“American workers have a much more nomadic lifestyle than they did in the ’50s and ’60s. They don’t live in just one home for 30 years anymore. Rent-to-own patterns might serve a lot of people better.”
Two interrelated claims provide the premise for "Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream," a recent workshop and forthcoming exhibition organized by the Department of Architecture and Design of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The first is that the foundation of the American dream, particularly as it has evolved over the past century, is ownership of a singlefamily suburban house; the second is that America's current foreclosure crisis should force a wholesale rethinking of this dream.
Bergdoll and Martin describe their directive to the teams as "not to redesign the house, but to redesign the dream."
All five teams have responded to this directive to some degree by proposing social and infrastructural systems that attempt, on a large scale, to align with the new cultural desires and economic realities of American suburban living. Amale Andraos and Dan Wood of WORK Architecture Company, working on SalemKeizer, Oregon, propose a contemporary update on the notion of a garden city, addressing a range of ecological issues. Hilary Sample and Michael Meredith of MOS, analyzing the Oranges, New Jersey, explore the potential of suburban streets to offer a new kind of civic space in a less car-dependent future. Jeanne Gang of Studio Gang, focusing on Cicero, Illinois, seeks a new flexibility in housing that will accommodate the rapidly shifting immigrant populations in the suburbs outside Chicago. Andrew Zago of Zago Architecture, studying Rialto, California, subverts the strict hierarchies of property boundaries that have traditionally structured suburban space. And Michael Bell of Visible Weather, examining Temple Terrace, Florida, considers the relationship between relatively homogenous Florida suburbs and the more diverse and less prosperous neighboring urban communities.
All five teams have responded to this directive to some degree by proposing social and infrastructural systems that attempt, on a large scale, to align with the new cultural desires and economic realities of American suburban living. Amale Andraos and Dan Wood of WORK Architecture Company, working on SalemKeizer, Oregon, propose a contemporary update on the notion of a garden city, addressing a range of ecological issues. Hilary Sample and Michael Meredith of MOS, analyzing the Oranges, New Jersey, explore the potential of suburban streets to offer a new kind of civic space in a less car-dependent future. Jeanne Gang of Studio Gang, focusing on Cicero, Illinois, seeks a new flexibility in housing that will accommodate the rapidly shifting immigrant populations in the suburbs outside Chicago. Andrew Zago of Zago Architecture, studying Rialto, California, subverts the strict hierarchies of property boundaries that have traditionally structured suburban space. And Michael Bell of Visible Weather, examining Temple Terrace, Florida, considers the relationship between relatively homogenous Florida suburbs and the more diverse and less prosperous neighboring urban communities.
jimmy-jo barrows
MAY 3, 2012, 10:19 A.M.
photo piece of the plight of Detroit along with a possible solution involving GIVING homes and commercial property or free rent to folks outside the city; photos of recipients revamping them and buisinesses starting up to support the new arrivals.
theme; how creativity along with left brain thinking can be used to solve vitsl cultural problems!
or pass on to “New Yorker” magazine for One City’s Museum of TOTAL Creativity Helps Save the Culture of Another
photo piece of the plight of Detroit along with a possible solution involving GIVING homes and commercial property or free rent to folks outside the city; photos of recipients revamping them and buisinesses starting up to support the new arrivals.
theme; how creativity along with left brain thinking can be used to solve vitsl cultural problems!
or pass on to “New Yorker” magazine for One City’s Museum of TOTAL Creativity Helps Save the Culture of Another
Along with changes to the built environment, the teams proposed changes to the predominant forms of home ownership.
Foreclosed calls into question the American Dream of home ownership and the way it was packaged and sold in the form of a single-family house in the suburbs. It ties the current foreclosure crisis to unsustainable trends in housing and planning that go back to the days of Frank Lloyd Wright and his Broadacre City. The exhibition also demonstrates how prevailing models for suburban development are not only environmentally unsustainable, but also financially unsound.
John
you people need to stop making a massive political deal out of this article. the suburbs were just something that emerged from the american need for more housing. suburbs helped kick off the baby boom. at the time, it was a great opportunity for these people. if you had told them before the suburbs became a common place to live, that they could own their own home, a lot of them would laugh at the concept. It was a pretty sweet deal for a lot of the WWII vets and their growing families.
December 20, 2011 at 11:02 pm
December 20, 2011 at 11:02 pm
Houstonian
You can get a decent house in any Houston suburb for $75,000, today. Much more than 750 square feet too. The economy did not take as much of a hit as the rest of the country here, but it still took a hit. So, there are jobs here as well. I grew up on Long Island and now live in a Houston suburb. Not sure why so many people still stay in New York, when it is unrealistically expensive.
December 20, 2011 at 1:21 pm
December 20, 2011 at 1:21 pm
KPMCO
I think you're very sadly mistaken. My mother had a high school diploma, was divorced, and still saved to purchase her own home in Houston. I moved to Florida, and after 10 years of saving, and waiting for the right opportunity, I have also purchased my own home. I have a bachelor's degree in English...and have worked in call centers among other places, to earn a living. Stop thinking that you have to be extremely wealthy to own a nice home. I saved a lot...up to 20% of my income...didn't buy a lot of electronics or fancy clothes, new cars, or ate out as much as my friends do. I still socialize, but in simpler ways..a video, card games, pot luck social dinners. All things are possible, but you need to prioritize and make choices to achieve your goals.
December 20, 2011 at 1:15 pm
December 20, 2011 at 1:15 pm
Brad
That is not true at all, I live in an area were housing is cheaper, I got a nice house for 70k, and payed it off really early but not spending my money on other things. It's all about priorities. If you want it enough, you will work for it and put off other things for it. In the long run, a house is cheaper then an apartment.
December 20, 2011 at 1:06 pm
December 20, 2011 at 1:06 pm
Will
Want to know why young people aren't buying houses any more?
"They put $100 down on the $8,500 house (about $75,000 in today's currency)."
What house can you buy that'd even be habitable, and that's not in a slum or 50 miles away from the nearest city, for $75000? How much would a comparable house sell for on Long Island now, $350000? Forget buying a house if you have anything less than a graduate degree, much less if you're a blue collar worker. If you aren't a doctor/stock broker/lawyer/engineer, you're f(#*ked, no matter how hard you work..
December 20, 2011 at 12:46 pm
"They put $100 down on the $8,500 house (about $75,000 in today's currency)."
What house can you buy that'd even be habitable, and that's not in a slum or 50 miles away from the nearest city, for $75000? How much would a comparable house sell for on Long Island now, $350000? Forget buying a house if you have anything less than a graduate degree, much less if you're a blue collar worker. If you aren't a doctor/stock broker/lawyer/engineer, you're f(#*ked, no matter how hard you work..
December 20, 2011 at 12:46 pm
From 1947 to 1951, Levitt built more than 17,000 homes in Levittown. The U.S. Federal Housing Administration encouraged the boom by backing the mortgages of returning veterans, allowing them to put virtually no money down. That let Dwyer and her husband chase a new American dream.
"It was heaven," she said of Levittown. "Heaven, heaven. Our own square plot of land."
Thus for example, would people really favor cooperative over individual ownership, or is that being proposed because one proposal assumes the American Dream is already gone? Is the detached dwelling on a postage stamp lot to be done away with for sustainability reasons or is it simply a case of detached homes being conceived of and sited in the wrong ways? Should we all be farming, riding bikes, and taking light rail? This doesn’t take into account patterns of employment and assumes people can afford to live close to where they work. One of the dominant forces that drove the suburbs was affordability, not just a flight from urban congestion, pollution, and crime. People keep moving further and further out because of the lure of ownership that is affordable, not because they are necessarily escaping something. To make any of these proposals tenable the economic system that has been eroded for the last thirty years has to be re-built. That dirty word, socialism, could get them off the ground!
Despite being well served by a regional transit system that includes both trains and buses, there is still a significant rate of foreclosure and a high rate of unemployment in Orange, a suburb of individual bungalows and single-family structures between New York City and Newark, New Jersey. An in-depth analysis of the suburb has sparked MOS Architects and their team to create a proposal suggesting a new form of urbanism and architectural occupation of the street. The proposal considers aspects of municipal budget and infrastructure, public health, and new models of ownership to promote flexibility and diversity-a range of issues that extends far beyond those generally considered in isolated development plans.
Replacing the original development plan that utilized public/private partnership, the team proposes the creation of a Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT), a tax designation for an entity investing in real estate, designed to reduce or eliminate corporate tax and distribute the taxable income into the hands of investors. Differing from typical REITs, the REIT for Simultaneous City would propose that the land remain a public asset and the income derived from the development would be shared with the citizens. The proposal for Simultaneous City parallels the existing geographical infrastructure of Temple Terrace while at the same time offering a new layer of financial, structural, and environmental engineering.
Land trusts have thrived on a small scale in New York City and Chicago, among other places. The federal government should now scale up the efforts by transferring some of the nearly 250,000 foreclosed homes acquired by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Housing Administration into a national trust or a series of local trusts.
One long-term solution would be a type of co-op in which residents buy and sell shares according to their changing needs and circumstances. Unlike traditional co-ops, residents could purchase shares corresponding only to the units they occupy, not the land beneath, which remains in the hands of a “community land trust.” Such a structure would keep housing costs down while limiting residents’ exposure to the market. It would also provide a backstop for struggling homeowners, since the trust would have the legal right to step in and assist residents in the event of foreclosure.
CYBEROID
I heard this exhibition announced on Pasadena, CA NPR station KPCC. The announcer was reading a press release from MOMA that began, something about pioneering design "in the wake of the foreclosure crisis."
We are not in a wake following a concluded foreclosure crisis -- we are in a foreclosure crisis! For MOMA to pass this off as the creative residue of a situation now resolved is not only stupidly Pollyanna, it is disingenuous and spreads false hope that the worst is behind us. No, the worst is ahead of us. More, many more homeowners are underwater or nearly so and as the economy continues basically moribund, the situation will only get worse. That is, if no one does anything dramatic to help homeowners as much as the bankers. Two Administrations of supposedly different ideologies have conspired to let the banks off the hook and throw the deadbeats -- the newly poor -- out of their homes.
MOMA's characterization of the exhibition as post facto is blatantly ignorant of the situation as it is. MOMA should be made to address the realities of home loss, not its own fantasy of what may have occurred.
BTW, the ridiculous solutions to the suburban crisis proposed in the exhibition are not clever, they are insulting to the people who made it possible: the foreclosed. Really in poor taste.
6 Months Ago
We are not in a wake following a concluded foreclosure crisis -- we are in a foreclosure crisis! For MOMA to pass this off as the creative residue of a situation now resolved is not only stupidly Pollyanna, it is disingenuous and spreads false hope that the worst is behind us. No, the worst is ahead of us. More, many more homeowners are underwater or nearly so and as the economy continues basically moribund, the situation will only get worse. That is, if no one does anything dramatic to help homeowners as much as the bankers. Two Administrations of supposedly different ideologies have conspired to let the banks off the hook and throw the deadbeats -- the newly poor -- out of their homes.
MOMA's characterization of the exhibition as post facto is blatantly ignorant of the situation as it is. MOMA should be made to address the realities of home loss, not its own fantasy of what may have occurred.
BTW, the ridiculous solutions to the suburban crisis proposed in the exhibition are not clever, they are insulting to the people who made it possible: the foreclosed. Really in poor taste.
6 Months Ago
FS: Essentially you’re creating public housing here, which doesn’t have great connotations. Historically speaking, it hasn’t worked out that well.
MB: The big issue I would get across here is that all housing is financially constructed. And in the United States, the single-family house for purchase with a mortgage is public. The mortgage deduction on your annual taxes means that everybody in this country has subsidized housing.
FS: Well, the homeowners do anyway.
MB: The big issue I would get across here is that all housing is financially constructed. And in the United States, the single-family house for purchase with a mortgage is public. The mortgage deduction on your annual taxes means that everybody in this country has subsidized housing.
FS: Well, the homeowners do anyway.
Jesus Negros
11 months ago
"decoupling the previous notion that ownership is a home and the land beneath it."
It's called a trailer park. It's already been invented.
"decoupling the previous notion that ownership is a home and the land beneath it."
It's called a trailer park. It's already been invented.
The elimination of restrictive zoning in the Cicero proposal is emblematic of the way the various teams in “Foreclosed” challenge the physical and bureaucratic barriers that have defined American suburbia for generations. All five teams push for a vibrant mix of residential and business development. All challenge the idea that “suburbs” and “cities” are fundamentally different creatures. All advocate for variability in types and terms of ownership, with rental always an option, and shared spaces for work and play readily available.
15 Feb, 2012 - (@thomsonreuters)
The new MoMA exhibit, “Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream", shows a radical approach to home ownership: http://reut.rs/zVU8jU
FS: So what you’re doing is you’re going along to the residents of Temple Terrace, and you’re saying, “We have this great new model for you. It involves shrinking and no longer owning your home.”
Michael Bell (MB): [laughs] You’re trying to make it sound good.
Michael Bell (MB): [laughs] You’re trying to make it sound good.
Felix Salmon (FS): So, I like this. So, you raise a large amount of money up front to build everything, and you raise that money by selling shares in the real estate investment trust to the broad public, to investors.
What if the home-buying process was easier to navigate and yielded more reward to the homeowner because of the innovative way the community was designed? Michael Bell, architect and professor at Columbia University, discusses his installation for the MoMA exhibition “Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream”.
jla-x
Feb 23, 12 12:07 pm
Sub-urban and suburban are also two very different things. I would argue that sub-urban is not bad. A good example of this is in some parts of Brooklyn, Queens, and Nassau county NY. The density is greater than the typical suburban environment, and there is a small business walkable street scape that flanks a mix of multi and single family housing in many of these neighborhoods. There is also access to public transit in and out of the city. There is a mix of home owners and renters, and the opportunity to own a house and rent out the top floor. There is a sense of community and a feeling of being in a small town within a city. The film "Do the Right Thing" by Spike Lee so clearly expresses this. Another issue is density. More density is not the solution alone. We need to find an appropriate balance of density, production, and economy so that development can be in some sort of sustainable balance. I think that sub-urban form has the greatest potential for a sustainable development because there is enough space to support a mix of agriculture, industry,small business, housing, park space, etc...as well as enough density to support local businesses with regard to employees and consumers. Cities like manhattan will never be able to become hybrid typologies because things like urban agriculture and production will be far too expensive due to crazy high land prices. The only problem with the sub-urban typology is that it sometimes becomes gentrified over time as we see in brooklyn or the opposite happens where it becomes a ghetto due to the home values going down as density goes up like in Jamaica Queens (balance is always a thin line). On the other hand, suburban development lends itself to exploitation by corporate interests as James R. clearly articulates. The American dream of owning a single family home is not going away. It is a part of the American culture that dates back hundreds of years. We need to find a solution to the problem without ignoring the cultural mentality that led to it. This is why ideas like the ones in the MoMA exhibit never work. I believe that we need to study examples that already work like Astoria, and go from there.
Sub-urban and suburban are also two very different things. I would argue that sub-urban is not bad. A good example of this is in some parts of Brooklyn, Queens, and Nassau county NY. The density is greater than the typical suburban environment, and there is a small business walkable street scape that flanks a mix of multi and single family housing in many of these neighborhoods. There is also access to public transit in and out of the city. There is a mix of home owners and renters, and the opportunity to own a house and rent out the top floor. There is a sense of community and a feeling of being in a small town within a city. The film "Do the Right Thing" by Spike Lee so clearly expresses this. Another issue is density. More density is not the solution alone. We need to find an appropriate balance of density, production, and economy so that development can be in some sort of sustainable balance. I think that sub-urban form has the greatest potential for a sustainable development because there is enough space to support a mix of agriculture, industry,small business, housing, park space, etc...as well as enough density to support local businesses with regard to employees and consumers. Cities like manhattan will never be able to become hybrid typologies because things like urban agriculture and production will be far too expensive due to crazy high land prices. The only problem with the sub-urban typology is that it sometimes becomes gentrified over time as we see in brooklyn or the opposite happens where it becomes a ghetto due to the home values going down as density goes up like in Jamaica Queens (balance is always a thin line). On the other hand, suburban development lends itself to exploitation by corporate interests as James R. clearly articulates. The American dream of owning a single family home is not going away. It is a part of the American culture that dates back hundreds of years. We need to find a solution to the problem without ignoring the cultural mentality that led to it. This is why ideas like the ones in the MoMA exhibit never work. I believe that we need to study examples that already work like Astoria, and go from there.
go do it
Feb 16, 12 10:22 am
it would be a hard sell to convince people to abandon the traditional stand alone owner occupied home to become apartment dwellers.
it really is not that hard to build a very efficient or even a net zero home these days
it would be a hard sell to convince people to abandon the traditional stand alone owner occupied home to become apartment dwellers.
it really is not that hard to build a very efficient or even a net zero home these days
wurdan freo
Feb 16, 12 10:06 am
Is this guy suggesting Condos are the solution to the real estate crisis? Or does everyone become a renter? Seems like another utopian community to me. And of course... he's going to tell me that if I have ONE child, I only get a two bedroom unit. No thanks. Why does innovation from Architects always have to come in the form of telling people how to live their lives? Maybe innovation could be a business model that allows Architects to incorporate all these good ideas and give the customer what they want instead of telling them what they want?
Some good ideas lost in translation, reducing cost of utilities. Simple solution there. Smaller footprint, better insulation and higher efficiency systems. Hmmm.... looks to be the kind of home that the home builders are putting out right now. Wonder why they're still in business?
Is this guy suggesting Condos are the solution to the real estate crisis? Or does everyone become a renter? Seems like another utopian community to me. And of course... he's going to tell me that if I have ONE child, I only get a two bedroom unit. No thanks. Why does innovation from Architects always have to come in the form of telling people how to live their lives? Maybe innovation could be a business model that allows Architects to incorporate all these good ideas and give the customer what they want instead of telling them what they want?
Some good ideas lost in translation, reducing cost of utilities. Simple solution there. Smaller footprint, better insulation and higher efficiency systems. Hmmm.... looks to be the kind of home that the home builders are putting out right now. Wonder why they're still in business?
Making use of the existing infrastructure, Gang came up with “The Garden in the Machine”, which demonstrates how the remains of Cicero’s industry, its lands, building materials, and existing rail infrastructure could be the foundation for a new and better town. The new vision calls for an influx of vegetation, trees and gardens to improve the green space of the area. Housing would largely transition to new live/work units and would require a change in zoning and regulations to allow a different form of ownership — one that allows citizens to purchase and sell shares corresponding to the live/work units they occupy. A variety of flexible housing options would be occupied by families of all sizes and a new economy would be created through residents who live and work in the same area. Rather than raze the entire area and start again, Gang sees that the existing infrastructure can be utilized to build a better, more sustainable city.
In a difficult but arresting new exhibit, “Foreclosure: Rehousing the American Dream,” MoMA is suggesting that architecture and design can help reconfigure how/where we live, and how we own homes (or don’t).
Bob Herbert (BH): What’s going to inevitably happen is that the American Dream is going to get redefined if it survives. But we’re moving ahead into a landscape where standards of living in general in this country are just going to be lower, and then I assume that housing becomes an integral part of that. And it seems to me that more people are going to rent. It seems to me that houses are going to have to be smaller. They’re going to have to at some point become more affordable, I assume. So, the question becomes what does that look like ten, fifteen years from now?
CH: One of the other architects, Jeanne Gang, who did a project in Cicero in the exhibit, makes this great point that I never thought about in these terms. She said that you’re sort of making a casino bet when you buy a house. You’re betting that it’s going to rise in value. That was a bet that a lot of people made, and now they’re on the wrong side of that bet. But, you’re also betting about what your life is going to look like. How many people are going to inhabit that house? You’re putting money down—you’re putting all your wealth in most cases—into this structure that says, “I am going to be married with the two kids and the dog” or whatever. And the fact is that new family members come in as immigrants possibly or you get divorced or you lose your job or your kids have to move back because they can’t get jobs. So the house is insufficiently flexible to deal with the changing American family.
MB: People have looked toward changing or improving the suburbs
for a long time. You can go back to the 1970s, and academics are often
lambasted for not being sensitive about it. But the reason I’m bringing
this up is that what is different at this point in time is everything from
globalization in terms of where is production happening, what are the
jobs. When you talk about housing, you ultimately always—even if you’re
an architect—end up talking about jobs. What will secure that loan in the
future? So, flexibility comes in. But the difference now, I think, is that
what people realize… And the foreclosure crisis is an awful thing, it is
absolutely a crisis, but it does start to create a situation where people
start to imagine that what we have is not inevitable. And, in fact, it was
produced, and it was dreamed. I think, people don’t like change in housing,
and they should worry about change in housing, but what we have is also
not terribly secure. And, so, I think that’s what you’re bringing up, and
Jeanne was bringing that up quite brilliantly.
CH: One of the things I think Detroit forces us to think of is the fact that
the things we think are natural are contingent.
MB: People have looked toward changing or improving the suburbs
for a long time. You can go back to the 1970s, and academics are often
lambasted for not being sensitive about it. But the reason I’m bringing
this up is that what is different at this point in time is everything from
globalization in terms of where is production happening, what are the
jobs. When you talk about housing, you ultimately always—even if you’re
an architect—end up talking about jobs. What will secure that loan in the
future? So, flexibility comes in. But the difference now, I think, is that
what people realize… And the foreclosure crisis is an awful thing, it is
absolutely a crisis, but it does start to create a situation where people
start to imagine that what we have is not inevitable. And, in fact, it was
produced, and it was dreamed. I think, people don’t like change in housing,
and they should worry about change in housing, but what we have is also
not terribly secure. And, so, I think that’s what you’re bringing up, and
Jeanne was bringing that up quite brilliantly.
CH: One of the things I think Detroit forces us to think of is the fact that
the things we think are natural are contingent.
Victoria Defrancesco Soto (VDS): I also think there’s the emotional part of it. How do you roll back half a century of the American Dream? I mean, what type of public service announcements are you going to put forward? “The American Dream has changed…” I mean, that’s even a bigger challenge. It’s a huge challenge.
CH: How’s this: “Embrace the Dream: Rent.” Anyone? Any takers on that?
CH: How’s this: “Embrace the Dream: Rent.” Anyone? Any takers on that?
CH: The future of the American home and the American Dream which are sort of married together, I think. One of the things this exhibition makes you think about is the underlying financial structure and policy structure that gives rise to the American suburb and the single-family home, because we all think of it as “They grow like corn in cornfields, right?” Particularly during the housing bubble, where I was living in Chicago, you’d go eighty miles west, and they are. They’re just being built, and it’s almost like an organic process. No one said, “Oh. Let there be McMansions. Let there be sub-developments.” But actually there is a structure underneath. There is a public policy structure, particularly the mortgage interest deduction that helps produce this.
MB: […] One of the big points of the show for anyone who deals with housing issues academically is, yeah, that deduction makes basically a
huge amount of American housing public housing at some level. It’s a far
bigger expenditure on the federal level than, for example, funding for HUD
for homelessness.
TS: It’s about $80 billion or something, right?
MB: It’s about $80 billion. Low-income housing tax credits, I think, are
probably $30 billion. So, the federal government at this point in time really
does not build directly public housing any longer. It incentivizes it through
tax credits.
CH: And it incentivizes for people to purchase their own homes and take
out a lot of debt, the interest of which they can then take off against their
taxes.
MB: […] One of the big points of the show for anyone who deals with housing issues academically is, yeah, that deduction makes basically a
huge amount of American housing public housing at some level. It’s a far
bigger expenditure on the federal level than, for example, funding for HUD
for homelessness.
TS: It’s about $80 billion or something, right?
MB: It’s about $80 billion. Low-income housing tax credits, I think, are
probably $30 billion. So, the federal government at this point in time really
does not build directly public housing any longer. It incentivizes it through
tax credits.
CH: And it incentivizes for people to purchase their own homes and take
out a lot of debt, the interest of which they can then take off against their
taxes.
Chris Hayes (CH): Part of what makes Detroit so symbolically powerful is the fact that it is the birthplace of the American car, and the car is one of the two pillars of the American Dream. The other, of course, is the detached single-family home. Such structures make up almost two-thirds of the nation’s housing stock, but more than that, the single-family home is an essential plot point in the story of the American Dream. We all know how it goes: you spend your twenties renting, aimless. You meet someone you love. You marry, settle down, get a career, and get a mortgage on a single family home in a suburb with a good school district and enough space for children. Of course, it was this aspiration that provided fuel for the maniacal engine of destruction that was the great housing securitization machine that Wall Street built during the last decade. The trauma of the housing bubble, and then the financial crisis and the foreclosure epidemic it has left in its wake, has created a landscape of ruin and abandonment. Half-completed developments of McMansions dot exurban cornfields. Blocks of vacant, boarded-up homes blight neighborhoods in inner-ring suburbs. And all of this forces us to reassess our fundamental adherence to the single-family suburban home as the cornerstone of American life. In a brilliant new exhibition at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, five teams of architects
were each assigned a suburban community with a higher foreclosure rate than the national average and asked to imagine in the design a vision for what sustainable, vibrant, post-crisis communities could be if we rethink our most fundamental beliefs about the American house.
were each assigned a suburban community with a higher foreclosure rate than the national average and asked to imagine in the design a vision for what sustainable, vibrant, post-crisis communities could be if we rethink our most fundamental beliefs about the American house.
(This is proving as faulty as the government’s attempts to pitch home buying — with increasingly long payment times — as investment instead of what it really is: debt-based consumption of a durable good.)
The firms were further informed by The Buell Hypothesis, a study published by Columbia University that argues that if you change the dream, you change the city. In other words, if private housing is no longer the goal, the process of redirecting suburban sprawl can begin.
We live in a society for the last half of a century based on the idea of suburbia as the ‘American Dream’- the dream of owning a house with a white picket fence and the fresh green lawn. Lately this dream is either nonexistent or fading away in most Americans. The need to change the entitlements and essentially rewrite the home equity system for housing will allow the owners to ‘play’ with programming and developing types. Thus, will create a new coding system and modify what the definition of a standard lot is. People can then rent and own spaces at the same time rather than just one or the other. Cooperative housing for families to share spaces (such as kitchens, laundry room, etc) is a common thought throughout each and every design and is one of the many ways to redefine housing.
“The house is a sacred term in American public discourse,” says Martin. “But a house could just be a house, like a car, or a chair, or a computer. It doesn’t necessarily bring with it – nor should it, I think – transcendente social meaning. A house isn’t sacred: it’s just one amoung many artifacts with which we live. You could say that we have attempted to gently secularize the idea of the house.
When we look at contemporary suburbia, it looks more like private property than public property. The system of single family homes and marks vast areas of residential development in the US is an inefficient model, because the collective and investment costs needed to sustain it are not part of a system. The public-private proposal by Bell and Seong underlines a form of reality which is already there. The current system of property ownership, based on mortgages (backed by government through low interest rates) is actually a system of public or subsidized housing.
The central question today, in particular in the USA where this crisis began, is linked to the rethinking of an entire economic model, the very idea of property and the role of politics in terms of its global governance. More generally, this crisis has led to a rethinking of the myth of the American Dream and its implications in today's world.
In Cicero, Ill., team leader Jeanne Gang confronted the issue that the housing stock of the town, mostly single-family bungalow houses, doesn’t really work with the population, which includes many new immigrants. Repurposing an old factory, Studio Gang Architects came up with a concept in which housing could be acquired in pieces according to need. It’s also friendly to the cottage industries that have sprung up as the town lost 45,000 factory jobs — workspaces in the factory could also be rented and shared. The proposal is based on a limited equity cooperative model. The land and shared amenities would be jointly owned — but the residents would own personal spaces.
Floridian, USA
4/3/2012 12:24
Owning your own home is the American dream. That is never going to change. Those architects need a wake up call
Owning your own home is the American dream. That is never going to change. Those architects need a wake up call
Justine, USA
3/3/2012 15:44
Robert Moses, many many years ago, suggested that we save all the beauty areas of the country for ALL the people. so the rich couldnot take up acreage on the beach in same the Hamptons, etc. HE suggested, smaller homes with huge common gardens, playgrounds....yet we would all have beach access, lake access, etc. I think its a good idea (in theory)..in reality, I don't want to pick up others doggie doo, or garbage. If we were all abiding and pleasant, it would be wonderful. BUT I DO agree that it is not right for the very rich to be able to 'control' a beach area. WHY should they be able to claim part of the Atlantic or Pacific for their very own? makes no sense. ALL beaches should be public, be in Malibu or Quogue.
Robert Moses, many many years ago, suggested that we save all the beauty areas of the country for ALL the people. so the rich couldnot take up acreage on the beach in same the Hamptons, etc. HE suggested, smaller homes with huge common gardens, playgrounds....yet we would all have beach access, lake access, etc. I think its a good idea (in theory)..in reality, I don't want to pick up others doggie doo, or garbage. If we were all abiding and pleasant, it would be wonderful. BUT I DO agree that it is not right for the very rich to be able to 'control' a beach area. WHY should they be able to claim part of the Atlantic or Pacific for their very own? makes no sense. ALL beaches should be public, be in Malibu or Quogue.
The American Dream, which for many Americans is the prospect of owning your own home, is dying. Or, at the very least, it is in danger of being lost to a sea of forces, which include overbuilding, overbuying and the economic downturn.
Surprisingly, the unsatisfactory aspect of the exhibition is its vagueness about the economic arrangements that would supposedly underpin these projects. The proposal for Orange, for example, would have “portable mortgages” and a “micro-governmental cooperative structure,” and the Cicero one would have a “limited-equity cooperative” model, whatever those things are. Others mention a public-private partnership or a real-estate investment trust—both more familiar terms—but what makes them right for these situations? We don’t really go to an art museum expecting a lesson in the economics of property development, but a related infographic for each proposal could have told enough. There’s a good reason to want to grasp the economics; we need alternatives to sprawl that can really work. The challenge is that it’s not just about design.
jeremysiegel
8th Mar
Mortgage Refinance
While interest rates have never been more attractive, the number of people taking advantage of the historically low rates and refinancing their mortgages has dropped substantially, most of them dont even aware of the rates, i recommend 123 Refinance for refinance
Mortgage Refinance
While interest rates have never been more attractive, the number of people taking advantage of the historically low rates and refinancing their mortgages has dropped substantially, most of them dont even aware of the rates, i recommend 123 Refinance for refinance
Most people want to own their own home because home ownership historically offered a sense of financial security, and it satisfies the human desire to control one’s own environment. As we have tragically learned, this vision was illusory for the millions who lost their homes in foreclosure, and for those who are now debt-burdened by their home investments.
It is time we re-imagined and retooled the old, stale notions of what constitutes a stable home.
It is time we re-imagined and retooled the old, stale notions of what constitutes a stable home.
The financial crisis forced millions into foreclosure, but also forced us to confront the metastasizing growth of housing costs in the U.S., as more and more Americans allot well over 30% of their income to housing. The foreclosure statistics are harrowing, and yet they are part of only one chapter in a larger narrative of misguided housing policies. The story of Temple Terrace is a microcosm of a housing crisis decades in the making.
12 Mar, 2012 - (@adainvest)
Foreclosed Homeowners Inspire Museum's Architects Show: James S. Russell: The MoMA show “Foreclosed: Rehousing t... http://bit.ly/z3Hr7D
13 Mar, 2012 - (@JamesSRussellny)
Architects float ideas for underwater homeowners at MoMA: http://bloom.bg/ACDs4Q #architecture#urban
rjchicago
MAR 14, 2012 4:46 PM EDT
Felix:
One other point – the interview with Mr. Bell in essence points out his socialization of housing and thereby negates one of the big principles that sets our nation apart – Property Rights!!! Somehow this fact is getting lost in these utopian schemes. Just food for thought!
Felix:
One other point – the interview with Mr. Bell in essence points out his socialization of housing and thereby negates one of the big principles that sets our nation apart – Property Rights!!! Somehow this fact is getting lost in these utopian schemes. Just food for thought!
Neil Padukone
I haven't seen it yet, but I'm looking forward to the Museum of the City of NY exhibit about the grid. You summarize the issue of the grid pretty well here. But one thing that many reviews of the exhibit seem to neglect is what Robert Neuwirth writes about in "Shadow Cities": the power dynamic that was central to the creation of the New York City grid. By laying out the land in blocks, the city was better able to define and allocate plots of land (usually coterminous with building numbers) to landowners. They were better able to assign and keep track of the values and prices of those plots. This inherently favored landowners in what was, at the time, a city largely inhabited by squatters.
In places like Mumbai, where arguably a majority of the city is inhabited---and much of it was literally developed---by squatters in slums and shanties, this commodification of land is very risky. Shutting (poor) squatters out of land is precisely what governments in Mumbai and Beijing are doing now, by bulldozing slums. And this is harmful not just for reasons of justice and equity, but also because the urban poor contribute a great deal of labor and economic activity to the city.
Blocks and grid systems would facilitate that process by specifically defining plots of land and putting a price on them, which would then be an "opportunity cost" of housing the poor.
In places like Mumbai, where arguably a majority of the city is inhabited---and much of it was literally developed---by squatters in slums and shanties, this commodification of land is very risky. Shutting (poor) squatters out of land is precisely what governments in Mumbai and Beijing are doing now, by bulldozing slums. And this is harmful not just for reasons of justice and equity, but also because the urban poor contribute a great deal of labor and economic activity to the city.
Blocks and grid systems would facilitate that process by specifically defining plots of land and putting a price on them, which would then be an "opportunity cost" of housing the poor.
The failure of this exhibit to highlight a fact that it clearly knows, and instead fall back on the enticing eye candy of design, is all the more frustrating because of its location. New York City has long been home to some of the most innovative ideas in collective property ownership, from co-ops to mutual housing associations.
24 Mar, 2012 - (@alexulam )
My review in #TheNation of #MoMA#ForeclosedShow that questions American Dream of homeownership and suburbia http://bit.ly/GLs7Z6 .
What we need to take from the Buell Hypothesis is that we need to rethink housing in North America. Specifically, what does it mean to "own" your home? What priorities should we put on helping homeowners? What about renters?
The really cool part of this project is not thinking about the house in holistic terms, but in terms of separate functional rooms (the kitchen, bedroom, washroom etc). Here, the idea is for families to indicate what kind of spaces they need, and make these spaces interchangable, making some spaces, like living rooms, multi-family household sections, which keeping other rooms separate. Its a bit radical with a touch of crazy, but hey, some of the best ideas are.
This sort of vague, non-ideological collectivism hangs over the entire show. Designs by Visible Weather and, in particular, Zago Architecture, stress the blurring of the usual lines between public and private, renting and owning, residential and commercial sites. Such imprecise boundaries give these projects a Ballardian air: what use is changing the dream if you replace it with a nightmare?
They are responding to the Buell Hypothesis, a long and somewhat loopy text in the form of a Socratic dialogue, put forward by the Buell Center at Columbia University whose aim is to “change the dream” of property ownership in America. Its maxims are perverse but enjoyable and often hit the mark. “The private house,” it states, “[is] just as institutionalized within social and economic policy as a public housing complex”.
In 1774, the Declaration of Colonial Rights declared that the colonists of North America had the immutable right to enjoy “life, liberty and property”. Two years later this document was reworked into the Declaration of Independence, and man’s immutable rights were tinkered with in order to replace “property” with “the pursuit of happiness”. Yet while “property” was struck from the record its spirit lingered on: owning a house became a key component of the fantasy of upward social mobility that we now know as the American Dream. This dream of property ownership never seemed more attainable than in the first decade of the 21st Century, when lax regulation, cheap credit and financial speculation led to a building boom and subsequent bust.
The exhibit invited five multidisciplinary teams led by architects to develop site-specific plans for five actual communities, with input from local residents. Models include familiar ecofriendly, sustainable initiatives, from light rail and co-generation electrical plants to recycling centers and community gardens. Some models include light industrial facilities and workspaces adjacent to residential areas to eliminate commutes. Most of the plans also include changes in predominant forms of homeownership.
Instead of being an engine of social mobility, homeownership has turned millions of Americans into debt slaves tied to houses that are continuing to lose value five years after the bubble burst.
The American Dream is often equated with owning a family home in the suburbs. That same definition of the dream also seems like one of the many causes of the mortgage crisis and subsequent economic collapse...not to mention a host of other environmental and societal problems. “Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream” --an exhibition at New York's Museum of Modern Art (through July 31) -- is based on the Buell Hypothesis, which posits that a suburb is really just a different kind of city, and that “if you change the dream, you change the city.”
lady brett
On April 17, 2012 at 6:31 am
fascinating! just great – i want to watch all of these.
i live in a city that is wholly embracing (sub)urban sprawl – it's a small city, so this is a (relatively) recent development. the difficult part is that it feels so unstoppable when the entire system of city government is set up to encourage single-use, encourage sprawl (things like zoning laws that make home business illegal, or lack of impact fees, so that developers don't have to pay a cent to get utilities run to new developments outside the current city). and discourage historic preservations, as angie said (or, more accurately, only encourage it in affluent neighborhoods).
this from someone who has wholly embraced the home part of the american dream, if not the other parts. but owning a home has been a dream of mine for…ever – and it is just as amazing as i always thought. the thing that really strikes me is the number of homeowners i know who don't actually like owning a home (or at least none of the details that come with the concept).
fascinating! just great – i want to watch all of these.
i live in a city that is wholly embracing (sub)urban sprawl – it's a small city, so this is a (relatively) recent development. the difficult part is that it feels so unstoppable when the entire system of city government is set up to encourage single-use, encourage sprawl (things like zoning laws that make home business illegal, or lack of impact fees, so that developers don't have to pay a cent to get utilities run to new developments outside the current city). and discourage historic preservations, as angie said (or, more accurately, only encourage it in affluent neighborhoods).
this from someone who has wholly embraced the home part of the american dream, if not the other parts. but owning a home has been a dream of mine for…ever – and it is just as amazing as i always thought. the thing that really strikes me is the number of homeowners i know who don't actually like owning a home (or at least none of the details that come with the concept).
Shannon
On April 17, 2012 at 7:14 am
Lady Brett: Just curious. What do you find amazing about owning your home and what are some of the complaints about people who do own their own home and don't like it?
Lady Brett: Just curious. What do you find amazing about owning your home and what are some of the complaints about people who do own their own home and don't like it?
SamB aka Youngfart
On April 17, 2012 at 8:05 am
I'm not intending to answer for her, but I identify with where she's coming from, so I'll give MY answer, if you don't mind.
There was a car commercial a few years ago where some young adults are dancing in their apartment and the downstairs neighbor gets mad, so they get in their VW and go buy tons of giant speakers, and it shows them setting them up, and then dancing and jumping on the floor as hard as they can. And then, just when you're thinking they're the biggest dicks ever, it zooms out and they don't live in an apartment anymore; they bought a house.
THIS is why I love my house. I can do what I want in it, I can fill all the fixtures with red lightbulbs, I can dig a trench in my yard and not fill it in all winter long, I can mellow-rock-out to Halou all night long with my windows open, and my neighbors love me, because when they asked me to stop hard-rocking-out to Ministry with the windows open, I DID!
I think people get tired of paying a mortgage (which feels like rent) and not getting any of the benefits of renting. For instance: when my toilet backs up, I have to pay the plumber; when my window screen pops out, I have to shove that rubber bead thingy back in there for like the next three hours; when I get tired of my neighborhood, or my new neighbors, or my tiny, cluttered house, I can't just move…
Home-owning is rewarding, but definitely not for everyone.
I'm not intending to answer for her, but I identify with where she's coming from, so I'll give MY answer, if you don't mind.
There was a car commercial a few years ago where some young adults are dancing in their apartment and the downstairs neighbor gets mad, so they get in their VW and go buy tons of giant speakers, and it shows them setting them up, and then dancing and jumping on the floor as hard as they can. And then, just when you're thinking they're the biggest dicks ever, it zooms out and they don't live in an apartment anymore; they bought a house.
THIS is why I love my house. I can do what I want in it, I can fill all the fixtures with red lightbulbs, I can dig a trench in my yard and not fill it in all winter long, I can mellow-rock-out to Halou all night long with my windows open, and my neighbors love me, because when they asked me to stop hard-rocking-out to Ministry with the windows open, I DID!
I think people get tired of paying a mortgage (which feels like rent) and not getting any of the benefits of renting. For instance: when my toilet backs up, I have to pay the plumber; when my window screen pops out, I have to shove that rubber bead thingy back in there for like the next three hours; when I get tired of my neighborhood, or my new neighbors, or my tiny, cluttered house, I can't just move…
Home-owning is rewarding, but definitely not for everyone.
Cat Rocketship
n April 17, 2012 at 9:28 am
It gets complicated because the point of the exhibit Caroline is reporting on is basically that home-ownership like that — unrestricted and wholly self-fulfilling — WAS the American Dream, but is no longer. We don't have the space, or the money, or the resources, or the financial institutions to support that sort of everyone-gets-exactly-what-they-want lifestyle. The communities we built in that image are sprawling and unsustainable, and the designers and artists participating in the exhibit were tasked with imagining how society could take existing infrastructure and reimagine it in more effective, community-focused ways.
It gets complicated because the point of the exhibit Caroline is reporting on is basically that home-ownership like that — unrestricted and wholly self-fulfilling — WAS the American Dream, but is no longer. We don't have the space, or the money, or the resources, or the financial institutions to support that sort of everyone-gets-exactly-what-they-want lifestyle. The communities we built in that image are sprawling and unsustainable, and the designers and artists participating in the exhibit were tasked with imagining how society could take existing infrastructure and reimagine it in more effective, community-focused ways.
lady brett
On April 17, 2012 at 8:30 pm
shannon –my home is the hobby i've always wanted – i have always and forever loved building, fixing things…handyman work. apartment/rental life (for me they were always the same) was boring to me. the ability to customize my house the way i like is part of it, but the bigger part is that if my sheetrock needs repair i get to repair the sheetrock rather than call someone to do it. it's awesome.
there are also aspects of space and community which are not exclusive to houses or homeowners, but which have correlated in my life – urban homesteading stuff like growing food and composting and such, and talking with the neighbors, or meeting folks who walk their dogs (or kids with rc cars) by the house while you're gardening.
anyhow, i think the difference is that there are a lot of folks who own homes because it is what you are "supposed to do", but who don't actually like any of the things that come with it – they'd rather just be able to call a landlord to fix the house problems, and i know quite a few who find a yard to be more of a hassle than an asset. which is a-ok, but it seems to me like a shame that they were culturally shamed into homeownership in the first place.
also, i've gotten a chance to see another couple of the videos, and this project is fascinating! i *love* the ideas of space and community in these. again, space and community are a lot of what i love about homeownership, and those could (in theory) absolutely be achieved without the ownership part. but not here and now, so…
shannon –my home is the hobby i've always wanted – i have always and forever loved building, fixing things…handyman work. apartment/rental life (for me they were always the same) was boring to me. the ability to customize my house the way i like is part of it, but the bigger part is that if my sheetrock needs repair i get to repair the sheetrock rather than call someone to do it. it's awesome.
there are also aspects of space and community which are not exclusive to houses or homeowners, but which have correlated in my life – urban homesteading stuff like growing food and composting and such, and talking with the neighbors, or meeting folks who walk their dogs (or kids with rc cars) by the house while you're gardening.
anyhow, i think the difference is that there are a lot of folks who own homes because it is what you are "supposed to do", but who don't actually like any of the things that come with it – they'd rather just be able to call a landlord to fix the house problems, and i know quite a few who find a yard to be more of a hassle than an asset. which is a-ok, but it seems to me like a shame that they were culturally shamed into homeownership in the first place.
also, i've gotten a chance to see another couple of the videos, and this project is fascinating! i *love* the ideas of space and community in these. again, space and community are a lot of what i love about homeownership, and those could (in theory) absolutely be achieved without the ownership part. but not here and now, so…
CJ
On May 3, 2012 at 1:55 pm
I have always wanted something between a dream apartment setup that I've never seen exist & home ownership.My basic wants & needs are:–little to no shared walls unless I literally know my neighbors or can screen them & set up agreements (I have been victim to every kind of inconsiderate neighbor imaginable & am only 24 years old)–garden/ yard/ bonfire space–a community of neighbors that actually talk to one another and/or at least could recognize each other elsewhere–some sort of fenced-in outdoor area for my dog &/or future children (not necessarily a communal thing in this case vs. the garden/ bonfire space)
I've never seen anything remotely like this. The closest I've seen is a cul-de-sac back home in WI where at least 4 of the 9 families knew one another, all had their own yard, & occasionally suggested a block party or extended invitations to an existing backyard party to the whole neighborhood. In my mind this is hardly close to the aforementioned situation.
I have always wanted something between a dream apartment setup that I've never seen exist & home ownership.My basic wants & needs are:–little to no shared walls unless I literally know my neighbors or can screen them & set up agreements (I have been victim to every kind of inconsiderate neighbor imaginable & am only 24 years old)–garden/ yard/ bonfire space–a community of neighbors that actually talk to one another and/or at least could recognize each other elsewhere–some sort of fenced-in outdoor area for my dog &/or future children (not necessarily a communal thing in this case vs. the garden/ bonfire space)
I've never seen anything remotely like this. The closest I've seen is a cul-de-sac back home in WI where at least 4 of the 9 families knew one another, all had their own yard, & occasionally suggested a block party or extended invitations to an existing backyard party to the whole neighborhood. In my mind this is hardly close to the aforementioned situation.
The typical image of an American suburb, as we can see in movies and TV, is nothing else but boring, monochrome, seething world with cheap fast-food restaurants, old gas stations, and a mix of problems, such as poverty, drugs, and racial squabbles.
However, the original idea of designing neighborhoods was to escape all of these city life hardships and to live in a quiet, green and neat place with a family. Suburbs have long been the sites of a key component of American dream – personal ownership of a single-family home, an investment that once guaranteed stability and legacy for next generations.
However, the original idea of designing neighborhoods was to escape all of these city life hardships and to live in a quiet, green and neat place with a family. Suburbs have long been the sites of a key component of American dream – personal ownership of a single-family home, an investment that once guaranteed stability and legacy for next generations.
As I made my way through the gallery, I noticed that both Jeanne Gang’s project for Cicero and, in part, Andrew Zago’s for Rialto called for decoupling home ownership from ownership of the underlying land, which would, theoretically, cut home prices and create a new class of public property. This was the exhibition at its most provocative, addressing the forces that have most powerfully shaped suburbs and smaller cities: public policy, government regulations, zoning, the rules governing mortgages, the way roads and utilities are paid for. At its best, Foreclosed was not an architecture show at all. It was a mini-seminar on public policy—and an assault on conventional notions of private property.
Bell told me what his team was thinking: “One basic understanding of REITs that I often heard people criticize is that they’re essentially hedging instruments.” So the upswing in home prices in one part of the world might be played off a drop in value elsewhere. “Instead of real estate being held as a local asset, it gets bundled up as a global asset.
Bell told me what his team was thinking: “One basic understanding of REITs that I often heard people criticize is that they’re essentially hedging instruments.” So the upswing in home prices in one part of the world might be played off a drop in value elsewhere. “Instead of real estate being held as a local asset, it gets bundled up as a global asset.
Or as the financier put it, “It’s like a commune, except that no one is standing around playing hacky sack.” Maybe he meant Frisbee, but no matter. It’s interesting that it took an expert in finance to see the genuinely visionary idea that’s buried deep in this exhibition. I don’t think the models that fill most of the gallery have the power to upend convention—at this point, it would take a pretty outrageous architectural idea to shake up a MoMA visitor. However, given the paranoid tenor of our time, in which the president is routinely accused of being a socialist for bailing out Chrysler, and Tea Party types commonly regard efforts to reduce sprawl as a United Nations–driven attack on our freedoms, a museum show proposing the collective ownership of front lawns is wonderfully and unexpectedly subversive.
“Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream,” visually demonstrates the results of the ongoing quest to throw off the stereotypes of suburban living and effectively alters the classic dream of owning property in America.
It sounds a tad academic, but the exhibition has been pulling in crowds
with its use of appealing architectural models, videos, artists’ renderings, and large-scale graphics. Even a Rubik’s Cube plays its part, helping to explain Studio Gang’s presentation for Cicero, Ill., an aging suburb outside Chicago. The cube, with its shifting components, represents the plan’s modular “recombinant” housing, mostly within an abandoned factory; the concept allows residents to buy only those parts of a dwelling that they need, adding or subtracting rooms as their families grow or shrink.
with its use of appealing architectural models, videos, artists’ renderings, and large-scale graphics. Even a Rubik’s Cube plays its part, helping to explain Studio Gang’s presentation for Cicero, Ill., an aging suburb outside Chicago. The cube, with its shifting components, represents the plan’s modular “recombinant” housing, mostly within an abandoned factory; the concept allows residents to buy only those parts of a dwelling that they need, adding or subtracting rooms as their families grow or shrink.
This prologue to the Hypothesis and the Foreclosed designs does a great job of explaining how the mortgage crisis is based on global finance -- ergo, so is home ownership. It also illustrates how suburbs are increasingly city-like, in terms of demographics, economics, and social conflict. Therefore changing conditions locally and globally necessitate a reconsideration of the suburban milieu, not just quick fixes to the existing infrastructure. But do the five designs point to effective "dreams" for Americans to consider?
When the various speculations are viewed through the framing of The Buell Hypothesis, the American Dream is inverted from home ownership to social and economic cooperation. In this sense it's not surprising that people are dismissive of the exhibition. But if people are looking for ideas that maintain the suburban status quo, one may ask why they haven't been discovered and implemented yet? A handful of architects will not have the answers to such a great problem, especially since it involves, as The Buell Hypothesis attests, global finances and infrastructure. The projects attempt to give the viewer and reader something to think about, but ultimately it's the group at Columbia's Buell Center that sparks this more than the models, drawings, and films from the architects.
One of the largest visions is housing for all. From WORKac’s attempt to bring a five-fold increase in densification through high-rise building to MOS’s decoupling of ownership and place through the mechanism of portable mortgages, the projects in Foreclosed seek to meet this goal through various new strategies. But what about small-scale strategies that have already proven successful? Here's one example: Accessory Dwelling Unit programs, which flourished in the last decade, have added density, diversity and connectivity to existing communities, and in the process made them more sustainable. In 2006 Santa Cruz, California, started one of the most progressive ADU programs in the U.S., largely to enhance housing affordability in an affluent city where less than 10 percent of the population could afford to buy even a median-priced home. The program included loan financing and technical assistance, and it hired design firms to create prototypes for likely "accessory" conditions. Today it's one of the city’s most popular programs, with an average of 50 new units every year.
On this note, we were encouraged, in Foreclosed, to see some of the design teams propose innovative forms of financing and ownership. In "Simultaneous City," which focused on the Tampa suburb of Temple Terrace, Florida, the team led by Visible Weather calls for a Real Estate Investment Trust, in which, unlike most REITs, "publicly owned local land remains a public asset, and the income derived from development is shared with citizens." In "The Garden in the Machine," for a site in Cicero, Illinois, Studio Gang Architects envisions a limited equity cooperative in which "residents own their individual spaces, but land and shared amenities are jointly owned by all, in a private trust, a kind of micro-governmental cooperative structure, where the local residents participate directly in determining the qualities of their neighborhood." These sorts of small-scale, alternative mash-ups, based on shared ownership and responsibility, can help ensure that the projects maintain a public dimension yet operate with greater flexibility than traditional public housing.
Second, contrary to the myth that ours is a “post-racial” society, the foreclosure crisis has disproportionately affected communities of color, as did the housing crises that have recurred throughout U.S. history. For more than half a century, U.S. housing policy, with bipartisan support, has supported the “American Dream” of individual homeownership as the answer to the exclusion of African Americans from access to decent housing. But lately the dream turned into a nightmare when predatory lenders targeted the very populations that had been excluded, when greenlining led to gentrification and displacement in many cities, and when disinvestment in public housing began to eat away at one of the last of the mid-century social safety nets. All of these trends have reinforced structural inequalities and for the most part left intact neighborhood segregation.
Most interesting to me was the variety of new economic models of ownership, from limited equity co-ops, to real estate investment trusts that blur the line between owning and renting (the government would share the income from development of public land with citizens), to new “portable mortgages,” where ownership is “not tied to a particular space.”
But beyond the architecture, landscaping and infrastructure, which were all inventive, it's more in the fine print of the exhibits and in the catalog that gets to the more radical reimagining of the American dream. Many teams experimented with altering the standard system of home ownership through a bill of sale for land and a home, with a conventional bank-financed mortgage. The teams called for "portable mortgages," a "public real estate investment trust," a "community land bank," a "public-private partnership," and a "limited equity cooperative." These alternative ownership systems take a clear cue from the Columbia University manifesto, and strive to give alternatives to individual homeownership by emphasizing the public and long-term ownership of housing by a given community or government. This is real change.
Unfortunately this aspect of the show is only given a few sentences in the exhibit catalog, as well as the website and physical exhibit. A more detailed description of ideas such as "portable mortgages" or "public real estate investment trusts" would have taken the conversation further into the intersection of buildings and the communities that inhabit them. More than changing zoning or the physical walls around people's kitchens and bedrooms, expanding more the possibilities of new types of housing tenure would have been helpful. This would have provided a clearer path to showing how they propose we ground these new American dreams financially and legally.
Unfortunately this aspect of the show is only given a few sentences in the exhibit catalog, as well as the website and physical exhibit. A more detailed description of ideas such as "portable mortgages" or "public real estate investment trusts" would have taken the conversation further into the intersection of buildings and the communities that inhabit them. More than changing zoning or the physical walls around people's kitchens and bedrooms, expanding more the possibilities of new types of housing tenure would have been helpful. This would have provided a clearer path to showing how they propose we ground these new American dreams financially and legally.
Of the proposed new 4,850 residential units housing 13,000 people, half are ownership units and half are rental. Thirty percent of all units are income restricted, with 10% affordable to families earning up to $45,000, and another 20% affordable to families earning approximately $45–80,000 annually.
HUFFPOST SUPER USER, Cyrus Trance, I check facts, 261 Fans
04:41 AM on 07/23/2012
In some of the harder hit areas A investors are buying up properties for cash and renting them out.
This means that huge sections of the community will be rentals which is not good.
In some of the harder hit areas A investors are buying up properties for cash and renting them out.
This means that huge sections of the community will be rentals which is not good.
SF94109, 5 Fans
03:45 AM on 07/23/2012
I believe in density, as in cities, where efficient distribution infrastructure is established and leave more open space around the city for everybody to enjoy. This is also less harmful to the environment when we concentrate habitat with a smaller footprint. Cities are vibrant places where people actually interact and encourage understanding and learn to live together. While I understand the urge to want to own ones home, I don't understand the continued sprawl of suburban areas that are so far away from the cities. What does one do in these boring tract homes that all look the same and where nobody gets out of their cars until they are in their garage. It's kind of depressing.
I believe in density, as in cities, where efficient distribution infrastructure is established and leave more open space around the city for everybody to enjoy. This is also less harmful to the environment when we concentrate habitat with a smaller footprint. Cities are vibrant places where people actually interact and encourage understanding and learn to live together. While I understand the urge to want to own ones home, I don't understand the continued sprawl of suburban areas that are so far away from the cities. What does one do in these boring tract homes that all look the same and where nobody gets out of their cars until they are in their garage. It's kind of depressing.
techBob, whatever happened to peace, love and understanding, 495 Fans
10:17 AM on 07/23/2012
I've been talking about the fact that there is no limit to the interest a homeowner can deduct. This is a big problem that reduces tax revenue. There should be a limit on the amount that can be deducted. Interest on the price of an average home should be deductible anything over that average amount excluded. $300,000.00 seems reasonable to me, any interest due to borrowing above that will not be deductible.
Had this been in place since day one homeowners would not have tried to get the biggest, tackiest house they can get a mortgage on and we may never have had this problem. There would be no demand and the contractors knowing this would not have built so many excess. Despite the banks trickery this would have prevented a lot of the carnage.
palaces they will never be able to sell. BTW my ex live near Tampa, was the first to buy in their new development, and now the surrounding, brand new homes having never been lived in are being torn down to prevent squatters and shooting galleries from taking over. My daughter bought a modest house in St Petersburg only to learn 2 years later that it's worth less than half of what they owe as almost every other house in the neighborhood was now
on the market at rock bottom prices. Fortunately they were able to do a short sale and move to Seminole which is a slightly more affluent area.
I've been talking about the fact that there is no limit to the interest a homeowner can deduct. This is a big problem that reduces tax revenue. There should be a limit on the amount that can be deducted. Interest on the price of an average home should be deductible anything over that average amount excluded. $300,000.00 seems reasonable to me, any interest due to borrowing above that will not be deductible.
Had this been in place since day one homeowners would not have tried to get the biggest, tackiest house they can get a mortgage on and we may never have had this problem. There would be no demand and the contractors knowing this would not have built so many excess. Despite the banks trickery this would have prevented a lot of the carnage.
palaces they will never be able to sell. BTW my ex live near Tampa, was the first to buy in their new development, and now the surrounding, brand new homes having never been lived in are being torn down to prevent squatters and shooting galleries from taking over. My daughter bought a modest house in St Petersburg only to learn 2 years later that it's worth less than half of what they owe as almost every other house in the neighborhood was now
on the market at rock bottom prices. Fortunately they were able to do a short sale and move to Seminole which is a slightly more affluent area.
techBob, whatever happened to peace, love and understanding, 495 Fans
10:17 AM on 07/23/2012
I've been talking about the fact that there is no limit to the interest a homeowner can deduct. This is a big problem that reduces tax revenue. There should be a limit on the amount that can be deducted. Interest on the price of an average home should be deductible anything over that average amount excluded. $300,000.00 seems reasonable to me, any interest due to borrowing above that will not be deductible.
Had this been in place since day one homeowners would not have tried to get the biggest, tackiest house they can get a mortgage on and we may never have had this problem. There would be no demand and the contractors knowing this would not have built so many excess. Despite the banks trickery this would have prevented a lot of the carnage.
palaces they will never be able to sell. BTW my ex live near Tampa, was the first to buy in their new development, and now the surrounding, brand new homes having never been lived in are being torn down to prevent squatters and shooting galleries from taking over. My daughter bought a modest house in St Petersburg only to learn 2 years later that it's worth less than half of what they owe as almost every other house in the neighborhood was now
on the market at rock bottom prices. Fortunately they were able to do a short sale and move to Seminole which is a slightly more affluent area.
I've been talking about the fact that there is no limit to the interest a homeowner can deduct. This is a big problem that reduces tax revenue. There should be a limit on the amount that can be deducted. Interest on the price of an average home should be deductible anything over that average amount excluded. $300,000.00 seems reasonable to me, any interest due to borrowing above that will not be deductible.
Had this been in place since day one homeowners would not have tried to get the biggest, tackiest house they can get a mortgage on and we may never have had this problem. There would be no demand and the contractors knowing this would not have built so many excess. Despite the banks trickery this would have prevented a lot of the carnage.
palaces they will never be able to sell. BTW my ex live near Tampa, was the first to buy in their new development, and now the surrounding, brand new homes having never been lived in are being torn down to prevent squatters and shooting galleries from taking over. My daughter bought a modest house in St Petersburg only to learn 2 years later that it's worth less than half of what they owe as almost every other house in the neighborhood was now
on the market at rock bottom prices. Fortunately they were able to do a short sale and move to Seminole which is a slightly more affluent area.
MaryfromIL, 996 Fans
02:33 AM on 07/23/2012
This would destroy the pocket books of those holding existing mortgages, who count on that mortgage deduction. We could never have gotten our house without that $20K a year of itemized deductions.
This would destroy the pocket books of those holding existing mortgages, who count on that mortgage deduction. We could never have gotten our house without that $20K a year of itemized deductions.
Many people may be put off by the concept of living in such close confines. Many will resist the elimination of streets as an unimaginable inconvenience. But the drawing is less a literal prescription than a critique of existing conditions. The thinkers at MOS Architects have forced us to examine how maintaining those streets, many forlorn, has sapped municipal finances. They have compelled us to consider how our mortgage model effectively transfers wealth from households to financial institutions by requiring that we engage in expensive real estate transaction to move.
The proposal for Temple Terrace, Florida, calls for a new financial structure that transfers ownership of land from private developers back to the taxpayers, and proposes a reconvening of the town meeting as a forum.
Asking question such as, "What if we could create an entirely walkable suburb?" or "How can we live sustainably while close to nature?," the teams came up with truly unique, thought-provoking, and innovative proposals for addressing the crisis. My favorites were Nature City, which "combines the conveniences of urban life with the health benefits and access to agriculture of country living," and Simultaneous City, in which "publicly owned local land remains a public asset, and the income derived from development is shared with citizens" (-moma.org).
The impact of the crisis is ubiquitous, even penetrating the Olympics, where talk of swimmer Ryan Lochte’s parents’ impending foreclosure has rivaled the attention paid to his swimming achievements. Intimately tied to the American dream, single-family home ownership has long been a measure of success.
Audience Member: I used to be a homeowner in Fort Lee, but the taxes got to be too high. As you know in New Jersey the taxes for homes are among the highest in the country. So, I sold the home at a loss in this economy and received a HUD voucher to get a rental space. In my town, I was told there is a lack of public housing. If I were to go into a HUD building, I could move in but not move out. It would be better for someone of my age to get a HUD voucher and just try to find affordable housing with that voucher. Now that new development is not taking into consideration affordable housing, so my question to you is since the housing authority in my town said they cannot approach the developer, and the town that is making the deal with the developers cannot request affordable housing, can gentlemen like you make any suggestions? I understand that Governor Christie of New Jersey has the idea that affordable housing, the HUD program, is something where the developers that have put in money into the fund for these things, the funds have not been used, and that money he wants the government to take. So, the affordable housing in New Jersey is stagnant and looks like it’s going away. Can you make any suggestion how affordable housing can have a future and how there can be better communication with developers that are getting a great deal for people like me?
BL: What you essentially did in maybe two minutes is cut a broad swath right through just about every problem that we kind of touched upon up here and hopefully to some extent a lot of these projects started to poke at. I would, with all due respect to my colleagues, suggest they didn’t really get into that cut. And, when Barry said this would be a little more nuts and bolts, I didn’t realize we were talking this nuts and bolts, but you’re absolutely right. You point out a whole series of problems starting from the fact that you’ve been displaced, put in a position where you could no longer afford your house because of the taxes on that house. Now you’re being left with very few options. I would hope on a really basic level that your voucher is portable, so that you aren’t stuck just looking for housing in Fort Lee which I know can be somewhat challenging. […] The whole Affordable Housing Trust Fund is a problem because it’s like the old George Bernard Shaw play Major Barbara: It allows these guys to buy their way out of providing affordable housing. […] As long as you continue to take what amounts to developers’ ransom money, you’re going to continue to have segregated neighborhoods. You’re going to continue to have folks like yourself who are stuck, getting forced out of their neighborhood…
BL: What you essentially did in maybe two minutes is cut a broad swath right through just about every problem that we kind of touched upon up here and hopefully to some extent a lot of these projects started to poke at. I would, with all due respect to my colleagues, suggest they didn’t really get into that cut. And, when Barry said this would be a little more nuts and bolts, I didn’t realize we were talking this nuts and bolts, but you’re absolutely right. You point out a whole series of problems starting from the fact that you’ve been displaced, put in a position where you could no longer afford your house because of the taxes on that house. Now you’re being left with very few options. I would hope on a really basic level that your voucher is portable, so that you aren’t stuck just looking for housing in Fort Lee which I know can be somewhat challenging. […] The whole Affordable Housing Trust Fund is a problem because it’s like the old George Bernard Shaw play Major Barbara: It allows these guys to buy their way out of providing affordable housing. […] As long as you continue to take what amounts to developers’ ransom money, you’re going to continue to have segregated neighborhoods. You’re going to continue to have folks like yourself who are stuck, getting forced out of their neighborhood…
BL: Jeanne Gang’s “Machine in the Garden” is perhaps the place to start, as the central elements of the project are so clearly and bilingually communicated. One thing I cannot overstate is the value of community participation, which this team did better than anyone else. It costs very little to hold community meetings, interview residents, paint murals, and build neighborhood gardens and playgrounds, especially when compared to the overall cost of developing affordable housing, but the dividends reaped from these efforts are invaluable in terms of achieving a sustainable community that residents want to be a part of. Pride of ownership of individual property, which is something that has been pushed for a long time—again, since ’72— is nothing compared to the pride or want to belong to one’s community.
MJ: We can reverse engineer these communities, or as the HUD Secretary calls for, rebalance the mix of single-family and rental development with the financial tools we have at hand: discounted land prices, tax abatements and exemptions, capital subsidies, taxable bonds and tax-exempt bonds, housing revenue bonds, low-income housing tax credits and brownfield tax credits, inclusionary zoning strategies and long-term regulatory agreements and covenants that preserve the public investment and character of the developments. The techniques to fund these developments aren’t missing. What is needed are the necessary subsidies and their predicate political will.
MJ: In some ways, in its effort to strengthen the demographics of certain communities, the city used the crisis of the ’70s and ’80s to subtly suburbanize low- and moderate-income neighborhoods through its land disposition and financing strategy. It pushed the needle just a bit in the direction of homeownership, and under Mayor Bloomberg’s plan up until the real estate bubble burst, homeownership—single-family, cooperative, and condominium—continued to be integral to the plan. But what has been and remains truly integral to the plan has been a commitment to encourage mixed-income and mixed-use development based upon the belief that this strategy will result in stronger developments and more stable, durable, and healthier communities.
myaccesiblelife
Foreclosure definitely has some good points to it for some homeowners when you find the loopholes.
Progressives_LoveAmerica
I think the lighter side of foreclosure would be the obvious catharsis people being foreclosed upon get from willfully neglecting the state of their homes & basically turning them into trash heaps in the knowledge that the banks will be taking them
Robert_R_Best
I wonder if they fight over who gets the couch and who has to sit in the folding chair.
majorwiblit
I was lucky,,,I was able to sell,,,,,but took a big hit
Luanne_Taylor
try selling a NONforeclosure in the midst of it!
disclosureproject
or we can just discuss the idea of property
Typical_Boston_Liberal
Please discuss the fact that cash-in-hand contractors are buying a huge portion of the available homes around most major cities and chopping them up for rental.
jamesguy74
I think that this foreclosure crisis gives the typical American suburbs to basically start over. Housing prices are down dramatically, so it makes the American dream more affordable for first time home buyers.
Progressives_LoveAmerica
tlstryker, it's true & I don't blame them. If I were being foreclosed on, I'd do the same thing: Put out rotting food all over the place & put out the welcome wagon for rodents, possums, raccoons, vagrants, etc. The bank will be welcomed by stench
incognito-ergo-sum
Typical_Boston_Liberal, Once they own all the rentals, they will cut care and raise prices.
Eddie_VanderMolen
Progressives_LoveAmerica, What happened to the idea of squatting in your own foreclosed home?
Luanne_Taylor
so only those with enough cash can purchase the foreclosures
Progressives_LoveAmerica
Eddie_VanderMolen, people do that too...but vandalism & neglect of the home are the order of the day once it's apparent that all hope is lost & the bank is taking the house
Tom_Servo
The day I left my home was one of the saddest days of my life. I did not trash it. I cleaned it. I loved it I was there 22 years,
westward1
The FBI reports 80% of mortgage fraud was committed by lenders.
JamesPowers
Im 26 years old and its been said my generation will change jobs 13 times before we retire. Why should i WANT to be sattled with the obligation of a mortgage. Condo or apt fine with me
paulx44
JamesPowers, I'm 18 and feel the exact same way. Apartments work for me.
Typical_Boston_Liberal
JamesPowers, That number goes way down with a college education, and even further with a graduate level education. If you find a job you love, you'll want a house some day. There's no feeling like it, and that's why this is such a sad story.
SheilaKhani
JamesPowers, be sure to do the math before buying a house- make sure you buy the house, not the bank - be sure if do the math with HOA and property tax (which comes up to be 10% of your net income on average- in California)
MariJman
I decided when I was a teenager never to buy a house because the government could take it away from me for not paying taxes if I lost a job etc. I feel you never can own it, only rent it from Uncle Sam
tlstryker
there are indeed a ton of reasons not to buy. buying a home has never been for everyone (but they sure did hand those loans out fast).
VenusBivinsJohn
MariJman, tell the truth! there's no true homeownership -- even with Home Affordable refinance program -- banks extent your "rent" to another 40 years. Renting is much less stressful
BrianDion
It can be cheaper to own a home then to rent and if you move alot because job changes you can always have a realestate company manage the property to rent.. I think that business may grow massively over the next couple of years with banks not knowing what to do and people moving.
SheilaKhani
building wealth from buying a house is like building wealth for people like Mitt- the 1%- is not for everyone in fact it has had anti-building wealth affects
Luanne_Taylor
now I continue to either LOSE big bucks on sells, or I am stuck!
MariJman
VenusBivinsJohn, I agree renting is much less stressful because for the most part the government isn't there with their hand out
Sharon_Morell
tlstryker, With interest rates this low if you can afford to buy you would be wise to do so
tlstryker
Sharon_Morell, not buying in at this point. sorry.
Luanne_Taylor
interest rates won't help to buy the foreclosed properties
MariJman
Once you get my age (50) you start realizing you can't take it with you
tlstryker
the situation is different for every individual for mortgaging for sure.
Enock_Zamora
Native's never owned property they just used it. European's sold you what God gave you for free?
VenusBivinsJohn
MariJman, on the other hand, if you have children entering college, you can sell or refinance your home to pay for it
Infrastructure (31)
“New paradigms of architecture, and regional and transportation planning could well be the silver lining in the crisis of home ownership,” Mr. Bergdoll said in a statement.
Andrés Duany
5. “Zago vehemently attacked Dunham-Jones and New Urbanism for not having produced a single piece of ‘significant’ architecture, asking when they would give up in failure.”
Andrew Zago has achieved a new level of ignorance regarding the New Urbanism. I searched the net for a picture of him and was surprised to find that he does not look quite as slack-jawed stupid as he sounds, even though appearance is apparently how he judges substance.
Now (LORD grant me patience!), “significant” architecture is not really how New Urbanists keep score. We do so in many other ways: how many cars not bought; how many vehicle miles reduced; how much transit supported; how much carbon not spewed into the atmosphere; how many children and old folk walk to their daily needs; how much infrastructure cost saved; how much less expended on the delivery of municipal services; how many HOPE VI houses cherished by their residents; how much real estate value created; how many total acres under design (either as New Urbanist communities or through form-based codes); how many downtowns revitalized; how much choice available regionally to those whom suburbia does not serve well; and so on.
But Architect Zago keeps score by other means — like securing the good opinion of about a half-dozen critics in Los Angeles and New York. Indeed, he operates in a world so marginal that I need to be reminded of its existence, monthly, by Metropolis.
That his statement was thoroughly engaged by Director Martin, rather than being ignored as the antics of a simpleton, shows what kind of emissions pass for discourse in academia these days.
But let’s have a look at it from Architect Zago’s point of view. It turns out that even by the tight little standards of his world, and within just one little project (Seaside), there might be as much “significant” architecture as Architect Zago himself might hope to achieve in a lifetime. Seaside has Steve Holl’s first large building. Machado/Silvetti’s first large building. The first buildings (at least three each, and darn good, too) of Deborah Berke, Alex Gorlin, and Walter Chatham. The only building of Roger Ferri. The first building of Leon Krier. The only American house by Aldo Rossi. A wonderfully melancholic house by Sam Mockbee. Clever and charming pavilions by Michael McDonough, Stuart Cohen and Jersey Devil. A national AIA award-winning and gorgeous church by Scott Merrill. And those are only some of the modernism by the “names,” not all the best buildings.
Architect Zago is doubly ignorant: first of what New Urbanism intends to achieve on its own terms, and then of what it has achieved even on his terms.
Am I to understand that he teaches somewhere?
May 26, 2011, @ 2:49 pm
Andrew Zago has achieved a new level of ignorance regarding the New Urbanism. I searched the net for a picture of him and was surprised to find that he does not look quite as slack-jawed stupid as he sounds, even though appearance is apparently how he judges substance.
Now (LORD grant me patience!), “significant” architecture is not really how New Urbanists keep score. We do so in many other ways: how many cars not bought; how many vehicle miles reduced; how much transit supported; how much carbon not spewed into the atmosphere; how many children and old folk walk to their daily needs; how much infrastructure cost saved; how much less expended on the delivery of municipal services; how many HOPE VI houses cherished by their residents; how much real estate value created; how many total acres under design (either as New Urbanist communities or through form-based codes); how many downtowns revitalized; how much choice available regionally to those whom suburbia does not serve well; and so on.
But Architect Zago keeps score by other means — like securing the good opinion of about a half-dozen critics in Los Angeles and New York. Indeed, he operates in a world so marginal that I need to be reminded of its existence, monthly, by Metropolis.
That his statement was thoroughly engaged by Director Martin, rather than being ignored as the antics of a simpleton, shows what kind of emissions pass for discourse in academia these days.
But let’s have a look at it from Architect Zago’s point of view. It turns out that even by the tight little standards of his world, and within just one little project (Seaside), there might be as much “significant” architecture as Architect Zago himself might hope to achieve in a lifetime. Seaside has Steve Holl’s first large building. Machado/Silvetti’s first large building. The first buildings (at least three each, and darn good, too) of Deborah Berke, Alex Gorlin, and Walter Chatham. The only building of Roger Ferri. The first building of Leon Krier. The only American house by Aldo Rossi. A wonderfully melancholic house by Sam Mockbee. Clever and charming pavilions by Michael McDonough, Stuart Cohen and Jersey Devil. A national AIA award-winning and gorgeous church by Scott Merrill. And those are only some of the modernism by the “names,” not all the best buildings.
Architect Zago is doubly ignorant: first of what New Urbanism intends to achieve on its own terms, and then of what it has achieved even on his terms.
Am I to understand that he teaches somewhere?
May 26, 2011, @ 2:49 pm
Carol Gregor
AUGUST 17, 2011, 4:01 P.M.
I am afraid design has lost touch with the sacred. Solutions that do not revere our connection and dependence on nature are Band-Aids. Foreclosure is the result of a capitalist business model on two fronts. First, homes are built on inexpensive land that require infrastructure. Less expensive than infill, the market is sold a bigger is better value, demeaning the essence of design itself. Inexpensive, huge homes have destroyed millions of acres of farmland and aquifers and are ready to do so again after the recession is over regardless of what you do at MoMA. These homes are expensive and are deteriorating rapidly. Second, a failed industry at the core is not in a position to repair itself without a new revolutionary system approach only slightly identified in LEED and the Green Building initiative.
There must be a return to the building practices from the past that had one core leader in the design and delivery process. Trained as an engineer, these master builders were schooled in a natural, sacred geometric methodology that was philosophical and practical. The difference between this and our existing 3 tiered architect, engineer and builder approach is innate conflict.
A building is a sacred thing, manifest from nature and in accordance with her underlying principles. Until we regain this relationship, any attempts to solve our nightmare of expensive, cheap, environmentally dysfunctional buildings will be superficial. A much deeper view of the problem is the challenge and the work is philosophical,spiritual,professional and health related.
I am afraid design has lost touch with the sacred. Solutions that do not revere our connection and dependence on nature are Band-Aids. Foreclosure is the result of a capitalist business model on two fronts. First, homes are built on inexpensive land that require infrastructure. Less expensive than infill, the market is sold a bigger is better value, demeaning the essence of design itself. Inexpensive, huge homes have destroyed millions of acres of farmland and aquifers and are ready to do so again after the recession is over regardless of what you do at MoMA. These homes are expensive and are deteriorating rapidly. Second, a failed industry at the core is not in a position to repair itself without a new revolutionary system approach only slightly identified in LEED and the Green Building initiative.
There must be a return to the building practices from the past that had one core leader in the design and delivery process. Trained as an engineer, these master builders were schooled in a natural, sacred geometric methodology that was philosophical and practical. The difference between this and our existing 3 tiered architect, engineer and builder approach is innate conflict.
A building is a sacred thing, manifest from nature and in accordance with her underlying principles. Until we regain this relationship, any attempts to solve our nightmare of expensive, cheap, environmentally dysfunctional buildings will be superficial. A much deeper view of the problem is the challenge and the work is philosophical,spiritual,professional and health related.
Almost from the beginning, MoMA architects have focused on car-driven, low-density housing as both the appeal and the curse of the suburbs. Providing services — sewage, power, garbage collection and on and on — is far more costly amid low-density settlements than it is in cities, for obvious reasons. But people crave air and light, and room to move and play sports.
Bergdoll and Martin describe their directive to the teams as "not to redesign the house, but to redesign the dream."
All five teams have responded to this directive to some degree by proposing social and infrastructural systems that attempt, on a large scale, to align with the new cultural desires and economic realities of American suburban living. Amale Andraos and Dan Wood of WORK Architecture Company, working on SalemKeizer, Oregon, propose a contemporary update on the notion of a garden city, addressing a range of ecological issues. Hilary Sample and Michael Meredith of MOS, analyzing the Oranges, New Jersey, explore the potential of suburban streets to offer a new kind of civic space in a less car-dependent future. Jeanne Gang of Studio Gang, focusing on Cicero, Illinois, seeks a new flexibility in housing that will accommodate the rapidly shifting immigrant populations in the suburbs outside Chicago. Andrew Zago of Zago Architecture, studying Rialto, California, subverts the strict hierarchies of property boundaries that have traditionally structured suburban space. And Michael Bell of Visible Weather, examining Temple Terrace, Florida, considers the relationship between relatively homogenous Florida suburbs and the more diverse and less prosperous neighboring urban communities.
All five teams have responded to this directive to some degree by proposing social and infrastructural systems that attempt, on a large scale, to align with the new cultural desires and economic realities of American suburban living. Amale Andraos and Dan Wood of WORK Architecture Company, working on SalemKeizer, Oregon, propose a contemporary update on the notion of a garden city, addressing a range of ecological issues. Hilary Sample and Michael Meredith of MOS, analyzing the Oranges, New Jersey, explore the potential of suburban streets to offer a new kind of civic space in a less car-dependent future. Jeanne Gang of Studio Gang, focusing on Cicero, Illinois, seeks a new flexibility in housing that will accommodate the rapidly shifting immigrant populations in the suburbs outside Chicago. Andrew Zago of Zago Architecture, studying Rialto, California, subverts the strict hierarchies of property boundaries that have traditionally structured suburban space. And Michael Bell of Visible Weather, examining Temple Terrace, Florida, considers the relationship between relatively homogenous Florida suburbs and the more diverse and less prosperous neighboring urban communities.
The different teams worked to design site-specific plans with input from local communities, but what unified them was the way they aimed to make their sites at once both self-sufficient and better connected to their broader metropolitan regions. To that end, the different models included infrastructure such as light rail, co-generation electrical plants, recycling centers, and gardens to enable people to grow their own food. Some plans included light industrial facilities and workspaces adjacent to residential areas so people would not have to endure long automobile commutes to get to work.
Barb
My parents owned 3 Levitt houses in the 50s. In the 90s I bought a Levitt cape around the block from where my parents' houses were (they'd sold and moved back closer to NYC).
To respond to the way the blocks are designed, Levittown blocks are a bit of a labyrinth, which makes it difficult for criminals seeking to rob homes to navigate. If any home is robbed, it's usually an inside job. Levittown is surrounded by low-crime neighborhoods demographically, so there's no "spillage" of crime over its borders, and as someone pointed out, has no direct connection to the LIRR, so yes, it's insular, and this is why there is a very low crime rate. This is a reason why I bought in Levittown.
Why else did I buy in Levittown? THE SCHOOL DISTRICT. Levittown's teachers' union had a landmark case in the U.S. Supreme Court, and as a result, their teachers are paid at the top of the Long Island pay scale, on par with districts like Great Neck. In education you get what you pay for!
My daughter, a Levittown graduate, attends Harvard and seminars at MIT. Levittown schools worked with me to groom her and remediate a learning disability she had. So whomever said nobody from Levittown becomes a professional is WRONG. I'm surprised the writer of this article missed mentioning the excellent schools.
As for the Village Greens, it was also missed by the writer and in comments that libraries are often found at the Village Greens. And each family got a pool pass so they could swim FOR FREE all summer long. The Greens still have concerts during the summer, and have little shops. Levittown has some very nice perks.
I left after my family was raised, and after Nassau County re-assessed my property taxes and TRIPLED them over a period of three years. But dollar for dollar, Levittown served its purpose for me. My child got an excellent education in a non-violent, quiet, fairly unspoiled and unpretentious community. Oh, and for the record, the "white trash" element hasn't been able to afford to live in Levittown since the 80s.
December 21, 2011 at 8:51 pm
To respond to the way the blocks are designed, Levittown blocks are a bit of a labyrinth, which makes it difficult for criminals seeking to rob homes to navigate. If any home is robbed, it's usually an inside job. Levittown is surrounded by low-crime neighborhoods demographically, so there's no "spillage" of crime over its borders, and as someone pointed out, has no direct connection to the LIRR, so yes, it's insular, and this is why there is a very low crime rate. This is a reason why I bought in Levittown.
Why else did I buy in Levittown? THE SCHOOL DISTRICT. Levittown's teachers' union had a landmark case in the U.S. Supreme Court, and as a result, their teachers are paid at the top of the Long Island pay scale, on par with districts like Great Neck. In education you get what you pay for!
My daughter, a Levittown graduate, attends Harvard and seminars at MIT. Levittown schools worked with me to groom her and remediate a learning disability she had. So whomever said nobody from Levittown becomes a professional is WRONG. I'm surprised the writer of this article missed mentioning the excellent schools.
As for the Village Greens, it was also missed by the writer and in comments that libraries are often found at the Village Greens. And each family got a pool pass so they could swim FOR FREE all summer long. The Greens still have concerts during the summer, and have little shops. Levittown has some very nice perks.
I left after my family was raised, and after Nassau County re-assessed my property taxes and TRIPLED them over a period of three years. But dollar for dollar, Levittown served its purpose for me. My child got an excellent education in a non-violent, quiet, fairly unspoiled and unpretentious community. Oh, and for the record, the "white trash" element hasn't been able to afford to live in Levittown since the 80s.
December 21, 2011 at 8:51 pm
Levittown2011
It does not appear that anyone who has posted what has happened in Levittown or the current decaying condition that will lead to it's future death. The average taxes of a home in Levittown is currently 12,000 a year in 2011. The taxes of a Levittown home will be 20,000 a year in 2020. There are 17,286 homes in Levittown and over 2,000 of them are in some form of foreclosure today the highest of any town on Long Island. The town has lost most of it's retail business due to the high Levittown School District taxes which are currently a average of 8,500 of the 12,000 2011 taxes. The Levittown School District Teachers Union is currently in the 10th year of a average 7.5% raise each year which has or will double all their salaries in just 9 years. You hear about how teachers do not get a fair salary across america, that is true for every teacher that does not work in Levittown. The community asked the teachers union to take a pay freeze for the last 2 years and the teachers union only statement was that " They did not cause the economic crisis in America, why should we take a pay freeze? " The current yearly school budget is 200 Million a year. Of the 600 current teachers employed in Levittown 375 are paid a least 135,000 a year. The condition of the homes has declined over the last couple years due to the high cost of the taxes and you can drive down any street and view the homes that are falling apart before your eyes. The american dream is dead in Levittown and it has turned into the american nightmare. The fraud has been revealed that the school district does match up to exceed other surrounding school districts that have better education provided at lower cost to the homeowners in their towns. The teachers salaries make up 80% of the yearly school budget and as a current board member stated this year " I had to explain to my children that they will not have the same education that other children had in the past, they will has less and the community will pay more for it due to the teachers salaries that will always be increasing due to what has been done in the past." The teachers salaries and retirement add a 4% increase to the school budget each year. The new New York state law of a 2% school tax cap may save other school districts, but it came 10 years too late for Levittown. People have posted what the current price of a Levitt home is it is between 250,000 and 300,000 today but it was over 500,000 just 6 years ago when the real estate market was at it's peak.
December 22, 2011 at 12:28 am
December 22, 2011 at 12:28 am
The concept builds on the knowledge that large predators are often instrumental in maintaining the structure, resilience, and diversity of ecosystems through initiating “top-down” ecological (trophic) interactions. In turn, they require resources, including nesting and foraging areas and water sources along with large cores of protected landscape and connectivity to insure long-term viability. This re-wilding would be achieved by employing the zoological park as a suburban amenity. In a collaborative endeavor between the developer and federal government, the government would finance habitat links to the suburb, and in return the development would incorporate knuckles with intensified habitat zones and productive ecosystems, providing jobs, public amenities, and regional habitat resources.
This exhibition features proposals for the future of cities by Studio Gang, MOS, WORKac, Visible Weather and Zago Architecture. All conceptualized large-scale proposals for specific regions in the nation. The nature of the task inherently requires a top-down approach, which immediately leads to issues in terms of feasibility. Therefore, it is necessary to view these projects less so as solutions and more as catalysts of change. Spatially, I expect to see extensive transportation infrastructures and dense high-rise apartments. With the expertise of interdisciplinary teams, I am interested to see the proposed governmental and environmental policies.
A wide range of ecological functions make a city infrastructure that promotes sustainable living as a shared individual and communal undertaking, and also generates new living experiences and new kinds of public spaces from its various components.
Despite being well served by a regional transit system that includes both trains and buses, there is still a significant rate of foreclosure and a high rate of unemployment in Orange, a suburb of individual bungalows and single-family structures between New York City and Newark, New Jersey. An in-depth analysis of the suburb has sparked MOS Architects and their team to create a proposal suggesting a new form of urbanism and architectural occupation of the street. The proposal considers aspects of municipal budget and infrastructure, public health, and new models of ownership to promote flexibility and diversity-a range of issues that extends far beyond those generally considered in isolated development plans.
Replacing the original development plan that utilized public/private partnership, the team proposes the creation of a Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT), a tax designation for an entity investing in real estate, designed to reduce or eliminate corporate tax and distribute the taxable income into the hands of investors. Differing from typical REITs, the REIT for Simultaneous City would propose that the land remain a public asset and the income derived from the development would be shared with the citizens. The proposal for Simultaneous City parallels the existing geographical infrastructure of Temple Terrace while at the same time offering a new layer of financial, structural, and environmental engineering.
toasteroven
Feb 21, 12 11:42 am
sustainable developers?? developers follow incentives and try to minimize risk - without government subsidizing sprawling (i.e. cheap & low capacity) infrastructure and overly restrictive zoning laws they'd very likely build far more high-density mixed-use buildings without parking (but also without green space). without utilities, roads, and other services land is pretty much worthless - and developers typically don't like challenging zoning unless they know the municipality is on board.
also - high-density outside of the city center presents another challenge because of the capacity of the existing services. Some towns in the northeast have put a moratorium on any new building because their existing water and sewer systems cannot handle any additional load. when you think of it, suburban development is often a function of how big the sewer systems are, or how much space is needed for a septic and/or leech field and buffer.
perhaps if as a culture we had a much healthier relationship with our own poop...
sustainable developers?? developers follow incentives and try to minimize risk - without government subsidizing sprawling (i.e. cheap & low capacity) infrastructure and overly restrictive zoning laws they'd very likely build far more high-density mixed-use buildings without parking (but also without green space). without utilities, roads, and other services land is pretty much worthless - and developers typically don't like challenging zoning unless they know the municipality is on board.
also - high-density outside of the city center presents another challenge because of the capacity of the existing services. Some towns in the northeast have put a moratorium on any new building because their existing water and sewer systems cannot handle any additional load. when you think of it, suburban development is often a function of how big the sewer systems are, or how much space is needed for a septic and/or leech field and buffer.
perhaps if as a culture we had a much healthier relationship with our own poop...
Making use of the existing infrastructure, Gang came up with “The Garden in the Machine”, which demonstrates how the remains of Cicero’s industry, its lands, building materials, and existing rail infrastructure could be the foundation for a new and better town. The new vision calls for an influx of vegetation, trees and gardens to improve the green space of the area. Housing would largely transition to new live/work units and would require a change in zoning and regulations to allow a different form of ownership — one that allows citizens to purchase and sell shares corresponding to the live/work units they occupy. A variety of flexible housing options would be occupied by families of all sizes and a new economy would be created through residents who live and work in the same area. Rather than raze the entire area and start again, Gang sees that the existing infrastructure can be utilized to build a better, more sustainable city.
22 Feb, 2012 - (@rbaplanner)
MOMA exhibit examining foreclosures in Orange and discussing the redesign of its housing and supporting infrastructure moma.org/interactives/e…
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
Fishman said that perhaps developers should have paid more attention to work coming out of architecture schools. “The economics didn’t take into consideration that the demographic movement was going back to the core,” he said. He added that the subdivisions promoted sprawl, and while they may have been cheap to build, developers never factored in eventual transportation costs. Quite often when developers do consider design a factor it’s not always top notch. He cited advertising for Toll Brothers that trumpet “award winning design” but never tell you what award they won.
Thomas Schaller (TS): Are you envisioning a resuburbanization of America in the next twenty or thirty years? At its peak, houses got gluttonous and big, and the physical footprints that those houses were sitting on got really big. So, I’m wondering if it’s going to be smaller plots? Smaller homes? A little bit of both?
CH: Increased density?
MB: All five projects in the show deal with density, and they also deal with trying to find housing that is probably more financially and size-wise appropriate to its user, but also that would use dramatically less energy to basically dramatically lower carrying costs. But I think many of the people, including ourselves, we were looking at ways to take underutilized property, publicly held or publicly controlled, and increase density around infrastructure because the public has already paid for all of that infrastructure and isn’t using it.
CH: Increased density?
MB: All five projects in the show deal with density, and they also deal with trying to find housing that is probably more financially and size-wise appropriate to its user, but also that would use dramatically less energy to basically dramatically lower carrying costs. But I think many of the people, including ourselves, we were looking at ways to take underutilized property, publicly held or publicly controlled, and increase density around infrastructure because the public has already paid for all of that infrastructure and isn’t using it.
The curators at MOMA are definitely thinking about the box. They are thinking beyond the old arrangements. We are pretty sure they are not thinking of a stateless city per se…but they are thinking beyond the crutch that governments insist governments must provide: roads.
Of course, Nature-City is heavy on ecological infrastructure. Electricity for the entire development is generated by an on-site methane fuel cell; drinking water is extracted from airborne humidity using atmospheric water generators; home heating is provided by three geothermal wells; and wastewater is cleaned and reused through some truly inventive natural water filtration methods.
One of the main themes in "Foreclosed" is that the car-dependent suburban house is a form of public subsidy, since the federal mortgage tax deduction and low-interest government housing loans helped fuel the bubble. Although private developers built and profited from most of the sprawl, taxpayers subsidized its infrastructure with roads, utility lines and water mains.
This exhibit comes at a critical time. Right-wing organizations like the Heritage Foundation have been churning out polemics against public transportation and zoning for higher density development. A GOP-dominated Congress is also on the attack. Last year it cut funding slated for the 2009 stimulus bill's signature infrastructure project, the high-speed rail initiative. House Republicans appear to have given up on their attempts to include a mass-transit-crushing amendment in their controversial five-year, $260 billion transportation bill. Still, a paralyzed Congress is on the verge of allowing the current bill to expire on March 31 without any new legislation for continued funding.
Cat Rocketship
n April 17, 2012 at 9:28 am
It gets complicated because the point of the exhibit Caroline is reporting on is basically that home-ownership like that — unrestricted and wholly self-fulfilling — WAS the American Dream, but is no longer. We don't have the space, or the money, or the resources, or the financial institutions to support that sort of everyone-gets-exactly-what-they-want lifestyle. The communities we built in that image are sprawling and unsustainable, and the designers and artists participating in the exhibit were tasked with imagining how society could take existing infrastructure and reimagine it in more effective, community-focused ways.
It gets complicated because the point of the exhibit Caroline is reporting on is basically that home-ownership like that — unrestricted and wholly self-fulfilling — WAS the American Dream, but is no longer. We don't have the space, or the money, or the resources, or the financial institutions to support that sort of everyone-gets-exactly-what-they-want lifestyle. The communities we built in that image are sprawling and unsustainable, and the designers and artists participating in the exhibit were tasked with imagining how society could take existing infrastructure and reimagine it in more effective, community-focused ways.
The different models include infrastructure additions that seem too rational and essential to not be in tact already; indispensable items such as recycling centers, co-generating electrical plants, light rails, and even gardens for people to grow their own food. They display structures that could house families or groups of all shapes and sizes as that is the reality of the situation. The nuclear family is a thing of the past and possibly never truly existed. Life is not that simple and frankly never has been.
01 Jun, 2012 - (@ULGlobalCities)
Archive: Foreclosed: Reverse #engineering| Jesse Keenan #housing#infrastructurehttp://www.moma.org/explore/inside …
It is equally interesting, and maybe troubling, that the overwhelming majority of the projects did not take up practices of participatory design that also date back to the 1970s and even earlier. Still, it is worth noting that the more recent codification of “bottom-up” approaches to housing, particularly in Latin America, has coincided with neoliberal “structural adjustment” in the global economy. In the case of sites-and-services and other models of user-generated, low-income housing — in which municipalities provide only minimal financing and basic infrastructure (e.g., water, electricity, sanitation) and depend upon residents to construct their own shelter — this has often meant, among other things, offloading the material cost of that housing onto the backs of already dispossessed residents. This reality in no way delegitimizes vital efforts to empower residents in the provision of housing; it merely marks one of the potential contradictions — the fact that residents are often compelled by implicit, seemingly horizontal power relations to participate in processes that validate and perpetuate their own dispossession. And it suggests that empowerment from below must center on developing the political resources with which to contest — intellectually and pragmatically — the very structures by which this occurs.
19 Jul, 2012 - (@emilyjlow)
I attended this exhibition - some innovative ideas for delivering infrastructure and financing housing projects....... http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/ …
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
SF94109, 5 Fans
03:45 AM on 07/23/2012
I believe in density, as in cities, where efficient distribution infrastructure is established and leave more open space around the city for everybody to enjoy. This is also less harmful to the environment when we concentrate habitat with a smaller footprint. Cities are vibrant places where people actually interact and encourage understanding and learn to live together. While I understand the urge to want to own ones home, I don't understand the continued sprawl of suburban areas that are so far away from the cities. What does one do in these boring tract homes that all look the same and where nobody gets out of their cars until they are in their garage. It's kind of depressing.
I believe in density, as in cities, where efficient distribution infrastructure is established and leave more open space around the city for everybody to enjoy. This is also less harmful to the environment when we concentrate habitat with a smaller footprint. Cities are vibrant places where people actually interact and encourage understanding and learn to live together. While I understand the urge to want to own ones home, I don't understand the continued sprawl of suburban areas that are so far away from the cities. What does one do in these boring tract homes that all look the same and where nobody gets out of their cars until they are in their garage. It's kind of depressing.
BL: With the second [Mt. Laurel] decision, it was one of the first states to not necessarily recognize housing as a need or as an inalienable human right, but what it did recognize was that a society or a community or a municipality has an obligation to its residents to provide low-income housing options. And so, in a way, it kind of turned the provision-of-housing argument in on itself and put that on the role of society which, in a lot of ways, is what The Buell Hypothesis argues. But the problem that New Jersey is running into—and this is an affordable housing development in Mt. Laurel—is that the infrastructure that is required to sustain that low level of density for low-income families is not really practical. That’s why COAH [Coalition on Affordable Housing] is being challenged. That’s why Mt. Laurel I and II are being challenged. That’s why a lot of this is being rethought. And I’m not saying that we should come down on one side or the other, but one thing I really enjoy about the comparison of these projects is what the issues of density mean to that debate.
BL: I think it’s important for us, especially within the context of this exhibition, to look at New Jersey because we’re not really talking about what we understood to be “suburbia” any more, and we’re also not really talking about what we understood to be “the city” anymore. East Orange and “Thoughts on a Walking City” are an excellent example of that. The Oranges, if they were compared to the largest cities in the United States, would be the fifth densest city in the United States. It actually has over 16,000 people per square mile. (To give you some frame of reference, New York only has 27,000 people per square mile, and the drop-off after New York is rather rapid.) So, I applaud MOS for their somewhat backhanded recognition that, despite this density, there still aren’t enough services, there still isn’t enough affordable housing, and “Oh, and by the way, you’re all fat.” The answer they came up with, which I don’t disagree with at all, is that we actually need to make it denser, what they suggest is essentially Smart Growth on steroids. […] The way Smart Growth is essentially practiced now is in very small increments, and to the extent that it’s practiced in these small increments, it’s working. But if it were practiced at a much larger scale, as MOS suggested, who knows what the implications could be? I like to think that could be very beneficial.
BB: These are all sites in metropolitan corridors. So, there are a number of characteristics that are incredibly important about these. First of all, obviously there is a substantial rate of foreclosure, well above the national average, in each of these regions and in the particular suburban locations that were chosen. All of them lie somewhere on or near—you remember high-speed rail? A once-projected vision of some kind of communal transport along corridors which might, in fact, rewrite some regional geographies. And, also, they all lay in metropolitan areas with substantial projected growth. So this is not an exercise in rust-belt downsizing or shrinking cities, but rather in places where to think about housing infrastructure-development actually made some sense even if they were invited to look at areas where there were large amounts of—and this is another important factor—large amounts of publicly held land that might be subject to development perhaps in a private-public partnership.
Internet Banter (167)
Gabriel
May 29, 2011
Artist
Torrance, CA
Sounds like a worthy project, and
local. I like it. Mr. Zago, if the MoMA blog you're going to maintain has an RSS feed, you can load it into your profile and post the news to USA.org automatically.
Artist
Torrance, CA
Sounds like a worthy project, and
local. I like it. Mr. Zago, if the MoMA blog you're going to maintain has an RSS feed, you can load it into your profile and post the news to USA.org automatically.
Kira Maria Shewfelt
May 24, 2011
Community Member
Los Angeles, CA
This is a great project! As a native
Angelino I'm proud to have you representing us at the MoMA!
Community Member
Los Angeles, CA
This is a great project! As a native
Angelino I'm proud to have you representing us at the MoMA!
Andrés Duany
5. “Zago vehemently attacked Dunham-Jones and New Urbanism for not having produced a single piece of ‘significant’ architecture, asking when they would give up in failure.”
Andrew Zago has achieved a new level of ignorance regarding the New Urbanism. I searched the net for a picture of him and was surprised to find that he does not look quite as slack-jawed stupid as he sounds, even though appearance is apparently how he judges substance.
Now (LORD grant me patience!), “significant” architecture is not really how New Urbanists keep score. We do so in many other ways: how many cars not bought; how many vehicle miles reduced; how much transit supported; how much carbon not spewed into the atmosphere; how many children and old folk walk to their daily needs; how much infrastructure cost saved; how much less expended on the delivery of municipal services; how many HOPE VI houses cherished by their residents; how much real estate value created; how many total acres under design (either as New Urbanist communities or through form-based codes); how many downtowns revitalized; how much choice available regionally to those whom suburbia does not serve well; and so on.
But Architect Zago keeps score by other means — like securing the good opinion of about a half-dozen critics in Los Angeles and New York. Indeed, he operates in a world so marginal that I need to be reminded of its existence, monthly, by Metropolis.
That his statement was thoroughly engaged by Director Martin, rather than being ignored as the antics of a simpleton, shows what kind of emissions pass for discourse in academia these days.
But let’s have a look at it from Architect Zago’s point of view. It turns out that even by the tight little standards of his world, and within just one little project (Seaside), there might be as much “significant” architecture as Architect Zago himself might hope to achieve in a lifetime. Seaside has Steve Holl’s first large building. Machado/Silvetti’s first large building. The first buildings (at least three each, and darn good, too) of Deborah Berke, Alex Gorlin, and Walter Chatham. The only building of Roger Ferri. The first building of Leon Krier. The only American house by Aldo Rossi. A wonderfully melancholic house by Sam Mockbee. Clever and charming pavilions by Michael McDonough, Stuart Cohen and Jersey Devil. A national AIA award-winning and gorgeous church by Scott Merrill. And those are only some of the modernism by the “names,” not all the best buildings.
Architect Zago is doubly ignorant: first of what New Urbanism intends to achieve on its own terms, and then of what it has achieved even on his terms.
Am I to understand that he teaches somewhere?
May 26, 2011, @ 2:49 pm
Andrew Zago has achieved a new level of ignorance regarding the New Urbanism. I searched the net for a picture of him and was surprised to find that he does not look quite as slack-jawed stupid as he sounds, even though appearance is apparently how he judges substance.
Now (LORD grant me patience!), “significant” architecture is not really how New Urbanists keep score. We do so in many other ways: how many cars not bought; how many vehicle miles reduced; how much transit supported; how much carbon not spewed into the atmosphere; how many children and old folk walk to their daily needs; how much infrastructure cost saved; how much less expended on the delivery of municipal services; how many HOPE VI houses cherished by their residents; how much real estate value created; how many total acres under design (either as New Urbanist communities or through form-based codes); how many downtowns revitalized; how much choice available regionally to those whom suburbia does not serve well; and so on.
But Architect Zago keeps score by other means — like securing the good opinion of about a half-dozen critics in Los Angeles and New York. Indeed, he operates in a world so marginal that I need to be reminded of its existence, monthly, by Metropolis.
That his statement was thoroughly engaged by Director Martin, rather than being ignored as the antics of a simpleton, shows what kind of emissions pass for discourse in academia these days.
But let’s have a look at it from Architect Zago’s point of view. It turns out that even by the tight little standards of his world, and within just one little project (Seaside), there might be as much “significant” architecture as Architect Zago himself might hope to achieve in a lifetime. Seaside has Steve Holl’s first large building. Machado/Silvetti’s first large building. The first buildings (at least three each, and darn good, too) of Deborah Berke, Alex Gorlin, and Walter Chatham. The only building of Roger Ferri. The first building of Leon Krier. The only American house by Aldo Rossi. A wonderfully melancholic house by Sam Mockbee. Clever and charming pavilions by Michael McDonough, Stuart Cohen and Jersey Devil. A national AIA award-winning and gorgeous church by Scott Merrill. And those are only some of the modernism by the “names,” not all the best buildings.
Architect Zago is doubly ignorant: first of what New Urbanism intends to achieve on its own terms, and then of what it has achieved even on his terms.
Am I to understand that he teaches somewhere?
May 26, 2011, @ 2:49 pm
Susan Steindler
JULY 22, 2011, 7:02 P.M.
please keep me informed!
please keep me informed!
Denise Roux
AUGUST 10, 2011, 12:23 P.M.
I am 58-year-old education professional. I also write for the local paper. This morning I decided to create a blog to chronicle my foreclosure experience because it is a very interesting story, and I am a story-teller. Would my posts fit with what is going on here?
I am 58-year-old education professional. I also write for the local paper. This morning I decided to create a blog to chronicle my foreclosure experience because it is a very interesting story, and I am a story-teller. Would my posts fit with what is going on here?
Bob Duggan
Thanks, Neal, for the links to your presentations. Clearly you’re riding the crest of what seems to be a new wave of civic and civil involvement of museums in America. I’m a little behind on this trend and am now feeling a bit deluged, but excited, by the prospect.
And thanks, too, Bahij for commenting. It’s always great to hear from people in the field. I’m a little saddened by your “museum environments can often be colder and more sterile than some of their community counterparts” comment. I think that’s true in many cases, but I also think that it’s more of an indication of museums doing something wrong. It would seem to me that museums full of human creativity should be the complete opposite of cold and sterile, at least if the content is presented correctly.
Also, as you say, “community centers, art spaces and concert halls” should also offer forums for discourse, but in our non-ideal world and American society right now, those centers, spaces, and halls are struggling to survive even more so than museums. In my native Philadelphia, community centers close frequently and the local orchestra is filing for bankruptcy, while the museums continue to plug along.
Thanks, everyone, for commenting on this post about, well, commenting!
—Bob
And thanks, too, Bahij for commenting. It’s always great to hear from people in the field. I’m a little saddened by your “museum environments can often be colder and more sterile than some of their community counterparts” comment. I think that’s true in many cases, but I also think that it’s more of an indication of museums doing something wrong. It would seem to me that museums full of human creativity should be the complete opposite of cold and sterile, at least if the content is presented correctly.
Also, as you say, “community centers, art spaces and concert halls” should also offer forums for discourse, but in our non-ideal world and American society right now, those centers, spaces, and halls are struggling to survive even more so than museums. In my native Philadelphia, community centers close frequently and the local orchestra is filing for bankruptcy, while the museums continue to plug along.
Thanks, everyone, for commenting on this post about, well, commenting!
—Bob
archedes
10:37 AM on 08/10/2011
Arianna - You always write timely, intelligent and articulate posts. Among the most important salient points in your article today is your noting that 'we have a surplus of untapped energy and creativity and talent'. Being a creative professional myself, I do not have the words to describe the devastation myself and my colleagues have suffered during this recession - financially, emotionally and even physically. Brilliant, highly educated and experienced graphic designers, interior designers, architects, painters, artists, musicians, dancers, etc. who have made our country a better place by improving the quality of everything we see, hear, touch, taste and feel have been tossed aside. Many were self-employed and are not able to obtain any unemployment insurance or other types of assistance. Others have been forced to do work where their skills, intellect and ability are demeaned by ridiculously low pay, poor treatment and complete disregard for their talent and the positive aspects it provides. At least during the last depression , the WPA and similar programs existed to tap into these talents and provide recognition, work and intellectual relief to this forgotten segment of our society. Disregarding these talented, creative individuals is proving to be one of the greatest downfalls of our society. It's tragic, sad and truly un-American.
Arianna - You always write timely, intelligent and articulate posts. Among the most important salient points in your article today is your noting that 'we have a surplus of untapped energy and creativity and talent'. Being a creative professional myself, I do not have the words to describe the devastation myself and my colleagues have suffered during this recession - financially, emotionally and even physically. Brilliant, highly educated and experienced graphic designers, interior designers, architects, painters, artists, musicians, dancers, etc. who have made our country a better place by improving the quality of everything we see, hear, touch, taste and feel have been tossed aside. Many were self-employed and are not able to obtain any unemployment insurance or other types of assistance. Others have been forced to do work where their skills, intellect and ability are demeaned by ridiculously low pay, poor treatment and complete disregard for their talent and the positive aspects it provides. At least during the last depression , the WPA and similar programs existed to tap into these talents and provide recognition, work and intellectual relief to this forgotten segment of our society. Disregarding these talented, creative individuals is proving to be one of the greatest downfalls of our society. It's tragic, sad and truly un-American.
Whoahox
08:33 AM on 08/10/2011
Which "Institute," Christine? MoMA?
Which "Institute," Christine? MoMA?
Shirley Fisk
04:13 PM on 08/10/2011
8/10/11
4:12pm
Brooklyn, NY
Arianna, it's nice that you worry about the middle class and the recently unemployed. I worry about them, too. I worry that they won't be able to handle it when they become homeless.
Low-income/no-income housing is needed now!!!
8/10/11
4:12pm
Brooklyn, NY
Arianna, it's nice that you worry about the middle class and the recently unemployed. I worry about them, too. I worry that they won't be able to handle it when they become homeless.
Low-income/no-income housing is needed now!!!
Kathleen Morse
07:31 PM on 08/10/2011
I wanted to give you a couple of stickers on your comment, especially the one smart one. You are smart and funny and compassionate. Do we have those stickers? Proud to fan and fave you.
I wanted to give you a couple of stickers on your comment, especially the one smart one. You are smart and funny and compassionate. Do we have those stickers? Proud to fan and fave you.
Pauline S
09.17.11 at 01:50
Thank you, Barry, for helping us learn from architecture's past and enabling us to benefit from great minds working to solve the new problems we face today. Your thought-provoking exhibitions are a serve to all who are grappling with the environmental, social, financial and other issues that keep us awake at night. Thanks for providing us with forum for discussion to discover a range of solutions.
Thank you, Barry, for helping us learn from architecture's past and enabling us to benefit from great minds working to solve the new problems we face today. Your thought-provoking exhibitions are a serve to all who are grappling with the environmental, social, financial and other issues that keep us awake at night. Thanks for providing us with forum for discussion to discover a range of solutions.
Irene Vogel Chevroulet
09.17.11 at 04:55
Strong wisdom, encouraging: félicitations.
Strong wisdom, encouraging: félicitations.
bythedoor
October 04, 2011 at 10:39AM
I totally agree
I totally agree
Otslabvane
October 3, 2011 at 2:26 pm
Yes, you are right! The community should be brought back!
Yes, you are right! The community should be brought back!
Josh J
09.27.2011
Bring your child to the highly important presentation day?
Bring your child to the highly important presentation day?
John Werner · Las Vegas, Nevada
Very well written and thought provoking dish---with maybe a small side of sour grapes---just for tang, of course.
December 23, 2011 at 12:08pm
December 23, 2011 at 12:08pm
Ariel Wilchek · Art Director at VP+C
carbon emissions for a good cause!
November 14, 2011 at 9:27am
November 14, 2011 at 9:27am
Ellen Salpeter · Deputy Director for External Affairs at The Jewish Museum
Really great read.
November 11, 2011 at 8:56am
November 11, 2011 at 8:56am
Las Vegas Foreclosures
Yeah. This article is a bit confusing, it merely discuss it's topic..
Chere Lott
FEBRUARY 10, 2012, 4:45 P.M.
As an urbanist and lawyer, I think deeply about these issues. I find the efforts in Cicero to be interesting, but somehow missing the point of other communities of “outsiders” on the inside, like the Chatham of my youth. I am sympathetic to the plight of hardworking immigrants but would offer the story of the middle class community that is suffering by bureaucratic malfeasance of displacing the black poor into these neighborhoods with insufficient support systems and resources. Chicago is, according to the Manhattan Institute, the most segregated city in the US. It is also still has a large black population..for historical reasons. What design opportunities exist to revitalize the far south side? Is a Walmart the key to salvation? (I think, not) Mr Gates, I saw your show here in LA at the Moca Geffen and am very intriqued by the synergy that you create with your interests…arts, urban planning. I would like the opportunity to meet with you in Chicago to discuss ideas and opportunities for creating interest in saving Chatham.
As an urbanist and lawyer, I think deeply about these issues. I find the efforts in Cicero to be interesting, but somehow missing the point of other communities of “outsiders” on the inside, like the Chatham of my youth. I am sympathetic to the plight of hardworking immigrants but would offer the story of the middle class community that is suffering by bureaucratic malfeasance of displacing the black poor into these neighborhoods with insufficient support systems and resources. Chicago is, according to the Manhattan Institute, the most segregated city in the US. It is also still has a large black population..for historical reasons. What design opportunities exist to revitalize the far south side? Is a Walmart the key to salvation? (I think, not) Mr Gates, I saw your show here in LA at the Moca Geffen and am very intriqued by the synergy that you create with your interests…arts, urban planning. I would like the opportunity to meet with you in Chicago to discuss ideas and opportunities for creating interest in saving Chatham.
JKinOB
I can't believe you thought the article was about the fact that houses look different after 60 years.
December 21, 2011 at 12:45 pm
December 21, 2011 at 12:45 pm
Jo co
I can't believe CNN has a news article about the fact that houses look different after 60 years.
December 21, 2011 at 12:27 am
December 21, 2011 at 12:27 am
John
you people need to stop making a massive political deal out of this article. the suburbs were just something that emerged from the american need for more housing. suburbs helped kick off the baby boom. at the time, it was a great opportunity for these people. if you had told them before the suburbs became a common place to live, that they could own their own home, a lot of them would laugh at the concept. It was a pretty sweet deal for a lot of the WWII vets and their growing families.
December 20, 2011 at 11:02 pm
December 20, 2011 at 11:02 pm
Jim
you got it my friend
March 22, 2012 at 6:27 pm
March 22, 2012 at 6:27 pm
DoNotWorry
The end is not near. Still a good idea to have a home that is paid off and a solid garden. Those who survived the Depression best were not the best little suck ups, but were the most independent of corporate jobs. True then, true now.
December 20, 2011 at 6:35 pm
December 20, 2011 at 6:35 pm
d
Why not write some news. Just more drivel. This article has been written 50 times in the last 30 years
December 20, 2011 at 12:57 pm
December 20, 2011 at 12:57 pm
Lukos
You are clearly a chinese poster. Why don't you leave your slander at home and leave discussion of American communities to those who have first-hand knowledge of the US rather than regurgitate communist propaganda?
December 20, 2011 at 1:09 pm
December 20, 2011 at 1:09 pm
Jim P.
"The word "suburb" didn't even exist back then, in the late '40s and early '50s"
Yes it did. The word was in use in the 1890's certainly and possibly earlier. Heck, the Chevy Suburban has been made since the 1930's I think....1935 to be exact.
Bad writer, no cookie!
December 20, 2011 at 11:54 am
Yes it did. The word was in use in the 1890's certainly and possibly earlier. Heck, the Chevy Suburban has been made since the 1930's I think....1935 to be exact.
Bad writer, no cookie!
December 20, 2011 at 11:54 am
KPMCO
I would not make assumptions like that Marcus. I am single, no children, and bought a 4 BR house. Know why? ROOMMATES! Do you realize how little I pay out of pocket every month for my mortgage and utilities? I put my extra money toward the principal to pay the house off faster. Sometimes it's not about keeping up with the Joneses. It's about financial realities and being smart enough to know what I am able to afford alone...and then maximizing it so I can pay it off as fast as I can.
My roommates help with housework, maintenance, and even watching the dogs when I am not home. It's like a small family here. I expect to have this house paid off within 8-10 years if I can do it. Can you say that?
December 20, 2011 at 3:13 pm
My roommates help with housework, maintenance, and even watching the dogs when I am not home. It's like a small family here. I expect to have this house paid off within 8-10 years if I can do it. Can you say that?
December 20, 2011 at 3:13 pm
Evan
FEBRUARY 15, 2012, 1:11 A.M.
The animal diagram has the horse incorrectly labeled as a tapir (in the Linnean taxonomy).
The animal diagram has the horse incorrectly labeled as a tapir (in the Linnean taxonomy).
JUSTIN DAVIDSON (NYMAG)
A lot of issues in just a few comment! @Jake_Wegmann: Your point that the problems facing the suburbs are not purely a design problem is right on, but that's exactly why the MoMA show tries to deal with legal, financial, ethnic, political, and cultural issues, too. And yes, the teams visited the sites they dealt with and interviewed people who live there - in the case of the Studio Gang project, the interviews are part of the exhibit.
@Cyberoid: It's true that the word "Suburb" includes places that are vastly different from each other - do you really think that makes the word so vague as to be meaningless, though? I don't think MoMA is claiming that the foreclosure crisis is over by any means - in fact, the sites in question were selected in part becuase they have high rates of foreclosure and high rates of non-foreclosed homeowners under water on their mortgages.
@Lecorbusier (I've heard of you, haven't I?) For what it's worth, I do know Ellen Dunham-Jones' excellent work on retrofitting dead malls, etc. What I said probably couldn't be done was revamping the suburbs wholesale "by rewriting laws, rationalizing markets, reforming the construction industry, and changing the culture all at once." Do you know of anywhere where such a sweeping transformation has been carried out? If so, I'd be very interested to know more about it.
6 Months Ago
@Cyberoid: It's true that the word "Suburb" includes places that are vastly different from each other - do you really think that makes the word so vague as to be meaningless, though? I don't think MoMA is claiming that the foreclosure crisis is over by any means - in fact, the sites in question were selected in part becuase they have high rates of foreclosure and high rates of non-foreclosed homeowners under water on their mortgages.
@Lecorbusier (I've heard of you, haven't I?) For what it's worth, I do know Ellen Dunham-Jones' excellent work on retrofitting dead malls, etc. What I said probably couldn't be done was revamping the suburbs wholesale "by rewriting laws, rationalizing markets, reforming the construction industry, and changing the culture all at once." Do you know of anywhere where such a sweeping transformation has been carried out? If so, I'd be very interested to know more about it.
6 Months Ago
Anonymous
To the post several lines down comparing these elitist idealogues to Steve Jobs: I'm still laughing. Steve jobs didn't create a "trend" as you say. He created great products that people want to buy. Therein is the lesson Architects should learn. Is there room for expressionism and "rethinking the box" in architecture. Pehaps. And if one wants to build there practice on such, go for it. If one does it well enough that people buy-in, then they will have achieved the real American Dream - not one contrived for them by others who "know better" as seems to be the intent of this show.
2/15/2012 6:44 PM CST
2/15/2012 6:44 PM CST
Anonymous
How do you comment on the human condition in drawings?
2/15/2012 4:53 PM CST
2/15/2012 4:53 PM CST
Anonymous
How do you test design theories then?
2/15/2012 4:51 PM CST
2/15/2012 4:51 PM CST
Isn't it interesting that everyone is anonymous here?
2/15/2012 3:16 PM CST
2/15/2012 3:16 PM CST
Anonymous
Taking cheap pot shots at McMansions smacks of jealousy more than anything else. Would any of these architects turn down the opportunity to design a 18,000 square foot home ... or to live in one if they could afford it?
One of the beauties of the American Dream is that people can aspire to living in a large home, or a cave if they so prefer. The unilateral imposition of small standardized homes on the masses is an idea best left to the few countries that still embrace the mistaken ideology that was Communism. If these rather naive architects are so committed to that concepts they endorse for others, then I suggest they emmigrate to a former Soviet Bloc country where they will feel more fulfilled. They should take their hypocrisy with them. It has no place in the US.
2/14/2012 6:41 PM CST
One of the beauties of the American Dream is that people can aspire to living in a large home, or a cave if they so prefer. The unilateral imposition of small standardized homes on the masses is an idea best left to the few countries that still embrace the mistaken ideology that was Communism. If these rather naive architects are so committed to that concepts they endorse for others, then I suggest they emmigrate to a former Soviet Bloc country where they will feel more fulfilled. They should take their hypocrisy with them. It has no place in the US.
2/14/2012 6:41 PM CST
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Ill give you libeskind, im not a fan of his either, but just because an idea isn't popular doesn't automatically make it incorrect...this is a lesson that has been repeated through the course of history. People are resistant to change, we like the status quo. People hated the eiffel tower, now they love it. The same holds true for the pompidou center. People's like or dislike of things really does not prove whether or not it is inherently wrong or bad design or anything. It just proves that they are unfamiliar with it, nothing more. Give these ideas a chance and they might actually have some worth. And I wouldn't dismiss the education of today and compare it to the ecole. Most of the study of ecole revolved around tirelessly perfecting the Orders, today's education (at certain schools) deals more with complex building systems and the human interaction with the space.
2/14/2012 4:12 PM CST
Ill give you libeskind, im not a fan of his either, but just because an idea isn't popular doesn't automatically make it incorrect...this is a lesson that has been repeated through the course of history. People are resistant to change, we like the status quo. People hated the eiffel tower, now they love it. The same holds true for the pompidou center. People's like or dislike of things really does not prove whether or not it is inherently wrong or bad design or anything. It just proves that they are unfamiliar with it, nothing more. Give these ideas a chance and they might actually have some worth. And I wouldn't dismiss the education of today and compare it to the ecole. Most of the study of ecole revolved around tirelessly perfecting the Orders, today's education (at certain schools) deals more with complex building systems and the human interaction with the space.
2/14/2012 4:12 PM CST
Anonymous
To the poster below: - The education received by an architect in the Beaux Arts era is very different from the course of study that passes for an architectural education today. I don't think anyone can find too much fault with the work produced in that earlier period. Not so with the work of most architects in the last 50 years where a relatively small number of architectural works are really appreciated by the public. (Daniel Libeskind's Crystal' ... anyone?) - So is it fair to say that today's architects are really educated enough to lead the rest of society? A better question would be to ask outselves why the public dislikes so much of what our profession creates today. Therein lies the way forward. Ignoring your audience is not the solution to anything.
2/14/2012 3:23 PM CST
2/14/2012 3:23 PM CST
Anonymous
In response to the commenter who responded to my earlier post about people being stupid, good one. You can disagree with me all you like and call my intelligence into question, but the simple fact remains that most people don't have a clue about architecture, how can they?The education we go through (in school and the professional world) is some of the toughest. It is up to the architect to educate. I don't know what happened in this country to make people so resentful of others. The kind of discourse people have with architecture resembles that of monkeys and their habitual poo throwing...
2/14/2012 3:14 PM CST
2/14/2012 3:14 PM CST
Anonymous
To the commenter below who said "BTW, people are stupid ..." - Just because you lack intelligence, don't assume everyone else is in the same boat. The comparison with Steve Jobs and Apple is highly selective. For every Apple there has been a slew of failures. The projects shown here seem more likely to be in the failure category. We've seen this stuff before. It didn't work then, it won't work now. - But it's a free country. If these architects chose to be pretentious, who am I to stop them. It's their mind to waste revisiting dead end speculations.
2/14/2012 2:42 PM CST
2/14/2012 2:42 PM CST
Anonymous
So much spin and hate on the “Architectural Record”? It looks like student Occupiers have broadened their opinions to include architecture/planning!! I actually feel sorry for them and agree with those who believe that even misplaced, but uncorrupted, passion is better than apathy. But your view of our future is sadly UnAmerican and something that will handicap your life until you wise up.
“Anti Socialists”, “healthy cities” – hilarious! “Eggheady liberal architects”!? LOL Oh how you flatter yourselves! Inexperienced, academic, myopic, global warming eco hustlers who don’t understand the environment, fossil fuels/energy economy, national defense, US economy, our history or American Exceptionalism means that you are incapable of comprehending our future, which robs you of any basis for design. …so as a result we get vanity nonsense like this. ..and wishes for socialism as Athens burns in the wake of spastic entitlement class withdrawal.
Americans were not “given” anything; planning is not a socialist activity in the United States; and the diversity of planning across the country varies from tragic to excellent – something some writing here are obviously unaware of, living in a generation of under-educated, arrogant skepticism of forces you don’t understand.
Market forces drive change, a natural process arrogant socialists have no patience for. You are confused and angry because of the lies you tell yourselves and the turmoil that results. For example: there is no place for over-priced boutique wind/solar power (creates a job killing prosperity tax); oil is cheap and plentiful for hundreds of years; electric cars have already been rejected by the market; human controlled global weather is nonsense (global warming); landfills are a business like any other; recycling is, with few exceptions, just more manufacturing; and you have been betrayed by those who have taught you much of your lives. No matter what eco fantasy world you want to inhabit, everything I’ve written is dead on and there’s not a thing your hatful confusion can do about it.
Take some comfort in knowing that, for better or worse, you are not wise enough to begin to understand our future.
2/14/2012 11:29 AM CST
“Anti Socialists”, “healthy cities” – hilarious! “Eggheady liberal architects”!? LOL Oh how you flatter yourselves! Inexperienced, academic, myopic, global warming eco hustlers who don’t understand the environment, fossil fuels/energy economy, national defense, US economy, our history or American Exceptionalism means that you are incapable of comprehending our future, which robs you of any basis for design. …so as a result we get vanity nonsense like this. ..and wishes for socialism as Athens burns in the wake of spastic entitlement class withdrawal.
Americans were not “given” anything; planning is not a socialist activity in the United States; and the diversity of planning across the country varies from tragic to excellent – something some writing here are obviously unaware of, living in a generation of under-educated, arrogant skepticism of forces you don’t understand.
Market forces drive change, a natural process arrogant socialists have no patience for. You are confused and angry because of the lies you tell yourselves and the turmoil that results. For example: there is no place for over-priced boutique wind/solar power (creates a job killing prosperity tax); oil is cheap and plentiful for hundreds of years; electric cars have already been rejected by the market; human controlled global weather is nonsense (global warming); landfills are a business like any other; recycling is, with few exceptions, just more manufacturing; and you have been betrayed by those who have taught you much of your lives. No matter what eco fantasy world you want to inhabit, everything I’ve written is dead on and there’s not a thing your hatful confusion can do about it.
Take some comfort in knowing that, for better or worse, you are not wise enough to begin to understand our future.
2/14/2012 11:29 AM CST
Anonymous
lar davis sez: for someone named "anonymous", they sure do talk a real lot! But not saying anything worthwhile. ps: New Urbanists are thugs and troublemakers, God luv 'em.
3/1/2012 8:32 AM CST
3/1/2012 8:32 AM CST
DJ Huppatz
03.08.12 at 05:38
Dear Jonathan
I printed out this post a couple of weeks back and have only just got around to reading it. I'm surprised no one has commented so I just wanted to belated say that I think this is an engaging post that covers a lot of important issues. Thanks and keep up the great work.
Dan
Dear Jonathan
I printed out this post a couple of weeks back and have only just got around to reading it. I'm surprised no one has commented so I just wanted to belated say that I think this is an engaging post that covers a lot of important issues. Thanks and keep up the great work.
Dan
Kevin W.
Feb 16, 12 2:43 pm
I don't..if you find anything, please share with us.
I don't..if you find anything, please share with us.
jla-x
Feb 16, 12 2:22 pm
Eichler, yes, I agree Kevin. You know of any contemporary developers that are doing this kind of work with a little more focus on community design and sustainability? I would love to do a little research into this.
Eichler, yes, I agree Kevin. You know of any contemporary developers that are doing this kind of work with a little more focus on community design and sustainability? I would love to do a little research into this.
Nam Henderson
Feb 15, 12 6:36 pm
I would be interested in hearing from any Nectors who have read the book/visited the exhibit/participated in the studios.
Particularly in light of Guy Horton's recent piece of criticism Thoughts on MoMA's Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream wherein he wrote "This is a shame because there are some valuable ideas. Ironically, most of those are contained in the boring data taken from economists and social scientists. Were the architects trying too diligently to spatialize the data?...As unsettling as the damage the financial crisis has wrought on the fabric of dwelling in America, the distance these proposals travel away from what caused these foreclosures is equally unsettling."
Or Justin Davidson who recently in NY Magazine wrote "Some ideas in the show sit on the border between bold and silly...As a whole, though, the show merges daydreams with pragmatism."
There he specifically critiqued Mr. Bell's vision as seeking to "herd newcomers to Temple Terrace, Florida, into a pair of high-tech megastructures lifted above vast urban plazas."
Finally, more substantively to me was his feeling that "For all its thoughtfulness and rigor, though, a whiff of colonialism blows through the project, with its corps of city-based experts venturing into suburbia with maps and modern technology and plans for reforming the indigenous culture. The visions they come up with have a familiar urban feel, and the show replaces old conventional wisdom with the only slightly fresher dogma of density". Is it inevitable that this sort of project/process will perhaps come across as disconnected from on the ground socio-politics and communities. I wonder how a more organic approach to the problem could be articulated, perhaps even as simple as something like OccupyourHomes but more architecturally or spatially focused....
Also, this item Housing and the 99 Percent recently posted to News feed seem apropos.
I would be interested in hearing from any Nectors who have read the book/visited the exhibit/participated in the studios.
Particularly in light of Guy Horton's recent piece of criticism Thoughts on MoMA's Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream wherein he wrote "This is a shame because there are some valuable ideas. Ironically, most of those are contained in the boring data taken from economists and social scientists. Were the architects trying too diligently to spatialize the data?...As unsettling as the damage the financial crisis has wrought on the fabric of dwelling in America, the distance these proposals travel away from what caused these foreclosures is equally unsettling."
Or Justin Davidson who recently in NY Magazine wrote "Some ideas in the show sit on the border between bold and silly...As a whole, though, the show merges daydreams with pragmatism."
There he specifically critiqued Mr. Bell's vision as seeking to "herd newcomers to Temple Terrace, Florida, into a pair of high-tech megastructures lifted above vast urban plazas."
Finally, more substantively to me was his feeling that "For all its thoughtfulness and rigor, though, a whiff of colonialism blows through the project, with its corps of city-based experts venturing into suburbia with maps and modern technology and plans for reforming the indigenous culture. The visions they come up with have a familiar urban feel, and the show replaces old conventional wisdom with the only slightly fresher dogma of density". Is it inevitable that this sort of project/process will perhaps come across as disconnected from on the ground socio-politics and communities. I wonder how a more organic approach to the problem could be articulated, perhaps even as simple as something like OccupyourHomes but more architecturally or spatially focused....
Also, this item Housing and the 99 Percent recently posted to News feed seem apropos.
jla-x
Feb 15, 12 12:23 pm
Thanks for sharing that keith. Not really sure if I understand what he is proposing with this business plan.
Thanks for sharing that keith. Not really sure if I understand what he is proposing with this business plan.
Geena
March 4, 2012 at 8:38 am
Love it! Cicero is nicely located near downtown and public transport. Agree with first commenter about the bike unfriendly aspect.
Love it! Cicero is nicely located near downtown and public transport. Agree with first commenter about the bike unfriendly aspect.
Further discussion of MoMa’s “Foreclosure” exhibit | Legally Sociable
June 26, 2012 at 4:35 PM
[...] few months ago, we wrote a couple of times about the “Foreclosed” exhibit at MoMa (see here and here). Here is an extended “roundtable debate” about the exhibit and a paragraph of [...]
[...] few months ago, we wrote a couple of times about the “Foreclosed” exhibit at MoMa (see here and here). Here is an extended “roundtable debate” about the exhibit and a paragraph of [...]
In December, I was at Design Miami/Art Basel and had a great time connecting with so many old friends, clients, press contacts, etc. At some point during the week, I sent a text message to a friend to recount some of the new work I'd seen, the run-ins, the parties, the tote-bags...
Her response was: "So, how is life with the 1%?" After a career in design, I certainly didn't feel like a member of the 1%, but from my view of the champagne bar in the VIP lounge it was clear that I was in close proximity. Then, I began to wonder:
Has "design" become an activity of, by, and for the 1%?
Her response was: "So, how is life with the 1%?" After a career in design, I certainly didn't feel like a member of the 1%, but from my view of the champagne bar in the VIP lounge it was clear that I was in close proximity. Then, I began to wonder:
Has "design" become an activity of, by, and for the 1%?
Jeannie Kim
Reaction to (and, at times, shrill critique) of) the recently opened exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, “Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream,” might suggest that – yes – perhaps designers are better off sticking to the 1% that they know well, given architecture’s repeated historic failures to address complex urban (and suburban) challenges. After all, as Steven Holl apparently said in a 2010 interview, “It’s always about the clients. Without good clients you can’t have good architecture,” (quoted in Nicolai Ouroussoff, “By the Architects, for the People: A Trend for 2010s,” The New York Times, May 3, 2010) and the 99% is a notoriously difficult client. Yet the most innovative architects have and, thankfully, will continue to engage these questions, whether speculatively or with actual “blueprints” rather than just “visions”. OWS and the 99% have been galvanized by mortgage foreclosures, setting up camp at the same time the MoMA teams were first presenting their proposals (nee “visions”) last fall. Any design activity that engages these questions needs to be linked to radical changes in fiscal policy and transit infrastructure as well, however. The announcement that the Obama administration will be unveiling new standards this week for now banks treat the millions of people facing foreclosure may help, therefore, but it’s just a step toward addressing a vast problem that architects and designers alone cannot solve.
Wednesday, February 22 at 6:05pm
Wednesday, February 22 at 6:05pm
John Mindiola III
03.08.12 at 09:55
@Ries is correct. Many people live in the burbs because they don't want to live in city, and visa versa. And, let's not forget that many people live where they live, love it or hate it, because (gasp) they can't afford to live elsewhere. Let's also not forget about the cost of the commute, no matter what form that takes. Design is part of the intrigue, but it's not the whole enchilada.
@Ries is correct. Many people live in the burbs because they don't want to live in city, and visa versa. And, let's not forget that many people live where they live, love it or hate it, because (gasp) they can't afford to live elsewhere. Let's also not forget about the cost of the commute, no matter what form that takes. Design is part of the intrigue, but it's not the whole enchilada.
Carl W. Smith
02.26.12 at 11:50
OK. Perhaps building equestrian centers may be a bazaar idea and taking the American dream idea to an extreme, but re-greening suburbia and adding some local food as Ellen Dunham’s recommends would certainly help point us in the right direction.
OK. Perhaps building equestrian centers may be a bazaar idea and taking the American dream idea to an extreme, but re-greening suburbia and adding some local food as Ellen Dunham’s recommends would certainly help point us in the right direction.
HogWash
@AWalker, But see, thats where the demonization blinds people...and I think the more extreme viewpoints including have left people very defensive, and believing things about urbanism that give ammo the antiurbanists, and make their job of persuasion easier. These include the impressions that urbanists beleive A. that everyone should be carfree B. That no one should live in a SFH C. That everyplace on Greater Washington outside of the district is "bad" regardless of density, etc, etc....I find the distortion of urbanism involved in those memes particularly troubling. It makes a sophisticated vision of a reinvented metropolitan america sound like the ravings of naive hipsters.
Well you've surely said a mouthful here and it is as reasonable and objective and nonconfrontational as they come. The problem is, you'll still have people defending (maybe naturally) the idea that "well that's not us, we're just trying to better xyz."
I can't tell you the number of times I've heard similar sentiments shared by DC residents who don't consider themselves "urbanists" but do rely on their cars and in cases, transit.
Feb 22, 2012 12:57 pm
Well you've surely said a mouthful here and it is as reasonable and objective and nonconfrontational as they come. The problem is, you'll still have people defending (maybe naturally) the idea that "well that's not us, we're just trying to better xyz."
I can't tell you the number of times I've heard similar sentiments shared by DC residents who don't consider themselves "urbanists" but do rely on their cars and in cases, transit.
Feb 22, 2012 12:57 pm
04eastsider
Feb 27 at 1:06 PM
Yes, the Milwaukee Art Museum, could definitely use a 'architecture curator' in some capacity (free agent, in-residence, visiting, promo-person, ......) or another! Milwaukee has some really tough opportunities in this area. I volunteer to go to Seoul, South Korea to report on their apparently "hugely successful transformation" of a post-Korean Conflict neighborhood! Funds to be paid for by the County of Milwaukee (I am a taxpayer); please do not send any City of Milwaukee employees, they have more than enough to do (from their past and present TRACK RECORDS, COMMITTMENTS, AND COMMENTS)!
Yes, the Milwaukee Art Museum, could definitely use a 'architecture curator' in some capacity (free agent, in-residence, visiting, promo-person, ......) or another! Milwaukee has some really tough opportunities in this area. I volunteer to go to Seoul, South Korea to report on their apparently "hugely successful transformation" of a post-Korean Conflict neighborhood! Funds to be paid for by the County of Milwaukee (I am a taxpayer); please do not send any City of Milwaukee employees, they have more than enough to do (from their past and present TRACK RECORDS, COMMITTMENTS, AND COMMENTS)!
28 Feb, 2012 - (@NotOnly)
Not a lot of love for Moma's "Foreclosed", just check out the @ArchRecordreader comments! http://archrecord.construction.com/news/2012/02/F …
Jon Blehar
134 days ago
Yes, finally someone who realizes; as soon as most Americans have 2 kids, it's off to the suburbs to stay most of their lives. Also the gentleman points out that the two coasts (and that big city in between) have the greatest access to publications, so the two coasts produce most of the noise about what should be done to improve our built environment.
Yes, finally someone who realizes; as soon as most Americans have 2 kids, it's off to the suburbs to stay most of their lives. Also the gentleman points out that the two coasts (and that big city in between) have the greatest access to publications, so the two coasts produce most of the noise about what should be done to improve our built environment.
Kunal Ghevaria
132 days ago
Excellent critique. I had the same thoughts when I saw the exhibit. Especially about the ridiculous MOS proposal. What a waste.
Excellent critique. I had the same thoughts when I saw the exhibit. Especially about the ridiculous MOS proposal. What a waste.
Anonymous
People write in so that they can be part of a conversation. That's it! Obviously ,the coment is being written by A Person. If the comment is appropriate and interesting, based on the author's point of view, who cares who wrote it.
3/31/2012 10:59 AM CDT
3/31/2012 10:59 AM CDT
Anonymous
Please sign your name as anonymous, as a protest against the "identity hall monitors" who stubbornly and disrespectfully refuse to recognize the value of and right to anonymity in public discourse.
3/7/2012 2:16 AM CST
3/7/2012 2:16 AM CST
suzanne_stephens
Please sign your name at the end of your comment. We find signed comments are more helpful than purely "anonymous" ones. Thank you, Suzanne Stephens, Deputy Editor, AR
3/5/2012 10:03 AM CST
3/5/2012 10:03 AM CST
Prima, L.A.Ca. U.S.A.
3/3/2012 19:49
No
No
Lucinda
2012.03.08
Knew you could do it but this is over the top. Congratulations. XXX, L
Knew you could do it but this is over the top. Congratulations. XXX, L
Henry Scott
2012.03.08
Great review! I like reviews that so into this kind of depth and put the work into context.
Great review! I like reviews that so into this kind of depth and put the work into context.
Hates Idiots
8th Mar
Do not get me started.
On the refi problems I have encountered because of rules changes made by the Dodd/Frank law.
The bottom line is simple.
Old refi rules = $120 a month savings.
New refi rules = $230 a month increase in mortgage.
And I am being forced into a refi because of circumstances beyond my control. Show Less -
Do not get me started.
On the refi problems I have encountered because of rules changes made by the Dodd/Frank law.
The bottom line is simple.
Old refi rules = $120 a month savings.
New refi rules = $230 a month increase in mortgage.
And I am being forced into a refi because of circumstances beyond my control. Show Less -
Robert Trigaux
133 days ago
Thanks for noting, now corrected.
Thanks for noting, now corrected.
jaktar1
134 days ago
Temple Terrace is on Tampa's NORTH EAST corner.
Temple Terrace is on Tampa's NORTH EAST corner.
rjchicago
MAR 14, 2012 3:27 PM EDT
Felix:
Please see my post in Architect Mag online. Being an architect I am just amazed there were no practical solutions to the myasmatic real estate industry of today. This is a multivariate problem with NO utopian solutions. And I remain saddened that my bretheren in architecture would publish such utter non-sense. Sheesh!!!
Felix:
Please see my post in Architect Mag online. Being an architect I am just amazed there were no practical solutions to the myasmatic real estate industry of today. This is a multivariate problem with NO utopian solutions. And I remain saddened that my bretheren in architecture would publish such utter non-sense. Sheesh!!!
In reviewing the “Foreclosed” exhibit at MoMA, Felix Salmon raises an interesting question: who is going to pay for these projects to be built?
Anonymous
03/19/12 04:22 PM
@guest #6: This is either the work of a naif or a genius. I'm afraid I don't have the architectural sophistication myself to determine which.
@guest #6: This is either the work of a naif or a genius. I'm afraid I don't have the architectural sophistication myself to determine which.
Anonymous
03/19/12 01:41 PM
What a juvenile proposal. Looks like student work.
What a juvenile proposal. Looks like student work.
Anonymous
03/19/12 01:21 PM
@guest #3: From what I can tell a gyspsy curse was put on Pomona a long time ago. That city just can't get it togther. Ontario an Rancho are more likely the job centers.
@guest #3: From what I can tell a gyspsy curse was put on Pomona a long time ago. That city just can't get it togther. Ontario an Rancho are more likely the job centers.
Anonymous
03/19/12 12:54 PM
@guest #3: Yes, and ONT is owned and being run into the ground by LA World Airports (owns LAX).
@guest #3: Yes, and ONT is owned and being run into the ground by LA World Airports (owns LAX).
Anonymous
In response to - Anonymous: "...any actual success stories of 'big-box' (with 20-acre asphalt parking lot) redevelopment? I haven't seen any."
3/22/2012 12:15 PM
See Denton, TX public library - a former grocery store turned library: http://archrecord.construction.com/projects/bts/archives/libraries/06_Denton/overview.asp
Published right here, in ArchRecord back in May 2006.
3/22/2012 12:15 PM
See Denton, TX public library - a former grocery store turned library: http://archrecord.construction.com/projects/bts/archives/libraries/06_Denton/overview.asp
Published right here, in ArchRecord back in May 2006.
Anonymous
Does anybody have a complete transcript of this event? Were there any Powerpoint presentations?
3/21/2012 4:32 PM CDT
3/21/2012 4:32 PM CDT
Anonymous
MoMA did record it. You can contact the A&D Department to see if it is available.
3/21/2012 10:38 AM CDT
3/21/2012 10:38 AM CDT
Anonymous
Does anyone know if there is a video of this somewhere? I would love to see it and get some context to the statements. I don't know who's study sited it would take over $10 a gallon to change driving habits, but that seems like a flawed study.
3/20/2012 2:05 PM CDT
3/20/2012 2:05 PM CDT
Rebecka
Thu Mar 22, 10:52:00 AM EDT
Thanks Alex for a great post with a much-needed critical perspective! I hope I can see the exhibit myself this summer, and I will have your comments in mind. I agree that the discussion needs to be pushed forward, especially as the human tendency all too often is to look back.
Thanks Alex for a great post with a much-needed critical perspective! I hope I can see the exhibit myself this summer, and I will have your comments in mind. I agree that the discussion needs to be pushed forward, especially as the human tendency all too often is to look back.
Jon
March 31, 2012 11:10 a.m.
Excellent post and great blog!
Excellent post and great blog!
HG Watson
On April 16, 2012 at 12:08 pm
Do you mind me asking, are you from Windsor? The description is bang on.
I think this is really interesting given that this project is taking shape for real in Detroit. The Detroit Film Theatre is actually featuring a few documentaries this month about urban farming and renewal in the city http://www.dia.org/detroitfilmtheatre/14/DFT.aspx
Do you mind me asking, are you from Windsor? The description is bang on.
I think this is really interesting given that this project is taking shape for real in Detroit. The Detroit Film Theatre is actually featuring a few documentaries this month about urban farming and renewal in the city http://www.dia.org/detroitfilmtheatre/14/DFT.aspx
Caroline Diezyn
On April 16, 2012 at 4:45 pm
Very close to Windsor! Fascinating that you guessed it. Thanks very much for pointing me toward that project and thanks for reading and commenting.
Very close to Windsor! Fascinating that you guessed it. Thanks very much for pointing me toward that project and thanks for reading and commenting.
Caroline Diezyn
On April 17, 2012 at 9:16 am
Hi there, that's a great suggestion for the designers behind the exhibit. This is a review on the exhibit, so I couldn't include every aspect of the discussion. Opening up for comments allows for that, so don't worry if it hasn't been brought up yet — you're the perfect one to bring it up.
Hi there, that's a great suggestion for the designers behind the exhibit. This is a review on the exhibit, so I couldn't include every aspect of the discussion. Opening up for comments allows for that, so don't worry if it hasn't been brought up yet — you're the perfect one to bring it up.
Shannon
On April 17, 2012 at 7:14 am
Lady Brett: Just curious. What do you find amazing about owning your home and what are some of the complaints about people who do own their own home and don't like it?
Lady Brett: Just curious. What do you find amazing about owning your home and what are some of the complaints about people who do own their own home and don't like it?
The Ranch Mine
MAY 29, 2012 • 6:38 AM
Fantastic post, you hit all my thoughts on this exhibition. I first lost it when looking at the Rialto, CA project that had an elephant in the project section. After all, nothing scales a project in Southern California better than an elephant.
Fantastic post, you hit all my thoughts on this exhibition. I first lost it when looking at the Rialto, CA project that had an elephant in the project section. After all, nothing scales a project in Southern California better than an elephant.
Jan Robin
JUNE 2, 2012 • 10:39 AM
Hehe, nice text!
The German architectural magazine “Bauwelt” wrote about the exhibit too and – if i remember correctly – fancied the artsiest “solution” the most… anyway, it’s very refreshing, that BUILD has both feet on the ground :)
Hehe, nice text!
The German architectural magazine “Bauwelt” wrote about the exhibit too and – if i remember correctly – fancied the artsiest “solution” the most… anyway, it’s very refreshing, that BUILD has both feet on the ground :)
NikoXeno
JUNE 5, 2012 · 9:14 AM
Campari has no “o” in its name.
I hope your Negronis were stirred, not shaken.
And yeah, that’s some bad architecture.
Campari has no “o” in its name.
I hope your Negronis were stirred, not shaken.
And yeah, that’s some bad architecture.
Madeline
June 15, 2012 at 1:28 am
The small gabled cottage is really amazing. This is really an art! After reading the article, I was interested to the other art and creation of Do Ho Suh. Thanks for the art.
The small gabled cottage is really amazing. This is really an art! After reading the article, I was interested to the other art and creation of Do Ho Suh. Thanks for the art.
Dave
June 20, 2012 at 6:50 pm
I don’t think the downspouts on the back of the cottage will see much rain :)
I don’t think the downspouts on the back of the cottage will see much rain :)
KSlaught
As a non-design professional, for whom I would assume the exhibit and Mr. Martin's statement might be aimed at, I find the discussion interesting, but somewhat baffling. Mr. Martin's use of language and terminology is inherently exclusionary to those who are not of the academic/professional of which he is a part. The other essays here are more readily understandable to a layperson.
The disappointment expressed by Mr. Martin, that none of the teams used a public process to inform their entry is legitimate. Based upon lectures at the Alaska Design Forum, it appears that many designers have little interaction with the end users, whether it is housing stock or another product. The most apparently successful designers are those who engage the end users, whether it is residents of Medellin, Colombia, Aboriginal Australians, or buyers at Sacks 5th Avenue.
Mr. Agnotti accurately summarized the problem, that we cannot design ourselves out of a problem, whether it is sprawl, foreclosures, or racial divides. The faith in design to solve problems is similar to the faith in technology to solve our problems. Perhaps it would be useful to step out of the the world view that seems to inhabit these conversations and look for a different one. Take as an example that of social work, where they ideally look for and base their work on the clients' strengths and desires. Lecturing or telling society to change, without asking why it should or what currently drives the actions, will just result in frustration and a smaller and smaller audience.
07.05.12 at 02:52
The disappointment expressed by Mr. Martin, that none of the teams used a public process to inform their entry is legitimate. Based upon lectures at the Alaska Design Forum, it appears that many designers have little interaction with the end users, whether it is housing stock or another product. The most apparently successful designers are those who engage the end users, whether it is residents of Medellin, Colombia, Aboriginal Australians, or buyers at Sacks 5th Avenue.
Mr. Agnotti accurately summarized the problem, that we cannot design ourselves out of a problem, whether it is sprawl, foreclosures, or racial divides. The faith in design to solve problems is similar to the faith in technology to solve our problems. Perhaps it would be useful to step out of the the world view that seems to inhabit these conversations and look for a different one. Take as an example that of social work, where they ideally look for and base their work on the clients' strengths and desires. Lecturing or telling society to change, without asking why it should or what currently drives the actions, will just result in frustration and a smaller and smaller audience.
07.05.12 at 02:52
14 Jul, 2012 - (@AMusingCanadian)
@VisionVancouver@greenestcityMaking silk purses out of sows' ears? MOMA, "Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream" http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/exhibitions/1230 …
Jonathan Arnold
JULY 24, 2012, 9:12 A.M.
Very thoughtful piece!
Very thoughtful piece!
HUFFPOST SUPER USER, Stanley Bonk, "mad, bad, and dangerous to know" 586 Fans
07:43 AM on 07/23/2012
Odd you should mention that. There are actually lawmakers in my corner of the world in the rust belt, that are considering whether the health hazards of chickens are large enought to keep an old prohibition against keeping small number of chickens on your property. It seems we're trending towards bringing the chickens back.
Odd you should mention that. There are actually lawmakers in my corner of the world in the rust belt, that are considering whether the health hazards of chickens are large enought to keep an old prohibition against keeping small number of chickens on your property. It seems we're trending towards bringing the chickens back.
garynofishing, There's a RAT infestation on Wall Street, 141 Fans
02:35 AM on 07/23/2012
More silly talk
More silly talk
Mattshaw1, 12 Fans
05:43 AM on 07/23/2012
There are still a lot of post Katrina trailers available in New Orleans and they come permeated with formaldehyde at no extra cost.
There are still a lot of post Katrina trailers available in New Orleans and they come permeated with formaldehyde at no extra cost.
Educated Black Man, I am not African-American, I am simply an American, 648 Fans
12:15 AM on 07/23/2012
Thanks Barry. You have done a fine job!!
Thanks Barry. You have done a fine job!!
4eva, .-.. --- ...- . --..-- / -. --- - / .... .- - ., 2994 Fans
09:14 AM on 07/23/2012
You seem to be of two minds.
First you say American attitudes need to change, which I agree they must, and they will eventually when they realize how very unsustainable our sprawl pattern of development is.
Then you seem to blame one political group. That doesn't make much sense. Suburbia is filled with people of all political persuasions ... who all will have to come to the realization each one on their own that it is not a sustainable way to live.
You seem to be of two minds.
First you say American attitudes need to change, which I agree they must, and they will eventually when they realize how very unsustainable our sprawl pattern of development is.
Then you seem to blame one political group. That doesn't make much sense. Suburbia is filled with people of all political persuasions ... who all will have to come to the realization each one on their own that it is not a sustainable way to live.
04 Aug, 2012 - (@MistressCabesh)
@rachelsloerts Thinking of you at the #MoMAexhibit, http://MoMA.org/foreclosed http://instagr.am/p/N6jZShS_Ts/
04 Aug, 2012 - (@MistressCabesh)
@rachelsloerts Thinking of you at the #MoMAexhibit, http://MoMA.org/foreclosed http://instagr.am/p/N6jZShS_Ts/
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
hp_blogger_Vanessa Smith
Do you think this is a positive thing? Weigh in!
16 Aug, 2012 - (@Littof)
Really bummed I missed the MOMA exhibit "Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream"Did you get to see it? http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/exhibitions/1230 …Impressions?
SheilaKhani
hp_blogger_Jonny Stewart, as long as we have Internet access
hp_blogger_Jonny Stewart
SheilaKhani, high-speed mind you.
Gadea268
Yay! Janet & Alyona - two great looking ladies.
paulx44
Typical_Boston_Liberal, Yeah, I understand that e-book texts used to actually be printed on paper
Robert_R_Best
I wonder if they fight over who gets the couch and who has to sit in the folding chair.
hp_blogger_Jonny Stewart
let's start having foreclosure parties!
Progressives_LoveAmerica
tlstryker, it's true & I don't blame them. If I were being foreclosed on, I'd do the same thing: Put out rotting food all over the place & put out the welcome wagon for rodents, possums, raccoons, vagrants, etc. The bank will be welcomed by stench
hp_blogger_James Poulos
hp_blogger_Jonny Stewart, Funclosure?
paulx44
jamesguy74, It's not the best way to achieve that goal, but I see what your saying
Eddie_VanderMolen
Progressives_LoveAmerica, What happened to the idea of squatting in your own foreclosed home?
Typical_Boston_Liberal
incognito-ergo-sum, Yeah, that's what I'm afraid of...
hp_blogger_Jonny Stewart
Progressives_LoveAmerica, now we're talkin.
tlstryker
same type of heist the same powers that be did at the great depression. they got the bailouts and the properties. total money grab by the rich.
Progressives_LoveAmerica
Eddie_VanderMolen, people do that too...but vandalism & neglect of the home are the order of the day once it's apparent that all hope is lost & the bank is taking the house
SheilaKhani
Progressives_LoveAmerica, great idea! but not the same gov't that bailed them out - may be a pro socialist gov't
Eddie_VanderMolen
Tom_Servo, OMG. I'm so sorry for you.
Nadia_Joseph
I just wanted to throw a couple of ideas for future segments. The first one is asylum seekers; countless number of families have lost their lives searching for a better life elsewhere only to be met with death or living in limbo.
MariJman
hp_blogger_Clay Chiles, they couldn't pay the taxes
Nadia_Joseph
The second thought that came to mind is to do a segment on Medicare and Social Security and cover more health care related topics of concern. Thank you.
Eddie_VanderMolen
hp_blogger_Clay Chiles, Churches in Harlem did just that.
allx
I would like to see a segment with Rick Wolffe, professor from U. amherst
Gadea268
hp_blogger_Clay Chiles, That is a fantastic idea.
Tom_Servo
I can't talk about this. It makes me ill. check you people out tomorrow.
MariJman
Want to do something important do shows constantly on the last area of legalized discrimination in America, pot smokers
paulx44
JamesPowers, I'm 18 and feel the exact same way. Apartments work for me.
Progressives_LoveAmerica
JamesPowers, or might I suggest a favela?
SheilaKhani
JamesPowers, be sure to do the math before buying a house- make sure you buy the house, not the bank - be sure if do the math with HOA and property tax (which comes up to be 10% of your net income on average- in California)
hp_blogger_James Poulos
Nadia_Joseph, Thanks for the pitches!
allx
SheilaKhani, make sure you don't lose your job anytime in the next 20 yrs.
Eddie_VanderMolen
MariJman, there's an idea out there for a progressive property tax.
hp_blogger_Vanessa Smith
Typical_Boston_Liberal, We are going to try to get to that. Great question.
paulx44
yeswecanjane, And it's kinda warm if you stand outside close enough to the windows of your former home
tlstryker
there are indeed a ton of reasons not to buy. buying a home has never been for everyone (but they sure did hand those loans out fast).
yeswecanjane
paulx44, Yes we can look warmly at their future and not be so jealous!
VenusBivinsJohn
MariJman, tell the truth! there's no true homeownership -- even with Home Affordable refinance program -- banks extent your "rent" to another 40 years. Renting is much less stressful
MariJman
VenusBivinsJohn, I agree renting is much less stressful because for the most part the government isn't there with their hand out
Sharon_Morell
tlstryker, With interest rates this low if you can afford to buy you would be wise to do so
yeswecanjane
SheilaKhani, Added Bonus We get to help share the cost of their taxes:)
tlstryker
Sharon_Morell, not buying in at this point. sorry.
paulx44
Thanks for sharing your story with us Stephanie :)
NoMoniker
Hey, HuffPo -- the buffering is real slow, constant interruptions at a Starbucks.
Jobs (39)
matthew allen
DECEMBER 29, 2011, 1:40 P.M.
yes i was wondering how i go about not lossing my house it has been in my wifes famlily for over a hundred years my wife was layed off the morgage company wouldnt talk to us because she was layed off and now we are so far behind we cant get cought up so now we are loosing our home is there help out there for me
yes i was wondering how i go about not lossing my house it has been in my wifes famlily for over a hundred years my wife was layed off the morgage company wouldnt talk to us because she was layed off and now we are so far behind we cant get cought up so now we are loosing our home is there help out there for me
archedes
10:37 AM on 08/10/2011
Arianna - You always write timely, intelligent and articulate posts. Among the most important salient points in your article today is your noting that 'we have a surplus of untapped energy and creativity and talent'. Being a creative professional myself, I do not have the words to describe the devastation myself and my colleagues have suffered during this recession - financially, emotionally and even physically. Brilliant, highly educated and experienced graphic designers, interior designers, architects, painters, artists, musicians, dancers, etc. who have made our country a better place by improving the quality of everything we see, hear, touch, taste and feel have been tossed aside. Many were self-employed and are not able to obtain any unemployment insurance or other types of assistance. Others have been forced to do work where their skills, intellect and ability are demeaned by ridiculously low pay, poor treatment and complete disregard for their talent and the positive aspects it provides. At least during the last depression , the WPA and similar programs existed to tap into these talents and provide recognition, work and intellectual relief to this forgotten segment of our society. Disregarding these talented, creative individuals is proving to be one of the greatest downfalls of our society. It's tragic, sad and truly un-American.
Arianna - You always write timely, intelligent and articulate posts. Among the most important salient points in your article today is your noting that 'we have a surplus of untapped energy and creativity and talent'. Being a creative professional myself, I do not have the words to describe the devastation myself and my colleagues have suffered during this recession - financially, emotionally and even physically. Brilliant, highly educated and experienced graphic designers, interior designers, architects, painters, artists, musicians, dancers, etc. who have made our country a better place by improving the quality of everything we see, hear, touch, taste and feel have been tossed aside. Many were self-employed and are not able to obtain any unemployment insurance or other types of assistance. Others have been forced to do work where their skills, intellect and ability are demeaned by ridiculously low pay, poor treatment and complete disregard for their talent and the positive aspects it provides. At least during the last depression , the WPA and similar programs existed to tap into these talents and provide recognition, work and intellectual relief to this forgotten segment of our society. Disregarding these talented, creative individuals is proving to be one of the greatest downfalls of our society. It's tragic, sad and truly un-American.
Ron Bananas
10:16 AM on 08/10/2011
Greater minds than mine are crunching the real numbers, but I can tell you here in Clearwater, Florida how things are. A huge downtown revitilization project went bust 3 years ago, beautiful new high rises overlooking the water, selling for $500k to $1M, EMPTY, 90% of downtown business storefronts...EMPTY, many never leased. Small SHOPPING strip centers throughout the whole town, HALF EMPTY.
Each day, I run 3 miles through the area, hundreds of homeless people everywhere, sleeping in bushes, on benches, just horrible and sad.
My local pub has patron who are plumbers, electricians, welders, carpenters, roofers, auto mechanics...half have either lost their jobs or have had hours cut back.
This is reality here, no hope, no change.
Greater minds than mine are crunching the real numbers, but I can tell you here in Clearwater, Florida how things are. A huge downtown revitilization project went bust 3 years ago, beautiful new high rises overlooking the water, selling for $500k to $1M, EMPTY, 90% of downtown business storefronts...EMPTY, many never leased. Small SHOPPING strip centers throughout the whole town, HALF EMPTY.
Each day, I run 3 miles through the area, hundreds of homeless people everywhere, sleeping in bushes, on benches, just horrible and sad.
My local pub has patron who are plumbers, electricians, welders, carpenters, roofers, auto mechanics...half have either lost their jobs or have had hours cut back.
This is reality here, no hope, no change.
“Our affordable housing strategy,” said Donovan, “was effectively: ‘If you cannot afford a house near a job or public transportation, just keep on driving.’”
TWood
This is 2011 rehash of college entry-level sociology. The Levittown complex, a series of look-alike home comunities that flourished during the post-WWII days. Many of these communities still exist beyond Levittown. In my area two such neighborhoods or cities Greenbelt and Rockville, MD have these neighborhoods which still thrive. Perhaps this concept needs to be revived for the returning Vets of today. Let the govt divert war dollars to funding housing for this breed of soldier. JOBS! JOBS! JOBS!
December 20, 2011 at 4:03 pm
December 20, 2011 at 4:03 pm
Joe
Actually Will is right. I live 3 mins from Levittown. All of the houses are around $400k and the taxes average about $10k per year. Where Will is wrong is in regards to who actually live there. Its cops and teachers. They are the only ones that can afford it. Cops and teachers make 6 figures on Long Island. Thank you Unions. Notice all of the people replying to Will say they bought houses for $75k? Notice how none of them are from Blue states?
December 20, 2011 at 5:14 pm
December 20, 2011 at 5:14 pm
guest
actually, you are wrong about who can afford these houses. i live in another central long island suburb and i can tell you that the only people who can afford houses now are plumbers, electricians, any other skilled blue collar workers, and central american or south asian immigrants who are shopkeepers. most "white collar" people are earning far less money and can't afford to move here
December 20, 2011 at 2:21 pm
December 20, 2011 at 2:21 pm
Houstonian
You can get a decent house in any Houston suburb for $75,000, today. Much more than 750 square feet too. The economy did not take as much of a hit as the rest of the country here, but it still took a hit. So, there are jobs here as well. I grew up on Long Island and now live in a Houston suburb. Not sure why so many people still stay in New York, when it is unrealistically expensive.
December 20, 2011 at 1:21 pm
December 20, 2011 at 1:21 pm
Hank Lauritsen
One of many things that would not have happened without "Big Govt" backing. They are the job creater, behind our progress in my lifetime of depression kid, WWII vet, GI bill etc.
December 20, 2011 at 11:06 am
December 20, 2011 at 11:06 am
The concept builds on the knowledge that large predators are often instrumental in maintaining the structure, resilience, and diversity of ecosystems through initiating “top-down” ecological (trophic) interactions. In turn, they require resources, including nesting and foraging areas and water sources along with large cores of protected landscape and connectivity to insure long-term viability. This re-wilding would be achieved by employing the zoological park as a suburban amenity. In a collaborative endeavor between the developer and federal government, the government would finance habitat links to the suburb, and in return the development would incorporate knuckles with intensified habitat zones and productive ecosystems, providing jobs, public amenities, and regional habitat resources.
Thus for example, would people really favor cooperative over individual ownership, or is that being proposed because one proposal assumes the American Dream is already gone? Is the detached dwelling on a postage stamp lot to be done away with for sustainability reasons or is it simply a case of detached homes being conceived of and sited in the wrong ways? Should we all be farming, riding bikes, and taking light rail? This doesn’t take into account patterns of employment and assumes people can afford to live close to where they work. One of the dominant forces that drove the suburbs was affordability, not just a flight from urban congestion, pollution, and crime. People keep moving further and further out because of the lure of ownership that is affordable, not because they are necessarily escaping something. To make any of these proposals tenable the economic system that has been eroded for the last thirty years has to be re-built. That dirty word, socialism, could get them off the ground!
Despite being well served by a regional transit system that includes both trains and buses, there is still a significant rate of foreclosure and a high rate of unemployment in Orange, a suburb of individual bungalows and single-family structures between New York City and Newark, New Jersey. An in-depth analysis of the suburb has sparked MOS Architects and their team to create a proposal suggesting a new form of urbanism and architectural occupation of the street. The proposal considers aspects of municipal budget and infrastructure, public health, and new models of ownership to promote flexibility and diversity-a range of issues that extends far beyond those generally considered in isolated development plans.
Gang calls the situation a "housing mismatch," and she correctly diagnoses Cicero's response to the foreclosure crisis as inadequate. While the town has used subsidies from the federal Neighborhood Stabilization Program to rehab and sell foreclosed homes, only about 10 homes have been fixed up, town officials acknowledge. As Gang points out, Cicero's deeper problem is industrial decline, as exemplified by the fate of the long-gone Hawthorne Works plant, where the Western Electric manufacturing arm of AT&T once employed as many as 45,000 people.
The 2008 financial collapse sent shock waves all over the world—there is no question as to how devastating the recession has been, in regards to families exiled due to mortgage default, stagnant high unemployment rates, and the hopeless shellacking of the idea of a quick recovery. But for a few certain architects, the past three years has wiped the national slate clean, leaving a country that is ready to be rebuilt and reworked for the modern era.
J. James R.
Feb 22, 12 5:26 pm
Builders, developers and real estate people have been telling people how to live for years....it's obvious now, more than ever, thats how things are done....people don't know what they want...
If you think it's just builders and developers telling people how to live, you're clearly missing a larger picture. Retailers are a huge factor here too. The problem with suburbia is the lack of "real job" creation.
The problem comes from the concept that many retailers sell products that more-or-less require single-unit, single-family housing units— lawnmowers, automobiles, chest freezers, full-sized appliances, furniture et cetera. The code for this word is "durable goods." And anytime you hear the government, planners or business-types talking about the increase in the purchase of durable goods or stimulating the durable goods market... they're clearly talking about suburbia.
And many of the companies that sell the tools of suburbia actively influence policy development by funding various non-profit and non-governmental organizations. We don't know who does what but there are fair examples.
Cato Insitute, a supporter of laissez-faire capitalism, is quite a staunch critic of urban planning is or has been supported by the likes of General Motors, ExxonMobile, Toyota, Visa, Wal-mart, Volkswagon, Honda, FedEx and Time Warner. None of these companies want to see functioning cities.
And we end up the paradox of...
If most of the jobs are low-wage, who's buying goods and services?
And where do the armies of wage workers live if new suburban development is too expensive?
Builders, developers and real estate people have been telling people how to live for years....it's obvious now, more than ever, thats how things are done....people don't know what they want...
If you think it's just builders and developers telling people how to live, you're clearly missing a larger picture. Retailers are a huge factor here too. The problem with suburbia is the lack of "real job" creation.
The problem comes from the concept that many retailers sell products that more-or-less require single-unit, single-family housing units— lawnmowers, automobiles, chest freezers, full-sized appliances, furniture et cetera. The code for this word is "durable goods." And anytime you hear the government, planners or business-types talking about the increase in the purchase of durable goods or stimulating the durable goods market... they're clearly talking about suburbia.
And many of the companies that sell the tools of suburbia actively influence policy development by funding various non-profit and non-governmental organizations. We don't know who does what but there are fair examples.
Cato Insitute, a supporter of laissez-faire capitalism, is quite a staunch critic of urban planning is or has been supported by the likes of General Motors, ExxonMobile, Toyota, Visa, Wal-mart, Volkswagon, Honda, FedEx and Time Warner. None of these companies want to see functioning cities.
And we end up the paradox of...
If most of the jobs are low-wage, who's buying goods and services?
And where do the armies of wage workers live if new suburban development is too expensive?
LP: What have we learned about the suburban ideal from the collapse of its American model? Is it sustainable, transferable to emerging economies?
Ricky Burdett (RB): You just have to look at what’s happened to cities, and unfortunately that’s exactly what’s happening. Most cities are suffering from middle-aged spread. They become really wide, and their footprint is becoming larger and larger. And as was said by many of the speakers in this piece, it’s because the car is there and everyone aspires to it. It’s fantastic that the MoMA, this august institution, instead of doing Deconstructivism or “Edible Minimalism” or whatever, is dealing with this stuff. But you can’t talk about this issue of cities and foreclosure and all that unless you link jobs and housing.
Ricky Burdett (RB): You just have to look at what’s happened to cities, and unfortunately that’s exactly what’s happening. Most cities are suffering from middle-aged spread. They become really wide, and their footprint is becoming larger and larger. And as was said by many of the speakers in this piece, it’s because the car is there and everyone aspires to it. It’s fantastic that the MoMA, this august institution, instead of doing Deconstructivism or “Edible Minimalism” or whatever, is dealing with this stuff. But you can’t talk about this issue of cities and foreclosure and all that unless you link jobs and housing.
Making use of the existing infrastructure, Gang came up with “The Garden in the Machine”, which demonstrates how the remains of Cicero’s industry, its lands, building materials, and existing rail infrastructure could be the foundation for a new and better town. The new vision calls for an influx of vegetation, trees and gardens to improve the green space of the area. Housing would largely transition to new live/work units and would require a change in zoning and regulations to allow a different form of ownership — one that allows citizens to purchase and sell shares corresponding to the live/work units they occupy. A variety of flexible housing options would be occupied by families of all sizes and a new economy would be created through residents who live and work in the same area. Rather than raze the entire area and start again, Gang sees that the existing infrastructure can be utilized to build a better, more sustainable city.
These fanciful responses seem most ignorant of a basic cause of the foreclosure crisis: With cheap money, we simply overbuilt the country. Even without building new homes, we are still probably a few years away from reaching a point of real demand that will drive the housing market. The problem in The Oranges isn’t that it needs new housing or buildings—The Oranges lost almost 10 percent of their population between 2000 and 2010—but rather that it needs people with jobs. Unfortunately none of Foreclosed’s projects propose ways of removing housing, an incredibly difficult but important task that has stymied communities from Detroit to Phoenix.
Ries
03.02.12 at 03:31
One of the answers to "what is it that you really need?" is, probably, NOT architects.
Since well over 90% of the building in America is done without the aid of an architect, it seems that, particularly in the foreclosed suburbs, an architect is a luxury, a status symbol, and one of the first things to be cut.
Certainly architects can bring value to a project- but, in most cases, its not monetary value, and, in fact, it usually adds quite a bit of cost to any project, well beyond the fee, to bring an architect in.
This is a recession based on financial shenanigans, not one caused by a lack of good design.
I fail to see how, in most exurbs, good design will have any affect on the financial aspects that caused this - the lack of jobs, the predatory lending practices, the upside down real estate market, and the inability of many to sell their homes without going bankrupt.
The reason there is a chasm between urban architects and suburban "architecture" is because the stuff they build in the suburbs is driven by an entirely different set of desires, fashions, fantasies, and, most importantly, price points.
One of the answers to "what is it that you really need?" is, probably, NOT architects.
Since well over 90% of the building in America is done without the aid of an architect, it seems that, particularly in the foreclosed suburbs, an architect is a luxury, a status symbol, and one of the first things to be cut.
Certainly architects can bring value to a project- but, in most cases, its not monetary value, and, in fact, it usually adds quite a bit of cost to any project, well beyond the fee, to bring an architect in.
This is a recession based on financial shenanigans, not one caused by a lack of good design.
I fail to see how, in most exurbs, good design will have any affect on the financial aspects that caused this - the lack of jobs, the predatory lending practices, the upside down real estate market, and the inability of many to sell their homes without going bankrupt.
The reason there is a chasm between urban architects and suburban "architecture" is because the stuff they build in the suburbs is driven by an entirely different set of desires, fashions, fantasies, and, most importantly, price points.
CH: One of the other architects, Jeanne Gang, who did a project in Cicero in the exhibit, makes this great point that I never thought about in these terms. She said that you’re sort of making a casino bet when you buy a house. You’re betting that it’s going to rise in value. That was a bet that a lot of people made, and now they’re on the wrong side of that bet. But, you’re also betting about what your life is going to look like. How many people are going to inhabit that house? You’re putting money down—you’re putting all your wealth in most cases—into this structure that says, “I am going to be married with the two kids and the dog” or whatever. And the fact is that new family members come in as immigrants possibly or you get divorced or you lose your job or your kids have to move back because they can’t get jobs. So the house is insufficiently flexible to deal with the changing American family.
MB: People have looked toward changing or improving the suburbs
for a long time. You can go back to the 1970s, and academics are often
lambasted for not being sensitive about it. But the reason I’m bringing
this up is that what is different at this point in time is everything from
globalization in terms of where is production happening, what are the
jobs. When you talk about housing, you ultimately always—even if you’re
an architect—end up talking about jobs. What will secure that loan in the
future? So, flexibility comes in. But the difference now, I think, is that
what people realize… And the foreclosure crisis is an awful thing, it is
absolutely a crisis, but it does start to create a situation where people
start to imagine that what we have is not inevitable. And, in fact, it was
produced, and it was dreamed. I think, people don’t like change in housing,
and they should worry about change in housing, but what we have is also
not terribly secure. And, so, I think that’s what you’re bringing up, and
Jeanne was bringing that up quite brilliantly.
CH: One of the things I think Detroit forces us to think of is the fact that
the things we think are natural are contingent.
MB: People have looked toward changing or improving the suburbs
for a long time. You can go back to the 1970s, and academics are often
lambasted for not being sensitive about it. But the reason I’m bringing
this up is that what is different at this point in time is everything from
globalization in terms of where is production happening, what are the
jobs. When you talk about housing, you ultimately always—even if you’re
an architect—end up talking about jobs. What will secure that loan in the
future? So, flexibility comes in. But the difference now, I think, is that
what people realize… And the foreclosure crisis is an awful thing, it is
absolutely a crisis, but it does start to create a situation where people
start to imagine that what we have is not inevitable. And, in fact, it was
produced, and it was dreamed. I think, people don’t like change in housing,
and they should worry about change in housing, but what we have is also
not terribly secure. And, so, I think that’s what you’re bringing up, and
Jeanne was bringing that up quite brilliantly.
CH: One of the things I think Detroit forces us to think of is the fact that
the things we think are natural are contingent.
The ideas underlying the project are drawn from SMART growth strategies that have been developed to stem the tide of urban sprawl. But this project also dips into important issues related to the demographic change in the structure of neighborhoods that needs to be taken into account. For example, the case of Cicero, Illinois, emphasizes the role of immigration from Mexico in changing the sociodemographic structure of this Chicago suburb. In fact, they even name the Mexican states of Jalisco, Colima, and Michoacan as being major sources of the area's residents. It's a complicated story, of course, but two things that I did not see in the exhibit (despite the apparent emphasis on their importance) were references to where jobs are and what transportation systems exist to get people from these re-imagined communities to their jobs--whatever and wherever they may be.
Jeanne Gang's project, The Garden in The Machine, is perhaps the project which deals most directly with a redefinition of the American Dream and with how the market needs to change in order to create a new set of ideas lined to the real demands created by new demographic groups (immigrants, new kinds of families) and with the mixed and simultaneous use of spaces for work and living. Gang argues that a redefinition of "The Dream" is not only a question of housing, but also involves a transformation of economic systems linked to work and education
Neo Urban Planner
Mar 24th 2012, 11:25
I have been working on new style of urban planing among capital cities. The fundamental difference between urban city and suburb has almost similar meaning of difference between individual-life style and nuclear family-life style. Urban city needs excitement. Suburb needs relax. It is good to be focused on Hispanic-Family's tradition for re-developing suburb community environment. Is there any support to business start-up for those new residents ? Maybe they should develop those project with economists and/or investors to be real american dream makers.....
I have been working on new style of urban planing among capital cities. The fundamental difference between urban city and suburb has almost similar meaning of difference between individual-life style and nuclear family-life style. Urban city needs excitement. Suburb needs relax. It is good to be focused on Hispanic-Family's tradition for re-developing suburb community environment. Is there any support to business start-up for those new residents ? Maybe they should develop those project with economists and/or investors to be real american dream makers.....
In Cicero, Ill., team leader Jeanne Gang confronted the issue that the housing stock of the town, mostly single-family bungalow houses, doesn’t really work with the population, which includes many new immigrants. Repurposing an old factory, Studio Gang Architects came up with a concept in which housing could be acquired in pieces according to need. It’s also friendly to the cottage industries that have sprung up as the town lost 45,000 factory jobs — workspaces in the factory could also be rented and shared. The proposal is based on a limited equity cooperative model. The land and shared amenities would be jointly owned — but the residents would own personal spaces.
himy henderson, London
3/3/2012 17:19
It's not new housing 'schemes' people want right now in the western world , it's jobs . Provide jobs for people & every other problem generally dissolves into the mist. This is just one more diversion away from the priority.
It's not new housing 'schemes' people want right now in the western world , it's jobs . Provide jobs for people & every other problem generally dissolves into the mist. This is just one more diversion away from the priority.
sore eyes in CA, USA
3/3/2012 13:00
Instead of spending all this ridiculous time and money on space-age housing concepts, why not solve the REAL problem, and put the American workforce, BACK TO WORK !!
Instead of spending all this ridiculous time and money on space-age housing concepts, why not solve the REAL problem, and put the American workforce, BACK TO WORK !!
Nottosmart
134 days ago
A modern Eastern Europe apartment complex, Chinese, Russian? The architects would be better off spending their idle time finding ways to rid themselves of our current legislators, economic development leadership and others, and begin to lure businesses into the area that will hire locals in huge quantities, companies that will not depend on government handouts and pay their employees a living wage plus benefits.
A modern Eastern Europe apartment complex, Chinese, Russian? The architects would be better off spending their idle time finding ways to rid themselves of our current legislators, economic development leadership and others, and begin to lure businesses into the area that will hire locals in huge quantities, companies that will not depend on government handouts and pay their employees a living wage plus benefits.
One at a time, we must try to save homes from foreclosure and save communities from collapse, but we must also recognize that these are band-aid measures unless they include long-term sustainable strategies and policies for sheltering Americans in homes they can afford within communities where they can work. Acknowledging this epidemic scale, it is relevant to note that the Occupy movement is not merely a grassroots initiative; it is a network from the bottom calling for action at the top.
Anonymous
03/19/12 02:39 PM
@guest #5: For what it's worth, Ontario has tried valiantly to remake the town into a jobs center. The area west of the airport is filled with warehouse space for distribution centers and other industrial use. Sadly, the economy tanked and the progress they were making is gone.
@guest #5: For what it's worth, Ontario has tried valiantly to remake the town into a jobs center. The area west of the airport is filled with warehouse space for distribution centers and other industrial use. Sadly, the economy tanked and the progress they were making is gone.
Anonymous
03/19/12 01:21 PM
@guest #3: From what I can tell a gyspsy curse was put on Pomona a long time ago. That city just can't get it togther. Ontario an Rancho are more likely the job centers.
@guest #3: From what I can tell a gyspsy curse was put on Pomona a long time ago. That city just can't get it togther. Ontario an Rancho are more likely the job centers.
Anonymous
03/19/12 12:27 PM
It would good for everyone if the Pomona became a job center.
Places like Rialto, Fontana, Chino Hills, and Rancho Cucamonga wouldn't be such far-off exurbs.
There's even an international airport (ONT) right next to Pomona.
It would good for everyone if the Pomona became a job center.
Places like Rialto, Fontana, Chino Hills, and Rancho Cucamonga wouldn't be such far-off exurbs.
There's even an international airport (ONT) right next to Pomona.
Much of the increase in consumption was tied to the growth in sprawl. To find more affordable homes, families have moved to suburbs farther and farther from their workplaces. But for every dollar saved by living in more affordable neighborhoods, Americans were spending 77 cents more on transportation, according to a 2005 study by the nonprofit Center for Housing Policy. And commuting time lost to congestion has increased fivefold in the past quarter-century. As Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan put it in his keynote speech for the workshop phase of the exhibit, "Our affordable housing strategy was effectively; 'If you can't afford a home near a job or transportation, just keep driving. Drive until you find a home you can afford.'"
eric14, 1232 Fans
04:22 AM on 07/23/2012
You are right. But given the existing housing stock, it would be good to have some ideas about transforming suburbs. Are there ways they can be improved? Change zoning? Bring in workplaces?
You are right. But given the existing housing stock, it would be good to have some ideas about transforming suburbs. Are there ways they can be improved? Change zoning? Bring in workplaces?
BL: One of the things that was perhaps a subtle component of Team Gang’s proposal was the coupling of the development of affordable housing with job opportunities.
JamesPowers
Im 26 years old and its been said my generation will change jobs 13 times before we retire. Why should i WANT to be sattled with the obligation of a mortgage. Condo or apt fine with me
Typical_Boston_Liberal
JamesPowers, That number goes way down with a college education, and even further with a graduate level education. If you find a job you love, you'll want a house some day. There's no feeling like it, and that's why this is such a sad story.
allx
SheilaKhani, make sure you don't lose your job anytime in the next 20 yrs.
BrianDion
It can be cheaper to own a home then to rent and if you move alot because job changes you can always have a realestate company manage the property to rent.. I think that business may grow massively over the next couple of years with banks not knowing what to do and people moving.
Land Use & Density (115)
As the barriers to entry into the American Dream – interpreted as a house in the suburbs – rise, the Foreclosed project tackles the question of “what if” we could dream a bit differently. The suburb was built on the notion of the nuclear family that lived and worked within a relatively small geographic area, but, in the past 50 years, as ring upon ring of suburb spirals out into all the space zoning codes permit, residents of the suburbs are increasingly remote from the places where they work.
“The drive everywhere for cheaper and cheaper things mentality is unsustainable. It’s getting more crowded and a huge portion of the income goes into transportation,” Dufaux said.
“The drive everywhere for cheaper and cheaper things mentality is unsustainable. It’s getting more crowded and a huge portion of the income goes into transportation,” Dufaux said.
Almost from the beginning, MoMA architects have focused on car-driven, low-density housing as both the appeal and the curse of the suburbs. Providing services — sewage, power, garbage collection and on and on — is far more costly amid low-density settlements than it is in cities, for obvious reasons. But people crave air and light, and room to move and play sports.
The exact boundaries of the MOS study have yet to be set, but the team intends to include an area large enough to include the rail station and Interstate 280, which runs nearby. “The state has promised funds to encourage higher densities within a half-mile radius of light railroad transit stations, and we wanted to be as practical as we could be.”
The plan include large bands that serve as swaths of nature. We loved their amazing model which shows the diversity of their housing typologies.
The project focused on developing 2.2 miles of boulevard in Temple Terrace with housing, government offices and retail spaces. An interesting thing to note is that Temple Terrace is expected to have a 40% population gain within the next ten years, and the suburb has been trying to stop growth. Taking a radically different approach, Bell has developed a plan that can serve as an economic model to sustain growth and allow the suburb to enjoy prosperity. Plus, the model will help the region transition from a 4.5 people/acre site into a functioning 40 people/acre. The planned complex has attributes of a city and will be quite energy efficient as a way to provide an alternative solution to attract people. We loved how the architecture is designed for experiences to overlap as a person within his courtyard has a certain amount of privacy, yet can open the doors to view people in their offices lower in the complex or communicate with their other neighbors flanking their residence.
Instead of cookie cutter houses that are oriented towards an outdated concept of the nuclear family, the different teams suggested adding a variety of housing types that would provide shelter for people in different groupings such as empty nesters and extended families. Sidewalks and walkways would be added to make communities more pedestrian friendly, while the incorporation of retail and light industrial infill developments would aid in reducing dependence on cars.
Ziggy Stardust
Houston is a dump with the worst weather on the planet next to the miserable jungle in Vietnam. They also appear to have no zoning there, you often see a body shop or dry cleaners next to a home in what appears to be a residential neighborhood. What hicks in the rest of the country don't seem to understand about living in the Northeast is the opportunity to make big money here. I worked in Venture Capital for 15 years in NYC, made a boatload of money, had a big house in CT, cars, the dream. Then it all came crashing down in 2008. I sold everything I could and moved to Wyoming where I now work as a tile setter (my dad tought me the trade when I was a kid) I couldn't be happier. I miss all the toys, but life is good. Wyoming is breathtakingly beautiful Houston is just breathtaking (FROM THE STENCH)
December 20, 2011 at 2:26 pm
December 20, 2011 at 2:26 pm
vintage274
I, too, was reared in the same streetcar suburb as my mother. Housing was a mix of single family and apartment buildings with many more trees than the city. Houses varied from some streets that contained row-type houses to others with spacious Victorians. Each of those suburbs had a main street with needed businesses, but most men went into the city or off to the industrial section for daily work. Our family home was built just after the change of the century. In the 1950s the "real" suburbs popped up out on the edge of the farms. They had no apartment buildings, no main streets. Each single family home had both a front and back lawn and a garage. They were typically smaller than the streetcar suburb houses, but boasted modern conveniences. Strip malls were the rage (though limited to one complex for evey ten or so communities) and contained a branch of at least one large downtown department store, a family shoe store, and a pharmacy of some sort. Large groceries were nearby, but not a part of the malls. In the 60s large indoor malls became the rage as well, and big cities boasted one in each georgraphical direction. Although Levittown is a suburban icon in America, it was not the model all over the country. The suburb I lived in as a teen in Pennsylvania (built in the 1940s) offered larger houses than the Levittown model (usually 3 bedroom) which were generally built of brick and offered in a vaiety of architectural styles - ranch, Cape Cod, two story, split level - carefully interspersed to add variety to the neighborhood.
December 20, 2011 at 12:51 pm
December 20, 2011 at 12:51 pm
Doug Kelbaugh
MARCH 7, 2012, 3:40 P.M.
Following up on KB’s Dec. 15 comment and the article:Ecological principles may not be mutually exclusive with human habitat, but that is not the key issue.The most sustainable approach is to make the human built environment as dense, livable and compact, while leaving the hinterland and wilderness as intact as possible – not the agonizing compromise of low density settlements on the periphery of cities. This suburbanized nature, even with rewilding, is neither feasible or sustainable for the 7 B people on the planet – or any number close to that.
Let’s build good, tight cities and leave as much untouched habitat as possible for other plant and animal species. Introducing green design into the urban environment is fine, but not the crux of the ecological benefits of urbanism.
I sense the MOMA exhibit missed the point to a large extent.
Following up on KB’s Dec. 15 comment and the article:Ecological principles may not be mutually exclusive with human habitat, but that is not the key issue.The most sustainable approach is to make the human built environment as dense, livable and compact, while leaving the hinterland and wilderness as intact as possible – not the agonizing compromise of low density settlements on the periphery of cities. This suburbanized nature, even with rewilding, is neither feasible or sustainable for the 7 B people on the planet – or any number close to that.
Let’s build good, tight cities and leave as much untouched habitat as possible for other plant and animal species. Introducing green design into the urban environment is fine, but not the crux of the ecological benefits of urbanism.
I sense the MOMA exhibit missed the point to a large extent.
Alexander J Felson
MARCH 21, 2012, 12:40 P.M.
First, I really appreciate the commentary from both KB (12/15) and DK (03/07) regarding the rewilding concepts in relation to suburbanization. I would like to respond first to DK’s point of building dense and compact cities and leaving the “hinterland and wilderness as intact as possible” is the ideal and I certainly do not disagree with this position. That said this is not what is taking place on the ground. Urbanization is continuing to spread into the hinterlands here in the US, in China, India, and Brazil and around the globe. The proposal here is to consider the potential for these exurban developments to adopt an ecological mandate.The focus on the MOMA exhibit and analysis is also very specific and thus the proposal needs to be seen in its context. We were specifically tasked with looking at foreclosure housing projects and how as designers and scientists we might bring federal funding to address some of the issues faced. Thus the site was selected for us, and due to its proximity to the San Bernardino National Forest and the ecologically intact conditions of the surrounding context including the Lytle Creek Wash, we saw the notion of creating a neighborhood focused in part on ecological management as an opportunity for collaboration between developers, the federal government and future homeowners.A third factor to consider is climate change and global warming. The earth is changing in part through large-scale anthropogenic causes. These are creating pressures and constraints on the hinterland ecosystems and organisms. Already, there are discussions of how to foster species migration as their ranges shift north. This is an area that scientists are keenly interested in the role they might play. Consider the species introductions, assisted migrations and other efforts scientists are already participating with the goal of enhancing ecosystems. In other words, just leaving the hinterlands out there “undisturbed” by the built environment does not mean they remain undisturbed, and to maintain ecosystems and organisms human interventions will likely be an important component. Consider John Foley’s diagram of the changing landscape conditions – where is the “hinterlands” in his diagram?Finally, Rewilding (and this goes back to KB’s comments) is a radical proposal and one that is debated amongst ecologist. Much of the issue arises from the concern over human – wildlife conflict that would likely ensue if we were to reintroduce large carnivores etc. to the US. At the same time, most ecologists would agree that top down predation would benefit ecosystem health and lead to greater diversity of species. Thus the issue is one of public acceptance. As a result, getting this concept out there through a variety of venues (given that Rewilding is in the “marketing” stage) should mostly benefit the cause. It is a much more radical concept than simply allowing people to manage biological systems at the urban fringe and is intended to create debate and discussion.The MoMA exhibit is pervaded by architectural discourse of the suburb and could use this layer of integration of knowledge into new suburban forms. The architect and their modes of working and analysis were prioritized and sites open to large development were sites for new visions. Still, the rewilding concept is part of the exhibit, which means that tens of thousands of museumgoers visiting the exhibit will have the opportunity to reflect on what role people can play in managing ecosystems in their neighborhoods, and on the potential value of rewilding as a concept to consider for promoting ecosystem function.
First, I really appreciate the commentary from both KB (12/15) and DK (03/07) regarding the rewilding concepts in relation to suburbanization. I would like to respond first to DK’s point of building dense and compact cities and leaving the “hinterland and wilderness as intact as possible” is the ideal and I certainly do not disagree with this position. That said this is not what is taking place on the ground. Urbanization is continuing to spread into the hinterlands here in the US, in China, India, and Brazil and around the globe. The proposal here is to consider the potential for these exurban developments to adopt an ecological mandate.The focus on the MOMA exhibit and analysis is also very specific and thus the proposal needs to be seen in its context. We were specifically tasked with looking at foreclosure housing projects and how as designers and scientists we might bring federal funding to address some of the issues faced. Thus the site was selected for us, and due to its proximity to the San Bernardino National Forest and the ecologically intact conditions of the surrounding context including the Lytle Creek Wash, we saw the notion of creating a neighborhood focused in part on ecological management as an opportunity for collaboration between developers, the federal government and future homeowners.A third factor to consider is climate change and global warming. The earth is changing in part through large-scale anthropogenic causes. These are creating pressures and constraints on the hinterland ecosystems and organisms. Already, there are discussions of how to foster species migration as their ranges shift north. This is an area that scientists are keenly interested in the role they might play. Consider the species introductions, assisted migrations and other efforts scientists are already participating with the goal of enhancing ecosystems. In other words, just leaving the hinterlands out there “undisturbed” by the built environment does not mean they remain undisturbed, and to maintain ecosystems and organisms human interventions will likely be an important component. Consider John Foley’s diagram of the changing landscape conditions – where is the “hinterlands” in his diagram?Finally, Rewilding (and this goes back to KB’s comments) is a radical proposal and one that is debated amongst ecologist. Much of the issue arises from the concern over human – wildlife conflict that would likely ensue if we were to reintroduce large carnivores etc. to the US. At the same time, most ecologists would agree that top down predation would benefit ecosystem health and lead to greater diversity of species. Thus the issue is one of public acceptance. As a result, getting this concept out there through a variety of venues (given that Rewilding is in the “marketing” stage) should mostly benefit the cause. It is a much more radical concept than simply allowing people to manage biological systems at the urban fringe and is intended to create debate and discussion.The MoMA exhibit is pervaded by architectural discourse of the suburb and could use this layer of integration of knowledge into new suburban forms. The architect and their modes of working and analysis were prioritized and sites open to large development were sites for new visions. Still, the rewilding concept is part of the exhibit, which means that tens of thousands of museumgoers visiting the exhibit will have the opportunity to reflect on what role people can play in managing ecosystems in their neighborhoods, and on the potential value of rewilding as a concept to consider for promoting ecosystem function.
One of the entries (“misregistration’) includes the concept of ‘rewilding’ what’s left of suburbia. Rewilding is the idea that we should set aside vast amounts of unproductive land to allow large predators to reinhabitat North America. This idea has a lot of merit, given that large predators are a keystone species regulating the health and resiliency of our ecosystems. This idea makes a lot of sense given the population shift toward urban areas and the need to safeguard ecosystem services (healthy soils, clean air, fresh water, food production, flood control, etc.) for future generations.
Thus for example, would people really favor cooperative over individual ownership, or is that being proposed because one proposal assumes the American Dream is already gone? Is the detached dwelling on a postage stamp lot to be done away with for sustainability reasons or is it simply a case of detached homes being conceived of and sited in the wrong ways? Should we all be farming, riding bikes, and taking light rail? This doesn’t take into account patterns of employment and assumes people can afford to live close to where they work. One of the dominant forces that drove the suburbs was affordability, not just a flight from urban congestion, pollution, and crime. People keep moving further and further out because of the lure of ownership that is affordable, not because they are necessarily escaping something. To make any of these proposals tenable the economic system that has been eroded for the last thirty years has to be re-built. That dirty word, socialism, could get them off the ground!
This exhibition features proposals for the future of cities by Studio Gang, MOS, WORKac, Visible Weather and Zago Architecture. All conceptualized large-scale proposals for specific regions in the nation. The nature of the task inherently requires a top-down approach, which immediately leads to issues in terms of feasibility. Therefore, it is necessary to view these projects less so as solutions and more as catalysts of change. Spatially, I expect to see extensive transportation infrastructures and dense high-rise apartments. With the expertise of interdisciplinary teams, I am interested to see the proposed governmental and environmental policies.
The team discovered that the town's stately bungalows of the 20th Century were being cut up into various smaller apartments for multiple residents. This casual yet effective process helped create affordable housing with easy transit access to Chicago that was within the grasp of first generation immigrants.
In addition, the team also discovered the importance of organic brownfield remediation in Cicero, even if it meant the land would remain underdeveloped. Through commonplace planting, the toxic industrial sites scattered across the residential fabric would change into safer cleaner zones for future community use. Finally, within certain regions of each parcel, the once zoned industrial land could be converted into a dense collection of affordable modular beds, baths, and public space by using the existing industrial structures and materials on each site such as truss frames and brick partition walls. The new clusters would become and important blend of adaptive reuse and new construction that utilized a sizable amount of Cicero's historical past while creating a new 21st century anchor that can accommodate thousands immediately adjacent to one of Chicago's commuter rail corridors.
In addition, the team also discovered the importance of organic brownfield remediation in Cicero, even if it meant the land would remain underdeveloped. Through commonplace planting, the toxic industrial sites scattered across the residential fabric would change into safer cleaner zones for future community use. Finally, within certain regions of each parcel, the once zoned industrial land could be converted into a dense collection of affordable modular beds, baths, and public space by using the existing industrial structures and materials on each site such as truss frames and brick partition walls. The new clusters would become and important blend of adaptive reuse and new construction that utilized a sizable amount of Cicero's historical past while creating a new 21st century anchor that can accommodate thousands immediately adjacent to one of Chicago's commuter rail corridors.
Cicero, an aging inner-ring suburb set on the edge of metropolitan Chicago, has lately become an arrival point for new immigrants to the region. Built for a previous generation, the original single- family houses have often been repurposed as multifamily dwellings by more recent residents. Presently Cicero is experiencing a high rate of foreclosure of industrial as well as residential properties, which has prompted the team led by Jeanne Gang of Studio Gang to develop a proposal with a distinctive feature that concerns the dialogue between architecture and both human and natural ecologies, interweaving a response to both situations.
Reinventing British urbanist Ebenezer Howard's classic term "Town-Country," WORKac's proposal Nature City integrates a wide variety of housing types-across a range of affordability-with publicly accessible nature, including ecological infrastructure, sky gardens, urban farms, and large swaths of restored native habitats. Bringing a higher density and more sustainable living to the metropolitan edge, where the greatest development pressures have long existed, the proposal also provides larger economic growth for the city and the site.
Although the landscape is vast, the failed subdivision contains houses whose square footage is inflated to the point where they seem almost to rub against one another, creating a narrow range of housing options. The team's proposal looks to create a richer mix of uses, housing types, living situations, and landscapes, rather than to remake the unbuilt section of Rosena Ranch. It looks to understand the attraction of suburbs-including their social, economic, and spatial arrangements- and creates a new form of architecture and suburbanism from that pre-existing notion.
There’s one problem with such a plan: it’s illegal under Cicero’s zoning code. The town’s rules are typical of most suburbs, including the segregation of residential, commercial and industrial facilities; prohibitions on expanding and reusing buildings for new homes and businesses; and tight restrictions on mixed-use properties. Cicero’s code also defines “family” in a way that excludes the large, multigenerational groupings now common across the country.
12 Feb, 2012 - (@studiovert)
rethinking the American home and suburban zoning. See Studio Gang's project at PS1/MOMA's "Foreclosed" http://fb.me/1jwoIU5FR
As anyone familiar with the tragic history of public housing in Chicago knows, high-rise housing has often proved ill-suited to the needs of low-income families, especially large families. A mother on the 10th floor can't look out her kitchen window and keep a close eye on her child playing in the backyard. Unsupervised children often play in elevators, causing them to break down.
As Jeanne Gang and Greg Lindsay point out in their New York Times op-ed piece, zoning codes are inimical to many of the policies that allow for redevelopment – not growth. They cite the Chicago suburb of Cicero, Illinois. Issues facing Cicero are “typical of most suburbs, including the segregation of residential, commercial and industrial facilities; prohibitions on expanding and reusing buildings for new homes and businesses; and tight restrictions on mixed-use properties. Cicero’s code also defines ‘family’ in a way that excludes the large, multigenerational groupings now common across the country.” By redefining these codes to allow for development of underutilized property, the suburbs can become a thriving community that reuses structures and reimagines them as beneficial to humanity, instead of the abandoned structures that currently exist on the outskirts of cities across the US.
The most provocative idea in the show may belong to MOS—the firm headed by Michael Meredith and Hilary Sample—which focuses on East Orange, New Jersey. The plan acknowledges the lack of pedestrian life in today’s suburbs and reclaims the streets themselves as building sites. That allows increased density without the need to demolish existing housing. But if the idea is strong, details, of what the “ribbon” buildings” would look like and how they would function, are sparse.
That proposal is by Amale Andraos and Dan Wood of WORKac, for a section of Keizer, Oregon that would be five times as dense as neighboring suburbs, but with three times as much open space. A gorgeous, dome-shaped structure contains a community composting plant. Around it are buildings that recall the best work of Steven Holl, Bjarke Ingels, and MVRDV. One imagines a developer seeing Andraos and Wood’s elaborate 1:250 model, depicting a gently futuristic suburb, and wanting to break ground tomorrow.
Factor in mixed-use zoning that would allow alleys to become vibrant marketplaces lined by cottage industries that residents would run out of garages (left; below, the same alley now, with an existing parking lot in the background), and — presto! — you have a vision fit for displaying on the walls of a prestigious museum.Whether it would work is a different matter.
14 Feb, 2012 - (@everydaytourist)
http://bit.ly/z1vn32 #MoMAlooks @ suburbs can they b saved, need more housing types/densities, innovation not imitation #urbanism#yycplan
14 Feb, 2012 - (@alexbozikovic)
and I'm skeptical about how mixed use and highrise translate into low-rise suburbs. See here: http://www.moma.org/explore/inside …
The elimination of restrictive zoning in the Cicero proposal is emblematic of the way the various teams in “Foreclosed” challenge the physical and bureaucratic barriers that have defined American suburbia for generations. All five teams push for a vibrant mix of residential and business development. All challenge the idea that “suburbs” and “cities” are fundamentally different creatures. All advocate for variability in types and terms of ownership, with rental always an option, and shared spaces for work and play readily available.
FS: So what you’re doing is you’re going along to the residents of Temple Terrace, and you’re saying, “We have this great new model for you. It involves shrinking and no longer owning your home.”
Michael Bell (MB): [laughs] You’re trying to make it sound good.
Michael Bell (MB): [laughs] You’re trying to make it sound good.
jla-x
Feb 23, 12 12:07 pm
Sub-urban and suburban are also two very different things. I would argue that sub-urban is not bad. A good example of this is in some parts of Brooklyn, Queens, and Nassau county NY. The density is greater than the typical suburban environment, and there is a small business walkable street scape that flanks a mix of multi and single family housing in many of these neighborhoods. There is also access to public transit in and out of the city. There is a mix of home owners and renters, and the opportunity to own a house and rent out the top floor. There is a sense of community and a feeling of being in a small town within a city. The film "Do the Right Thing" by Spike Lee so clearly expresses this. Another issue is density. More density is not the solution alone. We need to find an appropriate balance of density, production, and economy so that development can be in some sort of sustainable balance. I think that sub-urban form has the greatest potential for a sustainable development because there is enough space to support a mix of agriculture, industry,small business, housing, park space, etc...as well as enough density to support local businesses with regard to employees and consumers. Cities like manhattan will never be able to become hybrid typologies because things like urban agriculture and production will be far too expensive due to crazy high land prices. The only problem with the sub-urban typology is that it sometimes becomes gentrified over time as we see in brooklyn or the opposite happens where it becomes a ghetto due to the home values going down as density goes up like in Jamaica Queens (balance is always a thin line). On the other hand, suburban development lends itself to exploitation by corporate interests as James R. clearly articulates. The American dream of owning a single family home is not going away. It is a part of the American culture that dates back hundreds of years. We need to find a solution to the problem without ignoring the cultural mentality that led to it. This is why ideas like the ones in the MoMA exhibit never work. I believe that we need to study examples that already work like Astoria, and go from there.
Sub-urban and suburban are also two very different things. I would argue that sub-urban is not bad. A good example of this is in some parts of Brooklyn, Queens, and Nassau county NY. The density is greater than the typical suburban environment, and there is a small business walkable street scape that flanks a mix of multi and single family housing in many of these neighborhoods. There is also access to public transit in and out of the city. There is a mix of home owners and renters, and the opportunity to own a house and rent out the top floor. There is a sense of community and a feeling of being in a small town within a city. The film "Do the Right Thing" by Spike Lee so clearly expresses this. Another issue is density. More density is not the solution alone. We need to find an appropriate balance of density, production, and economy so that development can be in some sort of sustainable balance. I think that sub-urban form has the greatest potential for a sustainable development because there is enough space to support a mix of agriculture, industry,small business, housing, park space, etc...as well as enough density to support local businesses with regard to employees and consumers. Cities like manhattan will never be able to become hybrid typologies because things like urban agriculture and production will be far too expensive due to crazy high land prices. The only problem with the sub-urban typology is that it sometimes becomes gentrified over time as we see in brooklyn or the opposite happens where it becomes a ghetto due to the home values going down as density goes up like in Jamaica Queens (balance is always a thin line). On the other hand, suburban development lends itself to exploitation by corporate interests as James R. clearly articulates. The American dream of owning a single family home is not going away. It is a part of the American culture that dates back hundreds of years. We need to find a solution to the problem without ignoring the cultural mentality that led to it. This is why ideas like the ones in the MoMA exhibit never work. I believe that we need to study examples that already work like Astoria, and go from there.
toasteroven
Feb 21, 12 11:42 am
sustainable developers?? developers follow incentives and try to minimize risk - without government subsidizing sprawling (i.e. cheap & low capacity) infrastructure and overly restrictive zoning laws they'd very likely build far more high-density mixed-use buildings without parking (but also without green space). without utilities, roads, and other services land is pretty much worthless - and developers typically don't like challenging zoning unless they know the municipality is on board.
also - high-density outside of the city center presents another challenge because of the capacity of the existing services. Some towns in the northeast have put a moratorium on any new building because their existing water and sewer systems cannot handle any additional load. when you think of it, suburban development is often a function of how big the sewer systems are, or how much space is needed for a septic and/or leech field and buffer.
perhaps if as a culture we had a much healthier relationship with our own poop...
sustainable developers?? developers follow incentives and try to minimize risk - without government subsidizing sprawling (i.e. cheap & low capacity) infrastructure and overly restrictive zoning laws they'd very likely build far more high-density mixed-use buildings without parking (but also without green space). without utilities, roads, and other services land is pretty much worthless - and developers typically don't like challenging zoning unless they know the municipality is on board.
also - high-density outside of the city center presents another challenge because of the capacity of the existing services. Some towns in the northeast have put a moratorium on any new building because their existing water and sewer systems cannot handle any additional load. when you think of it, suburban development is often a function of how big the sewer systems are, or how much space is needed for a septic and/or leech field and buffer.
perhaps if as a culture we had a much healthier relationship with our own poop...
toasteroven
Feb 16, 12 11:22 am
ending the subsidies that drastically lower the true cost of many aspects of the suburban lifestyle would be a very strong incentive for many people to move into apartments and denser neighborhoods. If you want urban-style services and utilities with the luxury of low density you should have to pay a premium for it. otherwise there are ways of living more "off the grid" if you're willing to do your own maintenance and pay a little more up front for these systems.
many people do have the dream of living in a detached single-family home, and I think this should be available to people if they can afford it, but I think until the crash people were pretty delusional about how much this lifestyle actually costs (i.e. taking out loans they couldn't afford), and how much it has been costing our country.
ending the subsidies that drastically lower the true cost of many aspects of the suburban lifestyle would be a very strong incentive for many people to move into apartments and denser neighborhoods. If you want urban-style services and utilities with the luxury of low density you should have to pay a premium for it. otherwise there are ways of living more "off the grid" if you're willing to do your own maintenance and pay a little more up front for these systems.
many people do have the dream of living in a detached single-family home, and I think this should be available to people if they can afford it, but I think until the crash people were pretty delusional about how much this lifestyle actually costs (i.e. taking out loans they couldn't afford), and how much it has been costing our country.
wurdan freo
Feb 16, 12 10:06 am
Is this guy suggesting Condos are the solution to the real estate crisis? Or does everyone become a renter? Seems like another utopian community to me. And of course... he's going to tell me that if I have ONE child, I only get a two bedroom unit. No thanks. Why does innovation from Architects always have to come in the form of telling people how to live their lives? Maybe innovation could be a business model that allows Architects to incorporate all these good ideas and give the customer what they want instead of telling them what they want?
Some good ideas lost in translation, reducing cost of utilities. Simple solution there. Smaller footprint, better insulation and higher efficiency systems. Hmmm.... looks to be the kind of home that the home builders are putting out right now. Wonder why they're still in business?
Is this guy suggesting Condos are the solution to the real estate crisis? Or does everyone become a renter? Seems like another utopian community to me. And of course... he's going to tell me that if I have ONE child, I only get a two bedroom unit. No thanks. Why does innovation from Architects always have to come in the form of telling people how to live their lives? Maybe innovation could be a business model that allows Architects to incorporate all these good ideas and give the customer what they want instead of telling them what they want?
Some good ideas lost in translation, reducing cost of utilities. Simple solution there. Smaller footprint, better insulation and higher efficiency systems. Hmmm.... looks to be the kind of home that the home builders are putting out right now. Wonder why they're still in business?
Making use of the existing infrastructure, Gang came up with “The Garden in the Machine”, which demonstrates how the remains of Cicero’s industry, its lands, building materials, and existing rail infrastructure could be the foundation for a new and better town. The new vision calls for an influx of vegetation, trees and gardens to improve the green space of the area. Housing would largely transition to new live/work units and would require a change in zoning and regulations to allow a different form of ownership — one that allows citizens to purchase and sell shares corresponding to the live/work units they occupy. A variety of flexible housing options would be occupied by families of all sizes and a new economy would be created through residents who live and work in the same area. Rather than raze the entire area and start again, Gang sees that the existing infrastructure can be utilized to build a better, more sustainable city.
The Garden in the Machine is a proposal that uses nature and technology to improve the land, while combining housing and jobs within new, flexible live/work structures interwoven with a variety of public green spaces.
“Like many areas throughout the country, Cicero, Illinois is blighted with a large percentage of foreclosed and rundown properties. As part of the MOMA exhibition Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream, Jeanne Gang has created a new vision for the area which could transform it into a thriving and healthy neighborhood. The Garden in the Machine is a proposal that uses nature and technology to improve the land, while combining housing and jobs within new, flexible live/work structures interwoven with a variety of public green spaces.”
Overall, urbanization seems to be part of the solution. All five designs replace the single-family home, so beloved of suburbia, with diverse alternatives. Similarly, transportation options — like walking! — replace private cars, necessary evils more often than not in suburbia.
In order to change the narrative of the American Dream, the teams have attacked it. With the exception of Andrew Zago’s project in Rialto, California that retains a cul-de-sac structure while beefing up the housing density, these projects are aggressively anti-suburban in their form. For example, WORKac’s Nature-City replaces a neighborhood’s dominant single-family house typology with large multi-family buildings. The winding cul-de-sac roads are then met with a grid form.
A provocative exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), Foreclosed, wants to change that, by insisting that suburban single-family homes have played a role in the foreclosure crisis. Curated by Barry Bergdoll and produced in less than three years (lightning-fast for large museums like MoMA), Foreclosed presents five architectural projects that rethink the suburbs from their economic underpinnings to their aesthetic character. But while the exhibit’s thesis that sprawl is toxic jives with that of many urbanists, the architectural remedies on display seem almost as problematic.
Canaan
I was just reminded but yesterday on tv during a commercial break there was a story about how both the MD. and VA. agreed to start talking about a new potomac bridge.
Re: the suburbs. Again, its not suburbs that should be demonized, it's sprawl. There is a difference despite the fact that suburbs and sprawl have mostly gone hand in hand for a long time.
Feb 22, 2012 10:41 am
Re: the suburbs. Again, its not suburbs that should be demonized, it's sprawl. There is a difference despite the fact that suburbs and sprawl have mostly gone hand in hand for a long time.
Feb 22, 2012 10:41 am
AWalkerInTheCity
@ oboe "Frankly, I'm stunned whenever a place like DC or Arlington manages to eke out a minor pro-urbanist victory. The cynic in me says meaningful change in the suburbs are orders of magnitude more difficult, and is contingent on outside factors like resource depletion. And there's a further argument to be made that a suburbs without the resources to maintain itself certainly hasn't got the resources to reinvent itself."
Arlington is only out of the category of "suburban" (to the extent it is) due to the large scale urbanist victories there.
in fact lots of suburban jurisdictions are making urbanist changes -in greater DC (excluding arlington and City of Alex as urban) we have them in Fairfax, in City of Falls Church, in MoCo, and even in PG (and even a tiny bit in Loudoun). Now, those are often only in select locations, or are balanced by antiurbanist decisions. But see, thats where the demonization blinds people - if you can accept that auto centric suburbia is going to continue to be the preferred way to live for many (possibly the majority) then the fact that only 5-10% say, of Fairfax, is going to end up walkable TOD may be an acceptable result.
As for demonization mattering to the political process, I think it does. I have participated in such discussions with fellow NoVans, and I think the more extreme viewpoints including have left people very defensive, and believing things about urbanism that give ammo the antiurbanists, and make their job of persuasion easier. These include the impressions that urbanists beleive A. that everyone should be carfree B. That no one should live in a SFH C. That everyplace on Greater Washington outside of the district is "bad" regardless of density, etc, etc.
Obviously there are larger, real issues that drive suburban politics, not just these discourse focused issues, and obviously there are things in the discourse on these issues that are unhelpful aside from extremist urbanism memes. But they are not trivial in their impact, IMO. And as someone who values urbanism, I find the distortion of urbanism involved in those memes particularly troubling. It makes a sophisticated vision of a reinvented metropolitan america sound like the ravings of naive hipsters.
Feb 22, 2012 10:47 am
Arlington is only out of the category of "suburban" (to the extent it is) due to the large scale urbanist victories there.
in fact lots of suburban jurisdictions are making urbanist changes -in greater DC (excluding arlington and City of Alex as urban) we have them in Fairfax, in City of Falls Church, in MoCo, and even in PG (and even a tiny bit in Loudoun). Now, those are often only in select locations, or are balanced by antiurbanist decisions. But see, thats where the demonization blinds people - if you can accept that auto centric suburbia is going to continue to be the preferred way to live for many (possibly the majority) then the fact that only 5-10% say, of Fairfax, is going to end up walkable TOD may be an acceptable result.
As for demonization mattering to the political process, I think it does. I have participated in such discussions with fellow NoVans, and I think the more extreme viewpoints including have left people very defensive, and believing things about urbanism that give ammo the antiurbanists, and make their job of persuasion easier. These include the impressions that urbanists beleive A. that everyone should be carfree B. That no one should live in a SFH C. That everyplace on Greater Washington outside of the district is "bad" regardless of density, etc, etc.
Obviously there are larger, real issues that drive suburban politics, not just these discourse focused issues, and obviously there are things in the discourse on these issues that are unhelpful aside from extremist urbanism memes. But they are not trivial in their impact, IMO. And as someone who values urbanism, I find the distortion of urbanism involved in those memes particularly troubling. It makes a sophisticated vision of a reinvented metropolitan america sound like the ravings of naive hipsters.
Feb 22, 2012 10:47 am
Amber
Re: fixing the suburbs
The author's jimmies seem to be particularly rustled at the thought of replacing cul-de-secs with a cold, urban grid. "The winding cul-de-sac roads are then met with a grid form. This disrespect for the rhythms of a suburban lifestyle...". We do not need a grid of streets to fix the suburbs, or so he argues.
Actually, you kinda do. IMO, the cul-de-sacs are part of the core of the problem. A landscape that is very permeable for walkers and cyclists is essential. A grid of streets makes it much easier/faster to walk from one place to another. A grid of streets is easier to mentally map. The author doesn't really understand what makes the city different than the burbs.
Feb 22, 2012 12:14 pm
The author's jimmies seem to be particularly rustled at the thought of replacing cul-de-secs with a cold, urban grid. "The winding cul-de-sac roads are then met with a grid form. This disrespect for the rhythms of a suburban lifestyle...". We do not need a grid of streets to fix the suburbs, or so he argues.
Actually, you kinda do. IMO, the cul-de-sacs are part of the core of the problem. A landscape that is very permeable for walkers and cyclists is essential. A grid of streets makes it much easier/faster to walk from one place to another. A grid of streets is easier to mentally map. The author doesn't really understand what makes the city different than the burbs.
Feb 22, 2012 12:14 pm
Thomas Schaller (TS): Are you envisioning a resuburbanization of America in the next twenty or thirty years? At its peak, houses got gluttonous and big, and the physical footprints that those houses were sitting on got really big. So, I’m wondering if it’s going to be smaller plots? Smaller homes? A little bit of both?
CH: Increased density?
MB: All five projects in the show deal with density, and they also deal with trying to find housing that is probably more financially and size-wise appropriate to its user, but also that would use dramatically less energy to basically dramatically lower carrying costs. But I think many of the people, including ourselves, we were looking at ways to take underutilized property, publicly held or publicly controlled, and increase density around infrastructure because the public has already paid for all of that infrastructure and isn’t using it.
CH: Increased density?
MB: All five projects in the show deal with density, and they also deal with trying to find housing that is probably more financially and size-wise appropriate to its user, but also that would use dramatically less energy to basically dramatically lower carrying costs. But I think many of the people, including ourselves, we were looking at ways to take underutilized property, publicly held or publicly controlled, and increase density around infrastructure because the public has already paid for all of that infrastructure and isn’t using it.
CH: What does that mean? I think we sort of have a sense of the automobile, the sort of oil-fueled world of post-World War II America and suburban sprawl as these kinds of the things that have conspired to build the great sprawling American suburban landscape. What does rethinking that involve from a design perspective? From a policy perspective?
MB: […] In the 1990s you had a booming economy, you had a kind ofpush to alter, if not end, the welfare state. By the 2000s, you have a real estate bubble. And today you have a foreclosure crisis. But in all of these situations, there are a couple things that have been consistent. The amount of money people spend on housing and transportation is immense. They can’t afford it. You don’t want to tell people they can’t afford something and say that’s the reason to change. You want to be more positive than that. But there are many, many factors about affordability, about energy consumption, and frankly about the role of design in any of it. The American single-family house is a commodity product that has virtually no research and development, no design. Architects, in a spec house in Houston in the late 1990s—their fee was about twelve dollars per house. These are mass-produced commodities. There is no professional engagement. […] I think most of the people in this exhibition are quite
positive and excited about the suburbs. We know it’s a deeply, deeply important part of the American ethos, if not just everyday life of course. But, they’re not inevitable. And the financial underpinnings of them have really dramatically shifted in the last five, ten, fifteen years—not just the last two.
CH: Talk about that R&D thing. You made a point in the video in the exhibition that blew my mind about the comparison between how much money in R&D goes into your iPhone or anti-lock brakes versus an American home.
MB: I did mention anti-lock brakes. For many commodities, before they hit the market, there are billions of dollars that might precede it, whether it’s Clorox or whether it’s an iPhone or a Honda Civic which is quite an ingenious product. Housing as we know it has kind of ironed all of that
out of it, and it did it a long time ago. […] They are paying Mercedes Benz prices for a twenty-year-old used car. The single-family house market atomizes out all of the financial processes, and you still are spending large sums of money, but you’re not getting the sophisticated product. It’s not that it’s not a nice product or something people love, but it could be much, much better in energy and everything else.
MB: […] In the 1990s you had a booming economy, you had a kind ofpush to alter, if not end, the welfare state. By the 2000s, you have a real estate bubble. And today you have a foreclosure crisis. But in all of these situations, there are a couple things that have been consistent. The amount of money people spend on housing and transportation is immense. They can’t afford it. You don’t want to tell people they can’t afford something and say that’s the reason to change. You want to be more positive than that. But there are many, many factors about affordability, about energy consumption, and frankly about the role of design in any of it. The American single-family house is a commodity product that has virtually no research and development, no design. Architects, in a spec house in Houston in the late 1990s—their fee was about twelve dollars per house. These are mass-produced commodities. There is no professional engagement. […] I think most of the people in this exhibition are quite
positive and excited about the suburbs. We know it’s a deeply, deeply important part of the American ethos, if not just everyday life of course. But, they’re not inevitable. And the financial underpinnings of them have really dramatically shifted in the last five, ten, fifteen years—not just the last two.
CH: Talk about that R&D thing. You made a point in the video in the exhibition that blew my mind about the comparison between how much money in R&D goes into your iPhone or anti-lock brakes versus an American home.
MB: I did mention anti-lock brakes. For many commodities, before they hit the market, there are billions of dollars that might precede it, whether it’s Clorox or whether it’s an iPhone or a Honda Civic which is quite an ingenious product. Housing as we know it has kind of ironed all of that
out of it, and it did it a long time ago. […] They are paying Mercedes Benz prices for a twenty-year-old used car. The single-family house market atomizes out all of the financial processes, and you still are spending large sums of money, but you’re not getting the sophisticated product. It’s not that it’s not a nice product or something people love, but it could be much, much better in energy and everything else.
Of the proposals on view, perhaps the most appealing is Nature-City, WorkAC’s inventive re-imagining of the modest Portland feeder town of Keizer, Oregon. A surprisingly urban vision for a relatively remote locale, the design boasts a wide variety of housing typologies, all of them arrayed around a municipal complex whose tumulus-like forms suggest a connection to nature fully qualified by the development’s eco-friendly features. As with the Zago group’s plan for Rialto, California, and Gang’s for Cicero, Illinois, Nature-City puts a premium on communal space and services, not only as a means to foster community but as a hedge against the mercenary commercialism that gave us the late housing boom and bust. And to the special credit of Andraos, Wood, and their academic and engineer collaborators, the Keizer scheme avoids the trap (into which Michael Bell’s proposal, Simultenaous City, slips all to easily) of rehearsing the problematic motifs of 20th century social housing, creating instead a novel and lively template for the future of American life.
All of the projects in this exhibition, in one way or another, pile Americans on top of each other; squeeze them into homes that are much smaller than those currently found in the suburbs; and extol the wonders of urban mixed-use developments that feature the broadest possible range of owners, renters, and even businesses. They basically comprise a simple message to suburbanites: We city-dwellers are better at living than you are, and if you want to improve your lifestyle, you’re going to have to become much more like us.
The most visually stunning and forward-thinking model comes from WORKac, a team of lower East Side architects led by Amale Andraos and Dan Wood. They were inspired by British urbanist Ebenezer Howard’s 1890s concept of the “Town-Country,” which combined the best of nature and agriculture with the conveniences of urban life. WORKac tried to create that mix for Keizer, Ore. The city, an hour outside of Portland, is expected to grow by 13,000 people in the next 20 years. Rather than expand the Urban Growth Boundary — which was created in Oregon to contain sprawl — WORKac reworked an area currently occupied by big-box retailers to hold a combination of housing types and a variety of green space from sky gardens to urban farms.
Anderson-2
Mar 5th 2012, 13:25
This stuff looks like the public housing experiments of the 60s given an absolutely fabulous facelift and a couple of pairs of mahnolos. I'm all into walking and dense housing and good public transport, and lived that for 8 years in Cologne, but this stuff gives me the screaming hebijibies.
“Privacy is a sense of realising who is where and what they are doing, and that allows you to be calm.” ? WTF
This stuff looks like the public housing experiments of the 60s given an absolutely fabulous facelift and a couple of pairs of mahnolos. I'm all into walking and dense housing and good public transport, and lived that for 8 years in Cologne, but this stuff gives me the screaming hebijibies.
“Privacy is a sense of realising who is where and what they are doing, and that allows you to be calm.” ? WTF
johnberkowitz
Mar 3rd 2012, 09:32
I think that contemporary architecture should reflect the community needs of the current population. The idea of changing the old style of living into more dynamic one is great. Replacing bungalows by the condo style type of living is just a great idea. I can see the European and Canadian influence in the battle against the old English style of living.
From my point of view, creating the new "centers" of life in the suburbs is also very interesting idea. Sometimes it is much better to reconstruct everything from the scratch than to continue with the old structures and ideas. Never ending House Flipping can not sustain the houses forever and sooner or later, the old suburb has to be replaced by a new one.
With new model of suburb, you get more possibilities to evade old mistakes and give people better life conditions and space for their everyday lives.
I think that contemporary architecture should reflect the community needs of the current population. The idea of changing the old style of living into more dynamic one is great. Replacing bungalows by the condo style type of living is just a great idea. I can see the European and Canadian influence in the battle against the old English style of living.
From my point of view, creating the new "centers" of life in the suburbs is also very interesting idea. Sometimes it is much better to reconstruct everything from the scratch than to continue with the old structures and ideas. Never ending House Flipping can not sustain the houses forever and sooner or later, the old suburb has to be replaced by a new one.
With new model of suburb, you get more possibilities to evade old mistakes and give people better life conditions and space for their everyday lives.
NotanEconomistFrank
Mar 2nd 2012, 22:48
What a strange review. It seems that anyone questioning the car in American urbanism is considered ridiculous. MOS's Orange NJ proposal is completely reasonable in a world where our policies towards automobile driven urbanism is making the working poor even poorer and more unhealthy/obese. It's based around pedestrians and mass transit, not really that radical actually.... To propose a dense city based upon the pedestrian instead of car seems like the type of urban thinking we need.
What a strange review. It seems that anyone questioning the car in American urbanism is considered ridiculous. MOS's Orange NJ proposal is completely reasonable in a world where our policies towards automobile driven urbanism is making the working poor even poorer and more unhealthy/obese. It's based around pedestrians and mass transit, not really that radical actually.... To propose a dense city based upon the pedestrian instead of car seems like the type of urban thinking we need.
typingmonkey
Mar 2nd 2012, 19:31
It looks to me like the Orange NJ proposal is to place buildings in the centers of certain street segments to create
1 - density
2 - mixed use (neighborhood retail/commercial services)
3 - capillary cul-de-sacs (where kids can play without through traffic)
These could put services close to residents, and make walking/biking to them more attractive at the same time. This, in turn, could reinvigorate the local economy and sense of community. Not an easy task in existing grids, so we must begin thinking of unconventional solutions. Fire engines, by the way, routinely serve cul-de-sacs.
I have also long championed flexibility in housing to better accomodate the diverse life paths taken in modern times and other cultures. The American Dream/white picket fence/Mayberry suburb fails badly at this, making your Cicero concept another valuable exercise. In 2012 America, we have a working class that may marry 3 times or not at all. We are all step-this and step-that. College kids might need to return home for years. Grandma might need closer care. Families aren't really nuclear, they are fissile, fusile, orbital and subatomic. So bring back the courtyard, with apartments around it.
The reintegration of nature into our communities is another worthy goal. I think creek daylighting, community gardens, and village greens are all good ideas. The cougar idea must be whimsy, but it helps us avoid getting trapped in the fallacy that land is a purely human medium.
CH, I advise you to spend more time off the island of Manhattan. Go to Alaska. Go to Detroit. Go to a hutong. And go to a desolate American suburb. Then go back to MoMA and tell me what you see.
It looks to me like the Orange NJ proposal is to place buildings in the centers of certain street segments to create
1 - density
2 - mixed use (neighborhood retail/commercial services)
3 - capillary cul-de-sacs (where kids can play without through traffic)
These could put services close to residents, and make walking/biking to them more attractive at the same time. This, in turn, could reinvigorate the local economy and sense of community. Not an easy task in existing grids, so we must begin thinking of unconventional solutions. Fire engines, by the way, routinely serve cul-de-sacs.
I have also long championed flexibility in housing to better accomodate the diverse life paths taken in modern times and other cultures. The American Dream/white picket fence/Mayberry suburb fails badly at this, making your Cicero concept another valuable exercise. In 2012 America, we have a working class that may marry 3 times or not at all. We are all step-this and step-that. College kids might need to return home for years. Grandma might need closer care. Families aren't really nuclear, they are fissile, fusile, orbital and subatomic. So bring back the courtyard, with apartments around it.
The reintegration of nature into our communities is another worthy goal. I think creek daylighting, community gardens, and village greens are all good ideas. The cougar idea must be whimsy, but it helps us avoid getting trapped in the fallacy that land is a purely human medium.
CH, I advise you to spend more time off the island of Manhattan. Go to Alaska. Go to Detroit. Go to a hutong. And go to a desolate American suburb. Then go back to MoMA and tell me what you see.
Bob , flintstone BLVD.
4/3/2012 16:13
Did anyone see any Churches? I would love to see a drive in movie theater. I love really wide streets, and wide parking spots.
Did anyone see any Churches? I would love to see a drive in movie theater. I love really wide streets, and wide parking spots.
Claire, USA
3/3/2012 22:18
@Tony Of course we all aspire to live in our own homes, but that does not mean it's possible for everyone. These projects seek a solution to the problems of urban sprawl, foreclosures, and environmental pollution. For those who cannot afford a single home, who cities are too densely populated for single homes, and for those who want to change our impact on the environment, these projects could be an amazing solution. Personally, I'm not that fond of the architecture, but ecologically and in terms of the amount of green space, they're a pretty good solution to a LOT of needs.
@Tony Of course we all aspire to live in our own homes, but that does not mean it's possible for everyone. These projects seek a solution to the problems of urban sprawl, foreclosures, and environmental pollution. For those who cannot afford a single home, who cities are too densely populated for single homes, and for those who want to change our impact on the environment, these projects could be an amazing solution. Personally, I'm not that fond of the architecture, but ecologically and in terms of the amount of green space, they're a pretty good solution to a LOT of needs.
Jon, Cheyenne, Wy
3/3/2012 10:54
I'll stick to my cabin on 12 wooded acres thanks.
I'll stick to my cabin on 12 wooded acres thanks.
paevo
USA, 3/3/2012 10:00
This won't fly...
This won't fly...
A new exhibit at the New York Museum of Modern Art seeks to rethink suburban living and the design of the communities themselves. Taking unique and sometimes radical approaches, five design teams each took a community ravaged by the housing crisis and came up with their own architectural and artistic solution to improve the affected areas and introduce more density, retail stores and sustainable practices. The results need to be seen to be believed, as they provide a completely new and interesting way to look at American housing.
Gone are the 1,500 square feet or larger single family homes with large backyards and wide spaces between properties; all five proposals call for much more density, shared spaces, and retail and dining options often inside the communities. In essence, what the design teams are trying to do is replicate some of the best features of urban living and transport them to the suburbs.
What is so fascinating about the exhibit is the way the design teams take all of these criticisms to heart and seek to remedy the problems of overbuilding and density through five architectural designs that really are about as different as they are similar. As to be expected, they all feature people living closer together and becoming more sustainable, but they differ enormously in how the communities are designed from an aesthetic level. I took a look at all five exhibits (virtually, of course, until I can make the trip to New York), and came away impressed with some of the projects and more skeptical of others. The five exhibits are broken down below:
06 Mar, 2012 - (@ForumFUD)
@studiogangproposed multi-family housing and rewriting the zoning code for Cicero IL http://ow.ly/9ncB4 #ShiftingSuburbia
Ara Hovnanian set the stage by exploring his own company’s strategy for adapting new homes to a post-crisis reality: by building multi-generational, multi-household homes for boomerang children, aging parents, and older siblings. Joe Rose followed, arguing the Buell Hypothesis of “Change the dream and you change the city” might be better adapted to “Respect the dream and you change the city,” suggesting that dismissing the suburban dream would never lead to a suburban makeover.
By creating varied but neighboring housing typologies—ranging from 100-square-foot apartments with communal living spaces, to 600-square-foot one-bedroom apartments, to larger three-bedroom apartments—and providing for varied forms of tenure, a community can be created based on the diversity of residents and not on antiquated, inflexible notions of housing. The college student who can only afford the 100-square-foot SRO is an asset to the single mother in the three-bedroom rental who needs to work in the afternoons. The returning veteran may not need much in the way of square footage, but will need the attention of on-site social services, within walking distance of his apartment. The architecture can and should support this type of organic connection. Seniors seeking companionship and affordability can live in a shared three-bedroom apartment that lays out exactly as a family-sized unit. Housing options can better respond to personal need rather than financial status.
In a symposium on the exhibit earlier this month put on by the Forum for Urban Design, MoMA, and the Lincoln Institute (where, full disclosure and as you can see in my bio, I also work) a panel of experts doused the well-attended exhibit with more cold water, talking about zoning and changing demographics and NIMBYism - all the challenges of reinventing more dense and less car-dependent patterns. There was a sense that in all these areas, planners and the housing markets had somehow got it wrong. In the built environment, it is a singular engineering challenge to go back and try to re-stitch things back together and get it right.
And yet, they must not think too big, as the ghost towns of China and the zombie subdivisions of the Southeast and Intermountain West attest. Not everyplace can be like New York, and enjoy its good fortune and staggering wealth. But in terms of its grid and planning for growth, it may be the perfect example of Goldilocks planning – not too far-reaching, not insufficient, but impressively, just right.
5. Studio Gang, "The Garden in the Machine"
Here, Studio Gang proposes literally deconstructing an existing factory to salvage its materials and build a new mixed-use group of buildings. I liked the image style very much.
Here, Studio Gang proposes literally deconstructing an existing factory to salvage its materials and build a new mixed-use group of buildings. I liked the image style very much.
But the panelists also agreed that reinventing housing and changing development patterns will involve an understanding of market demographics, complex attitudes toward density, and nuts-and-bolts fixes like reforming restrictive zoning.
ZA took a subtle approach, "creating a richer mix of uses, housing types, living situations, and landscapes than the serial repetition of an individual home with a driveway and patch of lawn would allow." The blurred look in the renderings is intentional misregistration ("a printing-process error that leads to blurred images") used metaphorically. The team also allowed a little more nature in via seasonal rivers and natural wildlife routes and made the roads narrower and "more circuitous."
Anonymous
I think the market is determining that suburbs are unsustainable and more dense living is the way to go. In suburbs around Chicago, like Arlington Heights, downtowns were designed, developed and built so people can have that downtown feel. People want places to have dinner, then walk to the show, and then have ice cream afterwards. All within walking distance. For those of you who haven't tried it, treat yourself to the experience.
3/22/2012 12:33 AM CDT
3/22/2012 12:33 AM CDT
Anonymous
Paradigm shift. Foreclosures aside for a moment, if you will allow me, the last 50 or so years have seen the continuing expansion of our population into suburbia, into safe, reasonably secure, more open aired environments where one could drive to work in a reasonable amount of time, shop close to home and educate your children at a local school.
This study, I have not read it, seems to advocate a reversal of that movement. A compaction of the habitable structures into higher density areas with less reliance on the automobile but with the option of public transportation.
Those first two words came from a long conversation I had with a loosely knit group of home builders and developers over coffee one morning.
Consensus was that without a paradign shift in buyer attitude about whether they could expect the livibility, security and comfort and a level of freedom in a high density housing project as they would expect in a "normal" development, it had limited appeal. (Their demographic target(s) were the first/second time home buyer with children).
I don't believe that shift will occur without a far more serious change than the foreclosure crisis. And, knowing a bit about govmint and how it "thinks" I'd venture a guess that their stereotypes of high density housing is limited to a condominium complex with a swimming pool and 2car attached garages. Ciao
This study, I have not read it, seems to advocate a reversal of that movement. A compaction of the habitable structures into higher density areas with less reliance on the automobile but with the option of public transportation.
Those first two words came from a long conversation I had with a loosely knit group of home builders and developers over coffee one morning.
Consensus was that without a paradign shift in buyer attitude about whether they could expect the livibility, security and comfort and a level of freedom in a high density housing project as they would expect in a "normal" development, it had limited appeal. (Their demographic target(s) were the first/second time home buyer with children).
I don't believe that shift will occur without a far more serious change than the foreclosure crisis. And, knowing a bit about govmint and how it "thinks" I'd venture a guess that their stereotypes of high density housing is limited to a condominium complex with a swimming pool and 2car attached garages. Ciao
But during a panel on March 8 at the museum sponsored by the Forum for Urban Design, two developers, an architecture professor, and a real estate lawyer reacted soberly to the adventurous and optimistic schemes. Though the panelists agreed that the foreclosure crisis will lead to major changes in suburban development, they all thought new patterns are less likely to be brought about by a revised American dream than by economic and demographic factors. And all said it would be very difficult to change zoning laws to permit denser new development patterns, especially in existing “inner-ring” suburbs.
The really cool part of this project is not thinking about the house in holistic terms, but in terms of separate functional rooms (the kitchen, bedroom, washroom etc). Here, the idea is for families to indicate what kind of spaces they need, and make these spaces interchangable, making some spaces, like living rooms, multi-family household sections, which keeping other rooms separate. Its a bit radical with a touch of crazy, but hey, some of the best ideas are.
This sort of vague, non-ideological collectivism hangs over the entire show. Designs by Visible Weather and, in particular, Zago Architecture, stress the blurring of the usual lines between public and private, renting and owning, residential and commercial sites. Such imprecise boundaries give these projects a Ballardian air: what use is changing the dream if you replace it with a nightmare?
The “Foreclosed” project doesn’t just lay out clever ideas in architectural design, but steps back to re-examine the fundamental assumption of suburban life: that a prosperous community is built on single-family houses spread out over a wide area. The cities on display have suffered under that old vision of the American Dream. “Change the dream and you change the city,” argues “The Buell Hypothesis,” and the proposals laid out here suggest that there are several ways to reclaim that vision of prosperity.
The exhibit invited five multidisciplinary teams led by architects to develop site-specific plans for five actual communities, with input from local residents. Models include familiar ecofriendly, sustainable initiatives, from light rail and co-generation electrical plants to recycling centers and community gardens. Some models include light industrial facilities and workspaces adjacent to residential areas to eliminate commutes. Most of the plans also include changes in predominant forms of homeownership.
This exhibit comes at a critical time. Right-wing organizations like the Heritage Foundation have been churning out polemics against public transportation and zoning for higher density development. A GOP-dominated Congress is also on the attack. Last year it cut funding slated for the 2009 stimulus bill's signature infrastructure project, the high-speed rail initiative. House Republicans appear to have given up on their attempts to include a mass-transit-crushing amendment in their controversial five-year, $260 billion transportation bill. Still, a paralyzed Congress is on the verge of allowing the current bill to expire on March 31 without any new legislation for continued funding.
The displays include placards with statistics that show how housing in five different suburban communities has become financially unsustainable and environmentally unsound. Wall mounted texts feature excerpts from an imagined conversation between Socrates and one of his students-which takes place in a traffic jam-about how to change dominant cultural narratives that disparage public housing and public transportation.
Architectural models offer stylized solutions to suburban ills. Suburbs accessible by proposed high-speed rail corridors are retrofitted with high-density developments, which in some cases are stripped of streets. Instead of oversized single-family suburban houses narrowly tailored for the nuclear family, the show provides a variety of housing models for people in different groupings, such as empty nesters and extended families.
Architectural models offer stylized solutions to suburban ills. Suburbs accessible by proposed high-speed rail corridors are retrofitted with high-density developments, which in some cases are stripped of streets. Instead of oversized single-family suburban houses narrowly tailored for the nuclear family, the show provides a variety of housing models for people in different groupings, such as empty nesters and extended families.
SV: What is MoMA doing putting on such an obviously political exhibit? What are they doing?
AU: The Museum of Modern Art has a tradition of putting on---
Sandra Smith [blonde]: I was going to say, artists are never political.
SV: It's always the elite telling the rest of us how we should live, isn't it?
AU: No, it's---
SV: Always.
AU: No, in fact, the state of California is enacting zoning policies to make suburbs more dense. You know, and the Wall Street Journal just pointed out last week that they are trying to, instead of having four houses per acre, they're going to have twenty houses per acre.
AU: The Museum of Modern Art has a tradition of putting on---
Sandra Smith [blonde]: I was going to say, artists are never political.
SV: It's always the elite telling the rest of us how we should live, isn't it?
AU: No, it's---
SV: Always.
AU: No, in fact, the state of California is enacting zoning policies to make suburbs more dense. You know, and the Wall Street Journal just pointed out last week that they are trying to, instead of having four houses per acre, they're going to have twenty houses per acre.
“We agree with the themes of mixed use,” said Valerie Jackson, Orange’s director of planning and development, “and we think it’s very important to include wellness in the form of an exercise center that is open to tenants and the public. What we don’t agree with is putting structures up that close off the streets.”
lady brett
On April 17, 2012 at 6:31 am
fascinating! just great – i want to watch all of these.
i live in a city that is wholly embracing (sub)urban sprawl – it's a small city, so this is a (relatively) recent development. the difficult part is that it feels so unstoppable when the entire system of city government is set up to encourage single-use, encourage sprawl (things like zoning laws that make home business illegal, or lack of impact fees, so that developers don't have to pay a cent to get utilities run to new developments outside the current city). and discourage historic preservations, as angie said (or, more accurately, only encourage it in affluent neighborhoods).
this from someone who has wholly embraced the home part of the american dream, if not the other parts. but owning a home has been a dream of mine for…ever – and it is just as amazing as i always thought. the thing that really strikes me is the number of homeowners i know who don't actually like owning a home (or at least none of the details that come with the concept).
fascinating! just great – i want to watch all of these.
i live in a city that is wholly embracing (sub)urban sprawl – it's a small city, so this is a (relatively) recent development. the difficult part is that it feels so unstoppable when the entire system of city government is set up to encourage single-use, encourage sprawl (things like zoning laws that make home business illegal, or lack of impact fees, so that developers don't have to pay a cent to get utilities run to new developments outside the current city). and discourage historic preservations, as angie said (or, more accurately, only encourage it in affluent neighborhoods).
this from someone who has wholly embraced the home part of the american dream, if not the other parts. but owning a home has been a dream of mine for…ever – and it is just as amazing as i always thought. the thing that really strikes me is the number of homeowners i know who don't actually like owning a home (or at least none of the details that come with the concept).
Rethinking suburbs as self-sufficient urbanized areas where work and life coexist in communal and environmentally-sustainable ways are the best use of the masses of land that have become unfeasible to support after the foreclosure crisis. The nuclear family of the bungalow house is no longer the American family, and with the change in American family must come a change in the American dream.
The resulting projects, for actual American suburbs, are predictably varied in their practicality and architectural flair. A proposal for an Oregon community designed around a compost mountain by the New York firm WORKac seemed especially daring. Chicago's Jeanne Gang proposed the retrofitting of a derelict factory, and used it to piggyback an argument for better design and smarter financing options on the opinion page of The New York Times. Taken together, the projects would seem to suggest that the American suburbs should look a lot more like Europe, or really Holland. That is, they should be more dense, less dependent on the car, more flexible, and more environmentally friendly.
As I made my way through the gallery, I noticed that both Jeanne Gang’s project for Cicero and, in part, Andrew Zago’s for Rialto called for decoupling home ownership from ownership of the underlying land, which would, theoretically, cut home prices and create a new class of public property. This was the exhibition at its most provocative, addressing the forces that have most powerfully shaped suburbs and smaller cities: public policy, government regulations, zoning, the rules governing mortgages, the way roads and utilities are paid for. At its best, Foreclosed was not an architecture show at all. It was a mini-seminar on public policy—and an assault on conventional notions of private property.
Bell told me what his team was thinking: “One basic understanding of REITs that I often heard people criticize is that they’re essentially hedging instruments.” So the upswing in home prices in one part of the world might be played off a drop in value elsewhere. “Instead of real estate being held as a local asset, it gets bundled up as a global asset.
Bell told me what his team was thinking: “One basic understanding of REITs that I often heard people criticize is that they’re essentially hedging instruments.” So the upswing in home prices in one part of the world might be played off a drop in value elsewhere. “Instead of real estate being held as a local asset, it gets bundled up as a global asset.
Kip
MAY 29, 2012 • 7:04 AM
What bothered me most about this exhibit was that the teams didn’t even respond to the very data that launched the project. When the number of “overcrowded units” in the U.S. is only 3% how did they arrive at answers that massively increase the density of the suburbs? Math doesn’t lie, but apparently architecture does.
What bothered me most about this exhibit was that the teams didn’t even respond to the very data that launched the project. When the number of “overcrowded units” in the U.S. is only 3% how did they arrive at answers that massively increase the density of the suburbs? Math doesn’t lie, but apparently architecture does.
But just a few minutes into the exhibit and we wondered if we had taken a wrong turn back at the stark-white Mies van der Rohe inspired vestibule. Perhaps we had wandered into the surrealist room, or maybe we stumbled into a symposium discussion on deciphering nightmares. The models in the center of the room were disturbingly unrealistic; they all seemed to stem from dystopian visions of dense, industrial mega-plexes. Filling in the empty spaces, previously known as backyards, with geometrically arranged chaos seemed to be the priority for most schemes. The only thing missing were miniature figures from the film Blade Runner standing on lonely decks staring out over the vast disarray of their tiny surroundings.
Envisioning more mingling of work and residential spaces—often difficult under current zoning restrictions—the different plans also place an emphasis on pedestrian-friendly design.
Yet for all their superficial differences, all the plans “look at ways you can have a denser population in suburbs relatively near a metropolitan center, without giving up a sense of open air and the things people go to the suburbs for in the first place,” says Bergdoll. In WORKac’s plan for Keizer, for example, the community is five times more densely populated than a typical suburban area—but also has three times the open space.
Ignore the architecture, and Foreclosed travels well-trodden ground: Increase density, provide a mix of housing sizes and types, and shrink the distance between work and home. Mixed use, as always, reigns supreme, albeit now with a community composting twist. The designs aim to provide a variety of housing opportunities for Americans at any point along the income/immigrant/household-size ladder. But when has that not been the demand of American housing?
The result is a series of essentially utopian schemes. I was most drawn to the solution called Nature City, for Keizer, Oregon by WORKac, a design firm in Manhattan. Inspired by the Garden City concept espoused by influential late 19th century British urbanist Ebenezer Howard, (detail of part of a garden city plan shown above, courtesy Our Letchworth), they proposed developing a 225 acre parcel (already slated for big box stores and the like) in a way that is “five times denser than the adjacent suburban blocks but has three times the amount of public open space, including a 158-acre nature preserve.”
Each of the five projects on display confounds common assumptions about what a suburb looks like and what it's like to live in one. Many designs set out to provide integrated live/work spaces, active pedestrian life, increased architectural variety, greater social integration, and generous green spaces. Yet none offer an architectural vision that feels truly suburban. Instead, most projects propose dense, urban schemes.
The large scale of these projects, their abstract white renderings, and even their titles suggest that the best way to support ailing suburbs is to transform them into cities. Is there a way to develop suburbs as suburbs, a way to build less densely but also responsibly?
Just about all of the speculations add density to their suburbs and increase propinquity, basically making the suburbs more urban to reflect their actual social and economic conditions.
One of the largest visions is housing for all. From WORKac’s attempt to bring a five-fold increase in densification through high-rise building to MOS’s decoupling of ownership and place through the mechanism of portable mortgages, the projects in Foreclosed seek to meet this goal through various new strategies. But what about small-scale strategies that have already proven successful? Here's one example: Accessory Dwelling Unit programs, which flourished in the last decade, have added density, diversity and connectivity to existing communities, and in the process made them more sustainable. In 2006 Santa Cruz, California, started one of the most progressive ADU programs in the U.S., largely to enhance housing affordability in an affluent city where less than 10 percent of the population could afford to buy even a median-priced home. The program included loan financing and technical assistance, and it hired design firms to create prototypes for likely "accessory" conditions. Today it's one of the city’s most popular programs, with an average of 50 new units every year.
What strikes many visitors to the exhibit are the arresting architectural acrobatics of each team. Most teams found ways to increase density within often-conventional suburban or industrial contexts, something inherently dramatic. One project, "Nature City," set in Keizer, Ore., shows a giant beehive of compost set amid "towers of houses" and other new architectural forms.
And so it seems that we can have it all: urbanity, diversity of choices, a high quality of life that does not revolve around the automobile, and a healthy and economically sustainable community. And the chance to be “roommates with nature.” I particularly love how Nature-City dares to give kids of every age a landscape of opportunity for discovery and joy.
For the last 30 years I have lived in New York City, and I consider myself very much an urbanist. I love the city’s density, vibrancy, and diversity. It’s not at all like where I grew up. But why can’t we have both in one place? That is the brilliance of WORKac’s proposal for Nature-City. It demonstrates that, in fact, we can have both. And that it can be quite wonderful. And, perhaps of greatest surprise, financially feasible, too.
HUFFPOST SUPER USER, bryan broome, All your money won't another minute buy, 584 Fans
08:42 AM on 07/23/2012
Some of us don't like living shoulder to shoulder with strangers.
Some of us don't like living shoulder to shoulder with strangers.
SF94109, 5 Fans
03:45 AM on 07/23/2012
I believe in density, as in cities, where efficient distribution infrastructure is established and leave more open space around the city for everybody to enjoy. This is also less harmful to the environment when we concentrate habitat with a smaller footprint. Cities are vibrant places where people actually interact and encourage understanding and learn to live together. While I understand the urge to want to own ones home, I don't understand the continued sprawl of suburban areas that are so far away from the cities. What does one do in these boring tract homes that all look the same and where nobody gets out of their cars until they are in their garage. It's kind of depressing.
I believe in density, as in cities, where efficient distribution infrastructure is established and leave more open space around the city for everybody to enjoy. This is also less harmful to the environment when we concentrate habitat with a smaller footprint. Cities are vibrant places where people actually interact and encourage understanding and learn to live together. While I understand the urge to want to own ones home, I don't understand the continued sprawl of suburban areas that are so far away from the cities. What does one do in these boring tract homes that all look the same and where nobody gets out of their cars until they are in their garage. It's kind of depressing.
4eva, .-.. --- ...- . --..-- / -. --- - / .... .- - ., 2995 Fans
09:17 AM on 07/23/2012
That is changing. People are forcing their cities to alter their zoning codes to be more sensible.
Zoning itself has caused myriad problems.
That is changing. People are forcing their cities to alter their zoning codes to be more sensible.
Zoning itself has caused myriad problems.
mule jenny, 3 Fans
07:21 AM on 07/23/2012
It is called "edible landscaping". It does not have to involve tall corn stalks. It is a very intriguing idea. I have done some of this type of landscaping. Every year I grow a hedge of indeterminate, small tomatoes that greets you as you come up to my door.
Too tall corn stalks? Maybe, maybe if they were blocking a view of traffic and causing a hazard. You can get into that situation with too tall shrubbery, as well.
It is called "edible landscaping". It does not have to involve tall corn stalks. It is a very intriguing idea. I have done some of this type of landscaping. Every year I grow a hedge of indeterminate, small tomatoes that greets you as you come up to my door.
Too tall corn stalks? Maybe, maybe if they were blocking a view of traffic and causing a hazard. You can get into that situation with too tall shrubbery, as well.
HUFFPOST SUPER USER, RetiredUSAF05, A 1%'er voting Obama 2012, 152 Fans
02:57 AM on 07/23/2012
"Arresting angles and curves" DO NOT equate to usable space! Higher density yes, walkable neighborhoods yes. As a degree in civil engineering, design practical floor plans in various sizes for a diverse market. Forget wasted spaces in weird angles and oddly shaped rooms. You pay a premium for a useless layout with strange angles where you can't live.
"Arresting angles and curves" DO NOT equate to usable space! Higher density yes, walkable neighborhoods yes. As a degree in civil engineering, design practical floor plans in various sizes for a diverse market. Forget wasted spaces in weird angles and oddly shaped rooms. You pay a premium for a useless layout with strange angles where you can't live.
4eva, .-.. --- ...- . --..-- / -. --- - / .... .- - ., 2995 Fans
09:19 AM on 07/23/2012
This tax exemption just subsidizes more sprawl.
This tax exemption just subsidizes more sprawl.
eric14, 1232 Fans
04:22 AM on 07/23/2012
You are right. But given the existing housing stock, it would be good to have some ideas about transforming suburbs. Are there ways they can be improved? Change zoning? Bring in workplaces?
You are right. But given the existing housing stock, it would be good to have some ideas about transforming suburbs. Are there ways they can be improved? Change zoning? Bring in workplaces?
January, 83 Fans
12:44 AM on 07/23/2012
"We need another housing boom."
We need a "community" boom. Sprawling suburbs don't build community. Neither does living on top of each other (recall what has happened to public housing). Most disappointing is that we do not even seem able to recognize what "community" is or what it might look like.
I don't blame builders; it's a lot bigger than that. Most of us do not want any outsiders sticking their noses into our business. Just look how hard it is to protect children, women, and the elderly. Our cities require pioneers, and most of us are simply not up to that, as heroic as it might sound.
No, there is no easy answer. But can't we at least begin asking the right question? "Why can't we just get along together?" Then let's build whatever that takes.
"We need another housing boom."
We need a "community" boom. Sprawling suburbs don't build community. Neither does living on top of each other (recall what has happened to public housing). Most disappointing is that we do not even seem able to recognize what "community" is or what it might look like.
I don't blame builders; it's a lot bigger than that. Most of us do not want any outsiders sticking their noses into our business. Just look how hard it is to protect children, women, and the elderly. Our cities require pioneers, and most of us are simply not up to that, as heroic as it might sound.
No, there is no easy answer. But can't we at least begin asking the right question? "Why can't we just get along together?" Then let's build whatever that takes.
HUFFPOST SUPER USER, Mary Blickhahn, Is this really the best we can do?, 1291 Fans
12:42 AM on 07/23/2012
There are many good ideas and many bad ones. What is important is remain clear that one solution will not work for everyone and in every area. Plus all ideas will have to manage the actual implementation. Making it a reality often takes quite a bit of compromise. I do not like the over populations idea..that has proven to be a failure and a cesspool for disease. Those zoning laws prohibiting it are there for a reason. This is not a solution, but a night mare.
There are many good ideas and many bad ones. What is important is remain clear that one solution will not work for everyone and in every area. Plus all ideas will have to manage the actual implementation. Making it a reality often takes quite a bit of compromise. I do not like the over populations idea..that has proven to be a failure and a cesspool for disease. Those zoning laws prohibiting it are there for a reason. This is not a solution, but a night mare.
The Cicero plan may be the most intriguing, because it is crafted for a community that holds large numbers of recent immigrants from Mexico and Central America. We may tend to think of the suburbs as an expression of inclinations to break free of the city and get closer to nature, but these residents are generally not motivated by urban escape fantasies: They want to be closer to jobs and they want the opportunity to start businesses, and want access to good schools for their children and decent housing at an affordable price. For them, separating residential and commercial life is an inconvenience and a hardship, a relic of housing policy best relinquished.
The exhibit is at root an attempt to exploit the trauma at hand -- a foreclosure crisis that has swept through suburbs with malevolent force -- as an opportunity to reexamine the conditions that got us here. For decades, homebuilders and their financiers marketed an appealing version of the American dream, the idea that nourishing family life plays out in new single-family homes, the trophies of upward mobility. That vision has gone cancerous. We are wasting hours in traffic and dollars on gasoline. We are squandering land on individual lots that could be used as broader green space. Government is surrendering vast sums to maintain highways when it could repurpose that money toward energy-efficient mass transit.
The exhibition’s model for East Orange, New Jersey (seen as it currently is below) suggests transforming public streets into mixed-use ribbon buildings.
The installation for Keizer, Oregon, seeks to increase the density of the city to increase the public’s access to nature.
The installation for Keizer, Oregon, seeks to increase the density of the city to increase the public’s access to nature.
Open through August 13, Foreclosed engages the Buell Hypothesis by attempting to assess whether a change in cultural assumptions has the potential to allay the effect of the foreclosure crisis and diminish the impracticality of the suburbs. Each of the projects employs the hypothesis as a call for change by harnessing its potential to redefine suburban sprawl. Tucked away in a room on the third floor of MoMA, Foreclosed illuminates a new opportunity for unrestrained innovation in response to the housing crisis.
Though aesthetically divergent, each model revolutionizes the concept of community. In favor of communal practicality, the ability to express oneself through the appearance of one’s home has been obliterated. Across projects, interwoven, mixed-use spaces straddle the divide between inside and outside, work and home.
BL: What I think was really innovative about this project [“Simultaneous City”] was the coupling of mixed-income residential with various public amenities and civic spaces, and it’s not too far off from what is currently being pushed in the CHOICE Neighborhoods Initiative, which if you’re unfamiliar is essentially a follow-up to HOPE VI.
BL: “Properties with Property” occupies the only site that anyone who doesn’t live in Manhattan would call a “real suburb,” which Marc alluded to, and unapologetically so. In so doing, Team Zago really brings to the fore, in the most aesthetically exciting way possible, issues of the overlaps between public and private space that are paramount to any affordable housing development since the introduction of Newman’s Defensible Space. […] But the question that automatically brings up, especially when compared against MOS’s project, is that even though the density in some places in Rialto is quadrupled from what it was or what it was proposed to be, is that still enough density to survive? Even though that density is camouflaged, would the people that want to be in a low-density area still want to be there? And would the people who need the density in order to survive, and predominantly those are low-income families, would they be able to get the supportive services that they would need in a community with that level of density?
BL: I think it’s important for us, especially within the context of this exhibition, to look at New Jersey because we’re not really talking about what we understood to be “suburbia” any more, and we’re also not really talking about what we understood to be “the city” anymore. East Orange and “Thoughts on a Walking City” are an excellent example of that. The Oranges, if they were compared to the largest cities in the United States, would be the fifth densest city in the United States. It actually has over 16,000 people per square mile. (To give you some frame of reference, New York only has 27,000 people per square mile, and the drop-off after New York is rather rapid.) So, I applaud MOS for their somewhat backhanded recognition that, despite this density, there still aren’t enough services, there still isn’t enough affordable housing, and “Oh, and by the way, you’re all fat.” The answer they came up with, which I don’t disagree with at all, is that we actually need to make it denser, what they suggest is essentially Smart Growth on steroids. […] The way Smart Growth is essentially practiced now is in very small increments, and to the extent that it’s practiced in these small increments, it’s working. But if it were practiced at a much larger scale, as MOS suggested, who knows what the implications could be? I like to think that could be very beneficial.
MJ: But East Orange’s riff on transit-oriented development is a very smart proposal as well. It stretches our thinking, residing on the edge of the practical and the ideal. It proposes a politic trade: save revenue and therefore tax dollars by eliminating many of the neighborhood streets and the costs associated with maintaining them. Additionally, this approach radically diminishes the role of the automobile in the community. It treats the streets like we’ve treated vacant land in the city: as an opportunity for infill housing. It increases density in the area near an existing rail station and incorporates mixed uses enriching the area’s amenities while, again, reducing the residents’ reliance on the car to get things done. Curiously, however, while calling for the end of the ghetto enclave, its uninterrupted ribbon development results in a densely packed community that reminds me of my image of the kasbah, a true enclave, impenetrable from the outside, labyrinthine from the inside, and devoid of large, open, public spaces where people can meet and talk and relax. To relegate these opportunities, as they say in the paper, to the ground floors of new developments which might contain a variety of shops and services is to subordinate community to commerce.
It’s refreshing that the team unabashedly suggests that much of these new ribbons of housing would be developed as public housing. But if this is a serious idea, not simply a gesture or metaphor, then one must confront the fact that public housing in the United States, apart from unfortunately being in ideological disrepute, is also grossly underfunded.
It’s refreshing that the team unabashedly suggests that much of these new ribbons of housing would be developed as public housing. But if this is a serious idea, not simply a gesture or metaphor, then one must confront the fact that public housing in the United States, apart from unfortunately being in ideological disrepute, is also grossly underfunded.
See Floor 3. Yes MOMA is now exhibiting a rehousing of Foreclosed America.(see pics) As a lender I was very interested in what rehousing the "American dream" would entail. Sadly, I was very disappointed. The bottom line is that there were multiple artistic versions but they all came to turning single family home tracts into city like condensed landscapes. Their theory is that a large percentage of foreclosures in the United States are single family homes. Of course the majority are single family homes, the majority of the United States is comprised of single family homes.The data was skewed to a very pro city, anti suburb lean which I found disappointing. "Mcmansions" were not what caused foreclosures. It was loose lending coupled with the affect of a tough economy. If you are in NYC check out the MOMA and see if you disagree.
Typical_Boston_Liberal
Minimum lot sizes ruined our country. Talk to a zoning board in the suburbs and they'll say how much it has handcuffed suburban development.
JamesPowers
thats what is so brilliant about this...i think the old guard is going to get a real wake up about how america has changed. I dont want a damn yard i have to mowe haha I admit it im lazy
Liberal Versus Conservative (34)
Lukos
You are clearly a chinese poster. Why don't you leave your slander at home and leave discussion of American communities to those who have first-hand knowledge of the US rather than regurgitate communist propaganda?
December 20, 2011 at 1:09 pm
December 20, 2011 at 1:09 pm
Joe
Actually Will is right. I live 3 mins from Levittown. All of the houses are around $400k and the taxes average about $10k per year. Where Will is wrong is in regards to who actually live there. Its cops and teachers. They are the only ones that can afford it. Cops and teachers make 6 figures on Long Island. Thank you Unions. Notice all of the people replying to Will say they bought houses for $75k? Notice how none of them are from Blue states?
December 20, 2011 at 5:14 pm
December 20, 2011 at 5:14 pm
John
See, Bill learned a skill and became successful. Notice he is not occupying anything crying about how unfair it all is. Hell, if he keeps at it with his stated work ethics, he may become one of the 1%. A little published fact that the liberal media is trying to bury – 80% of the 1% started their own businesses, built them from the ground up. But we don't want people to think they can work hard an be successful. You must receive free hand outs!!!
December 20, 2011 at 3:27 pm
December 20, 2011 at 3:27 pm
Rod C. Venger
I've never made more than $7 an hour in my life...was retired by cancer in 1999...but picked up a nice home (to me) in a 30 year old subdivision in Colorado Springs back in 1986 for just under $50,000. Price have gone up but so have wages. If I sold my 850k home in L.A., 1700 sq ft, I could buy 4 of those here in Bryan Texas with the same money. This isn't a small town...Bryan/College Station together add up to close to 250,000 people. Dump your toys with their 2 year plans and save that money instead. Realize too that most of the US is nothing like NYC or LA. Oddly there's a link between liberal cities and absurdly high real estate. There's more to the US than the place you wake up to every morning. Opportunities are everywhere.
December 20, 2011 at 1:44 pm
December 20, 2011 at 1:44 pm
Anonymous
Forming moralizing judgments about what is right for the masses is a common liberal pastime ... even as most of them go home to cozy 19th century homes with charm and character.
2/17/2012 1:25 PM CST
2/17/2012 1:25 PM CST
Anonymous
There's ample evidence that these ill-informed speculations lead nowhere. Not anywhere useful anyway. But speculation is easier than dealing with hard facts and the practical exigencies of real design for real people. (There's nothing a liberal academic hates more than a fact. Acknowledging facts undermines the whole basis for their existence in the fantasy land that is architectural academia.) So let's stop humoring these self-serving, compost-dome loving con artists. There's more newsworthy architecture out there if Record would get some sense and seek it out.
2/16/2012 6:23 PM CST
2/16/2012 6:23 PM CST
Anonymous
The article claims - "The theme of the show is the disconnect between the housing Americans need and the housing America offers."
I think you mean - "The theme of the show is the disconnect between the housing Americans need and the half-baked elitist ideas that pretentious liberal academics would like to impose on them."
R.D. Caldora, New York City
2/15/2012 5:58 PM CST
I think you mean - "The theme of the show is the disconnect between the housing Americans need and the half-baked elitist ideas that pretentious liberal academics would like to impose on them."
R.D. Caldora, New York City
2/15/2012 5:58 PM CST
Anonymous
God, just another example of the liberal agenda. Seriously they want to make us live in weird shapes and they don't mention of Jesus anywhere. Can we please go back to Gothic Architecture and creationism.
2/15/2012 4:23 PM CST
2/15/2012 4:23 PM CST
Anonymous
There are many real examples where former "fringe" industrial areas have been reappropriated for residential use. London's Canary Wharf (docklands) and New York's SoHo and Williamsburg areas (warehousing), are good examples. Often it was artists and students seeking low-cost housing at the perifery that created the beach head for the later urban development. But Free Market forces drove these initiatives both at the begining (students) and at the end (yuppies).
Quasi-intellectual architect-driven initiatives have rarely had the same positive result. Almost a century of bombastic architectural "visions' from Corb's plan to level Paris, to Pruitt-Igoe and beyond have repeatedly shown that many architects know less about how people really want to live than do the developers they so easily criticize. So much for the fruits of half-baked liberal thinking rooted in "speculation" rather than informed analysis. Typically, the more theoretically driven the project, the worse were the results. - QED "Foreclosure".
2/15/2012 12:50 PM CST
Quasi-intellectual architect-driven initiatives have rarely had the same positive result. Almost a century of bombastic architectural "visions' from Corb's plan to level Paris, to Pruitt-Igoe and beyond have repeatedly shown that many architects know less about how people really want to live than do the developers they so easily criticize. So much for the fruits of half-baked liberal thinking rooted in "speculation" rather than informed analysis. Typically, the more theoretically driven the project, the worse were the results. - QED "Foreclosure".
2/15/2012 12:50 PM CST
Anonymous
Taking cheap pot shots at McMansions smacks of jealousy more than anything else. Would any of these architects turn down the opportunity to design a 18,000 square foot home ... or to live in one if they could afford it?
One of the beauties of the American Dream is that people can aspire to living in a large home, or a cave if they so prefer. The unilateral imposition of small standardized homes on the masses is an idea best left to the few countries that still embrace the mistaken ideology that was Communism. If these rather naive architects are so committed to that concepts they endorse for others, then I suggest they emmigrate to a former Soviet Bloc country where they will feel more fulfilled. They should take their hypocrisy with them. It has no place in the US.
2/14/2012 6:41 PM CST
One of the beauties of the American Dream is that people can aspire to living in a large home, or a cave if they so prefer. The unilateral imposition of small standardized homes on the masses is an idea best left to the few countries that still embrace the mistaken ideology that was Communism. If these rather naive architects are so committed to that concepts they endorse for others, then I suggest they emmigrate to a former Soviet Bloc country where they will feel more fulfilled. They should take their hypocrisy with them. It has no place in the US.
2/14/2012 6:41 PM CST
Anonymous
Wasn't it left-wing, socialist, eggheady liberal architects that gave us projects like Pruit-Igoe (and a host of comparable crime-infested dumps still standing)? Why do some architects refuse to learn from these mistakes? - Don't answer, but while you're scratching your head, I'd like to welcome the latest generation of architectural lemmings to the cliff face now. WORKac and MOS, let's start with you please. Go on, jump ... you can do it!
2/14/2012 2:34 PM CST
2/14/2012 2:34 PM CST
Anonymous
So much spin and hate on the “Architectural Record”? It looks like student Occupiers have broadened their opinions to include architecture/planning!! I actually feel sorry for them and agree with those who believe that even misplaced, but uncorrupted, passion is better than apathy. But your view of our future is sadly UnAmerican and something that will handicap your life until you wise up.
“Anti Socialists”, “healthy cities” – hilarious! “Eggheady liberal architects”!? LOL Oh how you flatter yourselves! Inexperienced, academic, myopic, global warming eco hustlers who don’t understand the environment, fossil fuels/energy economy, national defense, US economy, our history or American Exceptionalism means that you are incapable of comprehending our future, which robs you of any basis for design. …so as a result we get vanity nonsense like this. ..and wishes for socialism as Athens burns in the wake of spastic entitlement class withdrawal.
Americans were not “given” anything; planning is not a socialist activity in the United States; and the diversity of planning across the country varies from tragic to excellent – something some writing here are obviously unaware of, living in a generation of under-educated, arrogant skepticism of forces you don’t understand.
Market forces drive change, a natural process arrogant socialists have no patience for. You are confused and angry because of the lies you tell yourselves and the turmoil that results. For example: there is no place for over-priced boutique wind/solar power (creates a job killing prosperity tax); oil is cheap and plentiful for hundreds of years; electric cars have already been rejected by the market; human controlled global weather is nonsense (global warming); landfills are a business like any other; recycling is, with few exceptions, just more manufacturing; and you have been betrayed by those who have taught you much of your lives. No matter what eco fantasy world you want to inhabit, everything I’ve written is dead on and there’s not a thing your hatful confusion can do about it.
Take some comfort in knowing that, for better or worse, you are not wise enough to begin to understand our future.
2/14/2012 11:29 AM CST
“Anti Socialists”, “healthy cities” – hilarious! “Eggheady liberal architects”!? LOL Oh how you flatter yourselves! Inexperienced, academic, myopic, global warming eco hustlers who don’t understand the environment, fossil fuels/energy economy, national defense, US economy, our history or American Exceptionalism means that you are incapable of comprehending our future, which robs you of any basis for design. …so as a result we get vanity nonsense like this. ..and wishes for socialism as Athens burns in the wake of spastic entitlement class withdrawal.
Americans were not “given” anything; planning is not a socialist activity in the United States; and the diversity of planning across the country varies from tragic to excellent – something some writing here are obviously unaware of, living in a generation of under-educated, arrogant skepticism of forces you don’t understand.
Market forces drive change, a natural process arrogant socialists have no patience for. You are confused and angry because of the lies you tell yourselves and the turmoil that results. For example: there is no place for over-priced boutique wind/solar power (creates a job killing prosperity tax); oil is cheap and plentiful for hundreds of years; electric cars have already been rejected by the market; human controlled global weather is nonsense (global warming); landfills are a business like any other; recycling is, with few exceptions, just more manufacturing; and you have been betrayed by those who have taught you much of your lives. No matter what eco fantasy world you want to inhabit, everything I’ve written is dead on and there’s not a thing your hatful confusion can do about it.
Take some comfort in knowing that, for better or worse, you are not wise enough to begin to understand our future.
2/14/2012 11:29 AM CST
Anonymous
The problem: Americans were given what they wanted in terms of market economy-based city planning for decades, and "eggheady" liberal architects and planners were ignored.
The solution (according to the people responding to this article): Ignore the "eggheady" liberal architects and do what the American people want: ie more of the same.
No wonder America is so incompetent when it comes to healthy cities. Only a small minority of intelligent liberal green architects and planners embrace a healthy productive path forward, and an overwhelming majority of ignorant architects and free market thinkers couldn't care less or think the solution to the problem is to ignore the solutions and embrace the problem as the only answer - I guess because Ronald Reagan told them to (during a period in his life when he had a debilitating mental illness I might add).
2/13/2012 5:40 PM CST
The solution (according to the people responding to this article): Ignore the "eggheady" liberal architects and do what the American people want: ie more of the same.
No wonder America is so incompetent when it comes to healthy cities. Only a small minority of intelligent liberal green architects and planners embrace a healthy productive path forward, and an overwhelming majority of ignorant architects and free market thinkers couldn't care less or think the solution to the problem is to ignore the solutions and embrace the problem as the only answer - I guess because Ronald Reagan told them to (during a period in his life when he had a debilitating mental illness I might add).
2/13/2012 5:40 PM CST
Anonymous
It's always amusing to read the anti-socialist nonsense from bloggers in response to articles like this. Urban planning is a socialist activity, and should be proud of it. It's about limiting the damage that developers do. Every country in the world that has a healthy urban and suburban planning system is either fully Socialist or a Social Democracy. The reason America has been so incompetent in terms of planning is precisely because of the "Big Lie" that the markets should decide how development occurs. The market is just a synonym for "the rich" in our modern economy. They're the ones doing the buying that developers want a piece of. The issue of planning in architecture is by definition a question of whether sensible Socialist policies will begin to be adopted in America or not. If not, then America will continue to fail in terms of responsible planning. There's no magic bullet, no way of playing along with the market economy to get around that fact. It's either embrace some Socialist policies, or don't plan anything. The laissez-faire capitalists of course want to disguise that reality, but it's there regardless. The welfare of the 99% will be ignored in modern America, unless via politics and therefore planning they make their voices heard. End of story.
2/13/2012 5:22 PM CST
2/13/2012 5:22 PM CST
Anonymous
This is a terrific question for the design community but “Academics” are not equipped to address it because by definition they are insulated from the market forces that drive these questions.
Their design responses always seem to find answers in central planning socialism (or communism) where the lord in charge decrees how the little people shall live. In the context of the greatest economy on earth, these solutions always vary from amusing and trendy to useless. Ironically and predictably, the housing solutions generated by real world socialists and communists are among the worst on the planet!
Two years ago I outlined a grant project to design and build "the next American Home" using an award winning, very expensive, AE design and development team that no market rate home owner could ever afford. My local region's weather, utility rates, standard of living, aesthetic sensibilities and real estate market would all form the basis for this project. Once constructed, it would be leased and its overall performance measured over years – including elements like comfort, pride of ownership and livability in addition to the boring engineering stuff like energy performance.
The goal would be to offer a platform for the next generation of America’s homebuilders to reference when that industry recovers. I will not give away all the beans because I may resurrect it someday but needless to say, even in this economy I became too busy to fuss around with it.
2/13/2012 4:12 PM CST
Their design responses always seem to find answers in central planning socialism (or communism) where the lord in charge decrees how the little people shall live. In the context of the greatest economy on earth, these solutions always vary from amusing and trendy to useless. Ironically and predictably, the housing solutions generated by real world socialists and communists are among the worst on the planet!
Two years ago I outlined a grant project to design and build "the next American Home" using an award winning, very expensive, AE design and development team that no market rate home owner could ever afford. My local region's weather, utility rates, standard of living, aesthetic sensibilities and real estate market would all form the basis for this project. Once constructed, it would be leased and its overall performance measured over years – including elements like comfort, pride of ownership and livability in addition to the boring engineering stuff like energy performance.
The goal would be to offer a platform for the next generation of America’s homebuilders to reference when that industry recovers. I will not give away all the beans because I may resurrect it someday but needless to say, even in this economy I became too busy to fuss around with it.
2/13/2012 4:12 PM CST
oboe
I think the more extreme viewpoints including have left people very defensive, and believing things about urbanism that give ammo the antiurbanists, and make their job of persuasion easier.
By way of a comparison: gay people have been struggling for marriage equality for decades now. Many cultural conservatives are very angry about this, and feel their way of life is under assault. It's a difficult thing to persuade them. Frequently, you'll see footage of some gay pride parade somewhere, which is repeated on a loop for the express purpose of stoking this outrage.
Do gay pride parades make arguing for gay marriage more difficult? Of course. But that's not the fundamental problem.
Same goes for environmentalism: if it weren't for that guy with dreadlocks on that college campus somewhere in the midwest who goes on about Gaia, would folks like George Will have signed on to "cap and trade" by now?
If no one ever said anything mean about suburban cul-de-sacs on GGW, do you think the Randall O'Toole's of the world would cease talking about shadowy urbanists trying to take away your car? Or UN initiatives that threaten our freedom? After all, that's where your average "man on the street" gets such nonsense, not because they read some urbanist gadfly in the comments section of an obscure blog somewhere.
C'mon. Municipalities are trying to retrofit to urbanism because the experts feel they don't have a choice, long-term. But industries (and that includes conservative political parties) that benefit from suburban sprawl will fight with every fiber of their being to prevent that from happening. Do you really think the Rush Limbaughs of the world are going to find TOD religion if the David Alperts of the world start praising ample parking?
Sure there are individuals with essentially zero influence who bad-mouth suburbia, and that may register with the very, very few people who read GGW, but in the larger debate, they're hardly even background noise.
Feb 22, 2012 11:47 am
By way of a comparison: gay people have been struggling for marriage equality for decades now. Many cultural conservatives are very angry about this, and feel their way of life is under assault. It's a difficult thing to persuade them. Frequently, you'll see footage of some gay pride parade somewhere, which is repeated on a loop for the express purpose of stoking this outrage.
Do gay pride parades make arguing for gay marriage more difficult? Of course. But that's not the fundamental problem.
Same goes for environmentalism: if it weren't for that guy with dreadlocks on that college campus somewhere in the midwest who goes on about Gaia, would folks like George Will have signed on to "cap and trade" by now?
If no one ever said anything mean about suburban cul-de-sacs on GGW, do you think the Randall O'Toole's of the world would cease talking about shadowy urbanists trying to take away your car? Or UN initiatives that threaten our freedom? After all, that's where your average "man on the street" gets such nonsense, not because they read some urbanist gadfly in the comments section of an obscure blog somewhere.
C'mon. Municipalities are trying to retrofit to urbanism because the experts feel they don't have a choice, long-term. But industries (and that includes conservative political parties) that benefit from suburban sprawl will fight with every fiber of their being to prevent that from happening. Do you really think the Rush Limbaughs of the world are going to find TOD religion if the David Alperts of the world start praising ample parking?
Sure there are individuals with essentially zero influence who bad-mouth suburbia, and that may register with the very, very few people who read GGW, but in the larger debate, they're hardly even background noise.
Feb 22, 2012 11:47 am
AWalkerInTheCity
@oboe
Im not concerned about randall otoole and Rush limbaugh - Im concerned about my neighbors in Fairfax county. And yes, they do hear the memes floating around - GGW may have a small audience, but they see this stuff in City Data, in City Paper, etc, etc.
WRT to gay pride parades - presumably they help individuals finding their identities. I presume urbanists have no such needs, as a general rule.
And yeah, I would suggest that over the top environmentalism ("industry must die" types) DO impact the conversation on cap and trade.
yes, there are powerful lobbies against the kinds of changes a place like FFX needs. There are ALSO powerful lobbies for, including owners of land that is suitable for high density development. When those powerful forces clash, the inclinations of the citizenry can matter. And yes, the belief by some folks who dont listen to Rush that urbanism is about demonizing their way of life, is an obstacle.
Feb 22, 2012 11:58 am
Im not concerned about randall otoole and Rush limbaugh - Im concerned about my neighbors in Fairfax county. And yes, they do hear the memes floating around - GGW may have a small audience, but they see this stuff in City Data, in City Paper, etc, etc.
WRT to gay pride parades - presumably they help individuals finding their identities. I presume urbanists have no such needs, as a general rule.
And yeah, I would suggest that over the top environmentalism ("industry must die" types) DO impact the conversation on cap and trade.
yes, there are powerful lobbies against the kinds of changes a place like FFX needs. There are ALSO powerful lobbies for, including owners of land that is suitable for high density development. When those powerful forces clash, the inclinations of the citizenry can matter. And yes, the belief by some folks who dont listen to Rush that urbanism is about demonizing their way of life, is an obstacle.
Feb 22, 2012 11:58 am
This is just as much a government-spawned mess as the mortgage crisis itself. When you bring up the idea of stateless societies, one of the very first things people ask is “What about infrastructure and roads?” The answer is that a stateless society would have a very different physical setup. Roads may be needed a lot less…or not at all.
We would argue that neither case is true. We would argue that suburban sprawl is a horribly inefficient (i.e. unsustainably expensive) physical arrangement that free markets would never have allowed to develop the way it did.
For Martin, the vitriol on the Internet illustrates how public discourse on housing crumbles at its foundation. “What hasn’t been asked is, what is the role of the government in addressing the housing crisis?” Martin says. “Again, that’s a question we’re barely able to enunciate in public because of the stigmas associated with public housing and the durability of the fetish of the single-family home. You can see from some of the reactions that we were denounced for asking that. There was a certain amount of name-calling. That is not surprising, but it’s interesting; event though these are hypothetical projects, they draw out the political contours of the country. They draw out different strategies: more activist strategies that consider this to be fiddling while Rome burns, purely academic speculation that doesn’t take into account the voices of the people who would actually live in these places.
Of course, for an idea to be sustainable, it also has to be realistic. Much of the MoMA show fails that criterion miserably. Orange, N.J., is not going to build long strings of apartments in the middle of its streets, as suggested by MOS Architects’ Michael Meredith, AIA, and Hilary Sample, AIA. Neither is Keizer, Ore., going to bite on huge towers of three-story homes teetering atop each other—complete with indoor waterfalls—as put forward by Amale Andraos and Dan Wood, AIA, of Work AC. And are those elephants that Andrew Zago dropped in the backyards of Rialto, Calif.? Yes, they really are.
Anonymous
In a world with an ever diminishing attention span, notoriety is best achieved with one-liner gimmicks featuring a calculated mix of simplistic graphics, pseudo-intellectual pretension and the requisite shock value that appeals primarily to adolescents. Fashionable nonsense and superficiality trumps substance every time. We’ve seen it from Ville Radieuse to Pruitt Igoe and to other slums designed by self-styled “intellectuals” lacking the compassion and talent to create meaningful places and homes. ‘Foreclosed’, the latest incarnation of ill-informed ideas rooted in the abstract ruminations of amateurs with (mostly) little or no real world building experience, fits this sad mold exactly. Remarkable principally for its lack of insight in the research and dignity on the end products, it comes across as the work of self-indulgent poseurs proposing novelty for novelty’s sake as though ‘invention’ is somehow synonymous with ‘solution’. Candy-colored shape-making is offered in lieu of sincerity.
The use of charged buzzwords words and phrases like “activist” and “socially or environmentally conscious dimension” suggests some serious import where none is evident in the work itself. It is a common liberal ploy to distract from any more intuitive thought processes that would likely conclude that these ill-conceived experiments will almost certainly be the slums of tomorrow.
Dr. D.S. Abrams
New York City
3/23/2012 12:31 PM CDT
The use of charged buzzwords words and phrases like “activist” and “socially or environmentally conscious dimension” suggests some serious import where none is evident in the work itself. It is a common liberal ploy to distract from any more intuitive thought processes that would likely conclude that these ill-conceived experiments will almost certainly be the slums of tomorrow.
Dr. D.S. Abrams
New York City
3/23/2012 12:31 PM CDT
GrahaPeterson
Mar 5th 2012, 22:32
My roomie is a fan of central-planned designs to beautify cities. I was always skeptical based on libertarian principle. Now I'm just mystified anyone let these people out of high-school.
My roomie is a fan of central-planned designs to beautify cities. I was always skeptical based on libertarian principle. Now I'm just mystified anyone let these people out of high-school.
Chris, London
4/3/2012 16:45
Of course it's rubbish and will never get built. I have an American friend who is an architect and he tells me that due to the economic situation unemployment amongst architects is exceptionally high maybe 50%. This is probably just a marketing ploy by the company to get their name in the headlines by being controversial, similar ploys are used by artists to get their names around and create a level of recognition in the so called liberal elite who always know what is best for everyone else.
Of course it's rubbish and will never get built. I have an American friend who is an architect and he tells me that due to the economic situation unemployment amongst architects is exceptionally high maybe 50%. This is probably just a marketing ploy by the company to get their name in the headlines by being controversial, similar ploys are used by artists to get their names around and create a level of recognition in the so called liberal elite who always know what is best for everyone else.
Yves Harlow, MO, USA
3/3/2012 18:24
Bleak. They look like prison blocks - only condos instead of cells. This certainly looks like part of the NWO/Agenda 21 propaganda, and brings the film "Camp FEMA" to mind. Please watch this documentary on YouTube. They just want to herd us up like cattle...
Bleak. They look like prison blocks - only condos instead of cells. This certainly looks like part of the NWO/Agenda 21 propaganda, and brings the film "Camp FEMA" to mind. Please watch this documentary on YouTube. They just want to herd us up like cattle...
tom bowden, perth australia
3/3/2012 16:22
Looks like PR for Agenda 21 aka Smart Cities, Sustainable Living, Plannedopolis etc, nice pack 'em and stack 'em blocks close to PUBLIC transit, suggest cars and private property a thing of the past, American Dream or NWO nightmare? If you are going to seduce us with slick packaging and sophisticated propaganda, do try to make it slick or half sophisticated, this is embarrassingly see through.
Looks like PR for Agenda 21 aka Smart Cities, Sustainable Living, Plannedopolis etc, nice pack 'em and stack 'em blocks close to PUBLIC transit, suggest cars and private property a thing of the past, American Dream or NWO nightmare? If you are going to seduce us with slick packaging and sophisticated propaganda, do try to make it slick or half sophisticated, this is embarrassingly see through.
pat, cleveland
3/3/2012 11:22
my local Socialist council "has this dream" about one of our sea side towns that looks like Beirut on a bad day, ......dream on, dream on!
Rating 50
my local Socialist council "has this dream" about one of our sea side towns that looks like Beirut on a bad day, ......dream on, dream on!
Rating 50
SV: What is MoMA doing putting on such an obviously political exhibit? What are they doing?
AU: The Museum of Modern Art has a tradition of putting on---
Sandra Smith [blonde]: I was going to say, artists are never political.
SV: It's always the elite telling the rest of us how we should live, isn't it?
AU: No, it's---
SV: Always.
AU: No, in fact, the state of California is enacting zoning policies to make suburbs more dense. You know, and the Wall Street Journal just pointed out last week that they are trying to, instead of having four houses per acre, they're going to have twenty houses per acre.
AU: The Museum of Modern Art has a tradition of putting on---
Sandra Smith [blonde]: I was going to say, artists are never political.
SV: It's always the elite telling the rest of us how we should live, isn't it?
AU: No, it's---
SV: Always.
AU: No, in fact, the state of California is enacting zoning policies to make suburbs more dense. You know, and the Wall Street Journal just pointed out last week that they are trying to, instead of having four houses per acre, they're going to have twenty houses per acre.
Or as the financier put it, “It’s like a commune, except that no one is standing around playing hacky sack.” Maybe he meant Frisbee, but no matter. It’s interesting that it took an expert in finance to see the genuinely visionary idea that’s buried deep in this exhibition. I don’t think the models that fill most of the gallery have the power to upend convention—at this point, it would take a pretty outrageous architectural idea to shake up a MoMA visitor. However, given the paranoid tenor of our time, in which the president is routinely accused of being a socialist for bailing out Chrysler, and Tea Party types commonly regard efforts to reduce sprawl as a United Nations–driven attack on our freedoms, a museum show proposing the collective ownership of front lawns is wonderfully and unexpectedly subversive.
At ADPSR we agree with much of Prof. Martin’s analysis. As an organization — and also as individual practitioners — we too are dismayed by the unceasing rollback of social welfare programs (to cite just one example: here in cash-strapped California, the epicenter of the taxpayers revolt in the 1970s, legislators have recently eliminated all of the state's almost 400 redevelopment agencies) and by the right-wing and libertarian attack on the idea that government can be a locus of collective action and shared values. The steady and intensifying dismantling of American public housing — as exemplified not just by the demolition of Pruitt-Igoe but also by the wholesale destruction in the past decade of Chicago's postwar high-rise public housing — is certainly part of this rollback. And we would go even further: we believe it’s important to restore the perceived worth of public housing in order to validate and implement the fundamental human right to housing. Understanding the project of public housing within the larger human rights framework will advance Prof. Martin's position and help architects (and civilians) appreciate the value of Foreclosed as well. It will also expose the misbegotten faith in "individualism," which has distorted the politics of human rights.
HUFFPOST SUPER USER, psnyder325, Yep, I'm a Socialist. Deal., 1429 Fans
05:02 AM on 07/23/2012
We need a sea change in American attitudes before anything will change. First, does everyone really need a lawnmower ALL OF THEIR OWN?? Pooled resources would help a great deal. And why do people need so much land? We live in a patio home with a small back yard and very small front yard. It is more environmentally responsible. Then there is the trend to obscenely large houses. Does a couple with no children really NEED a 5K sf house? It is environmentally irresponsible to have such a house. Look at the wasted space and energy.
We must get past the concept of individualism and "what's here for me" and into the concept of sharing in our communities and doing what is best for all of us. The Republicans, of course, don't play well with others and want their individual "rights" regardless of how damaging it is to the community. In the end, it is unlikely that anything will be done that is intelligent until we're falling completely apart. Individualism is the curse of humanity.....and may well be the end of it.
We need a sea change in American attitudes before anything will change. First, does everyone really need a lawnmower ALL OF THEIR OWN?? Pooled resources would help a great deal. And why do people need so much land? We live in a patio home with a small back yard and very small front yard. It is more environmentally responsible. Then there is the trend to obscenely large houses. Does a couple with no children really NEED a 5K sf house? It is environmentally irresponsible to have such a house. Look at the wasted space and energy.
We must get past the concept of individualism and "what's here for me" and into the concept of sharing in our communities and doing what is best for all of us. The Republicans, of course, don't play well with others and want their individual "rights" regardless of how damaging it is to the community. In the end, it is unlikely that anything will be done that is intelligent until we're falling completely apart. Individualism is the curse of humanity.....and may well be the end of it.
bookreader451, "You can't ever have my books," she said., 1032 Fans
06:34 AM on 07/23/2012
So you would let Romney and his ilk continue to use every available loophole and remove the largest middle class tax tax exemption? You are pert of the problem, not the solution.
So you would let Romney and his ilk continue to use every available loophole and remove the largest middle class tax tax exemption? You are pert of the problem, not the solution.
Reinhold Martin: So it’s an election year. The question is, really, as people kind of operating around municipal and regional public sectors, what it would take to move this discussion we’re having in the big city here out into America, broadly construed whether we’re calling that “suburbia” or not. In other words, out into a space, a sphere, a site of discussion, in which the underlying values are on the table in a manner that is at least comparable to the way the practice of finance is currently on the table or the way, say, healthcare was on the table a few years ago. It’s quite striking that, during an election year after four years of this crisis, housing is still not on the table. What do you think?
BL: One of the things I thought to do in preparation for this talk was to chart, from the Bush administration through the Obama administration, the number of times the word “housing” appears in the State of the Union address. I got really depressed, so I stopped. In essence—again, because it is so polarizing, and I can’t wait to see what they said on Fox News—you’re going to have to wait until December. You’re going to have to wait until he gets reelected. You’re going to have to wait until Shaun Donovan has four more years. Then we can start to have a meaningful discussion. But until then, I don’t think anything that you put on the national political agenda that talks about “public” or “housing” other than possibly bailing out mortgages and/or bailing out more bank —I don’t know how that’s going to gain any traction or do anything other than alienate more voters. But once December comes, then it’s a different story.
MJ: I wouldn’t disagree with that. I think there’s a curious rupture between the importance of housing in our lives and the importance of it in the political discourse, if you will. I think in New York City there are two things that are important to New Yorkers: real estate and romance. And real estate inevitably trumps romance. “Who’s got the right rent-stabilized apartment? I’ll take that one!” “Ok, you’re moving in with me. I’m not moving in with you.” Here it is so central to our lives. Go to a party in a single-family house in a neighborhood or something: “So, did you hear the house down the street went for so-many dollars?” It dominates our conversation in so many ways, and yet it’s so difficult for it to enter into the discussion even in the aftermath of this colossal, this calamity that has occurred. […] In some ways, when it gets into the public policy realm, it’s like “My eyes glaze over.” I’m talking about QRMs [Qualified Residential Mortgages], and you’re falling asleep. Let’s admit it. It is hard. It’s really hard to raise this issue in an effective manner.
BL: One of the things I thought to do in preparation for this talk was to chart, from the Bush administration through the Obama administration, the number of times the word “housing” appears in the State of the Union address. I got really depressed, so I stopped. In essence—again, because it is so polarizing, and I can’t wait to see what they said on Fox News—you’re going to have to wait until December. You’re going to have to wait until he gets reelected. You’re going to have to wait until Shaun Donovan has four more years. Then we can start to have a meaningful discussion. But until then, I don’t think anything that you put on the national political agenda that talks about “public” or “housing” other than possibly bailing out mortgages and/or bailing out more bank —I don’t know how that’s going to gain any traction or do anything other than alienate more voters. But once December comes, then it’s a different story.
MJ: I wouldn’t disagree with that. I think there’s a curious rupture between the importance of housing in our lives and the importance of it in the political discourse, if you will. I think in New York City there are two things that are important to New Yorkers: real estate and romance. And real estate inevitably trumps romance. “Who’s got the right rent-stabilized apartment? I’ll take that one!” “Ok, you’re moving in with me. I’m not moving in with you.” Here it is so central to our lives. Go to a party in a single-family house in a neighborhood or something: “So, did you hear the house down the street went for so-many dollars?” It dominates our conversation in so many ways, and yet it’s so difficult for it to enter into the discussion even in the aftermath of this colossal, this calamity that has occurred. […] In some ways, when it gets into the public policy realm, it’s like “My eyes glaze over.” I’m talking about QRMs [Qualified Residential Mortgages], and you’re falling asleep. Let’s admit it. It is hard. It’s really hard to raise this issue in an effective manner.
SheilaKhani
Progressives_LoveAmerica, great idea! but not the same gov't that bailed them out - may be a pro socialist gov't
The Market (149)
03 May, 2011 - (@AzureMagazine)
Join us Saturday May 7, 2:00-6:00pm for Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream Symposium http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/events/12430
Andrés Duany
5. “Zago vehemently attacked Dunham-Jones and New Urbanism for not having produced a single piece of ‘significant’ architecture, asking when they would give up in failure.”
Andrew Zago has achieved a new level of ignorance regarding the New Urbanism. I searched the net for a picture of him and was surprised to find that he does not look quite as slack-jawed stupid as he sounds, even though appearance is apparently how he judges substance.
Now (LORD grant me patience!), “significant” architecture is not really how New Urbanists keep score. We do so in many other ways: how many cars not bought; how many vehicle miles reduced; how much transit supported; how much carbon not spewed into the atmosphere; how many children and old folk walk to their daily needs; how much infrastructure cost saved; how much less expended on the delivery of municipal services; how many HOPE VI houses cherished by their residents; how much real estate value created; how many total acres under design (either as New Urbanist communities or through form-based codes); how many downtowns revitalized; how much choice available regionally to those whom suburbia does not serve well; and so on.
But Architect Zago keeps score by other means — like securing the good opinion of about a half-dozen critics in Los Angeles and New York. Indeed, he operates in a world so marginal that I need to be reminded of its existence, monthly, by Metropolis.
That his statement was thoroughly engaged by Director Martin, rather than being ignored as the antics of a simpleton, shows what kind of emissions pass for discourse in academia these days.
But let’s have a look at it from Architect Zago’s point of view. It turns out that even by the tight little standards of his world, and within just one little project (Seaside), there might be as much “significant” architecture as Architect Zago himself might hope to achieve in a lifetime. Seaside has Steve Holl’s first large building. Machado/Silvetti’s first large building. The first buildings (at least three each, and darn good, too) of Deborah Berke, Alex Gorlin, and Walter Chatham. The only building of Roger Ferri. The first building of Leon Krier. The only American house by Aldo Rossi. A wonderfully melancholic house by Sam Mockbee. Clever and charming pavilions by Michael McDonough, Stuart Cohen and Jersey Devil. A national AIA award-winning and gorgeous church by Scott Merrill. And those are only some of the modernism by the “names,” not all the best buildings.
Architect Zago is doubly ignorant: first of what New Urbanism intends to achieve on its own terms, and then of what it has achieved even on his terms.
Am I to understand that he teaches somewhere?
May 26, 2011, @ 2:49 pm
Andrew Zago has achieved a new level of ignorance regarding the New Urbanism. I searched the net for a picture of him and was surprised to find that he does not look quite as slack-jawed stupid as he sounds, even though appearance is apparently how he judges substance.
Now (LORD grant me patience!), “significant” architecture is not really how New Urbanists keep score. We do so in many other ways: how many cars not bought; how many vehicle miles reduced; how much transit supported; how much carbon not spewed into the atmosphere; how many children and old folk walk to their daily needs; how much infrastructure cost saved; how much less expended on the delivery of municipal services; how many HOPE VI houses cherished by their residents; how much real estate value created; how many total acres under design (either as New Urbanist communities or through form-based codes); how many downtowns revitalized; how much choice available regionally to those whom suburbia does not serve well; and so on.
But Architect Zago keeps score by other means — like securing the good opinion of about a half-dozen critics in Los Angeles and New York. Indeed, he operates in a world so marginal that I need to be reminded of its existence, monthly, by Metropolis.
That his statement was thoroughly engaged by Director Martin, rather than being ignored as the antics of a simpleton, shows what kind of emissions pass for discourse in academia these days.
But let’s have a look at it from Architect Zago’s point of view. It turns out that even by the tight little standards of his world, and within just one little project (Seaside), there might be as much “significant” architecture as Architect Zago himself might hope to achieve in a lifetime. Seaside has Steve Holl’s first large building. Machado/Silvetti’s first large building. The first buildings (at least three each, and darn good, too) of Deborah Berke, Alex Gorlin, and Walter Chatham. The only building of Roger Ferri. The first building of Leon Krier. The only American house by Aldo Rossi. A wonderfully melancholic house by Sam Mockbee. Clever and charming pavilions by Michael McDonough, Stuart Cohen and Jersey Devil. A national AIA award-winning and gorgeous church by Scott Merrill. And those are only some of the modernism by the “names,” not all the best buildings.
Architect Zago is doubly ignorant: first of what New Urbanism intends to achieve on its own terms, and then of what it has achieved even on his terms.
Am I to understand that he teaches somewhere?
May 26, 2011, @ 2:49 pm
Sparks flew indeed. Bookended by moderators Martin and Bergdoll, the respective role of the historian-curator and the curator-historian in Foreclosed was rendered in high relief by their roles in the hot debate. Bergdoll, the curator, cut off the back-and-forth between Dunham-Jones and Sorkin by decoding and imputing clarity in the form of a question that anyone could understand: market-driven or not?
Michael Galileo
JUNE 23, 2011, 4:22 P.M.
Unfortunately, it was a house of cards that could not be sustained because the country wasn’t paying close enough attention. We were building up debt with no R&D for our future. We got involved in expensive wars, and put off stem cell research and genetic engineering. We just sell the world fast food and entertainment now.I actually saw the crash coming, and managed to take advantage of the greed and chaos to find myself as the dust settles in very comfortable digs. I was 15 feet away from John Paulson at a gala last summer and was tempted to speak to him and mention that he and I were the only 2 that I know of that came out ahead from the whole mess. I decided to wait….
Unfortunately, it was a house of cards that could not be sustained because the country wasn’t paying close enough attention. We were building up debt with no R&D for our future. We got involved in expensive wars, and put off stem cell research and genetic engineering. We just sell the world fast food and entertainment now.I actually saw the crash coming, and managed to take advantage of the greed and chaos to find myself as the dust settles in very comfortable digs. I was 15 feet away from John Paulson at a gala last summer and was tempted to speak to him and mention that he and I were the only 2 that I know of that came out ahead from the whole mess. I decided to wait….
Foreclosed is situated in the midst of this drama, which is also playing out around the “American Dream” of suburban home ownership. It asks, gently but firmly: What are the rules by which housing ought to be designed, produced, and made available in the United States? To whom? By whom? To what end? What ought to be the role of governments in these processes? Of markets? Of architecture? Of urbanism?
Maybe you’ve read about what’s been happening lately in classical Athens. Or maybe you’ve heard about legislators in our own, neoclassical capital attempting to negotiate a new federal budget that would be, as The New York Times put it, “credible enough to assure investors worldwide that Washington is getting serious about taking care of its financial health.” Whether it’s the IMF enforcing austerity in Greece, or markets pressuring Congress to cut Medicare, society’s script is being rewritten with draconian new rules.
About four years ago, a latent pattern of unethical, self-interested and surreptitious decision-making reared its head to wreak havoc in the American housing market. Americans were living on a dream buoyed by false hope: we thought we could have it all. But as millions defaulted on mortgages with unmanageable interest rates, made on credit they couldn’t afford to pay off, the country was exposed to the networks of mistrust and corruption that came to define the zeitgeist of today’s financial system.
republic4all
03:04 PM on 08/10/2011
The American Dream has always been based on the freedom to pursue your dreams and the enabler for the American Dream has always been our Constitution, the rule of law, and economic liberty. Our free enterprise system lifted more people out of poverty than any other system this earth has ever known. Government exists to protect your rights and to prevent other people from interfering with your pursuit of these dreams, free of harm.
The American Dream is different for every person in this country. For some it is to own a home. For some it is to have a successful business. Whatever that Dream is to be achieved through your own personal perseverance, drive, determination and responsibility. It's not anybody else's job to deliver your American Dream to your doorstep, and that includes the government. The American government is in the business of protecting the freedom of its citizens to pursue their dreams.
The American Dream has always been based on the freedom to pursue your dreams and the enabler for the American Dream has always been our Constitution, the rule of law, and economic liberty. Our free enterprise system lifted more people out of poverty than any other system this earth has ever known. Government exists to protect your rights and to prevent other people from interfering with your pursuit of these dreams, free of harm.
The American Dream is different for every person in this country. For some it is to own a home. For some it is to have a successful business. Whatever that Dream is to be achieved through your own personal perseverance, drive, determination and responsibility. It's not anybody else's job to deliver your American Dream to your doorstep, and that includes the government. The American government is in the business of protecting the freedom of its citizens to pursue their dreams.
Ron Bananas
10:16 AM on 08/10/2011
Greater minds than mine are crunching the real numbers, but I can tell you here in Clearwater, Florida how things are. A huge downtown revitilization project went bust 3 years ago, beautiful new high rises overlooking the water, selling for $500k to $1M, EMPTY, 90% of downtown business storefronts...EMPTY, many never leased. Small SHOPPING strip centers throughout the whole town, HALF EMPTY.
Each day, I run 3 miles through the area, hundreds of homeless people everywhere, sleeping in bushes, on benches, just horrible and sad.
My local pub has patron who are plumbers, electricians, welders, carpenters, roofers, auto mechanics...half have either lost their jobs or have had hours cut back.
This is reality here, no hope, no change.
Greater minds than mine are crunching the real numbers, but I can tell you here in Clearwater, Florida how things are. A huge downtown revitilization project went bust 3 years ago, beautiful new high rises overlooking the water, selling for $500k to $1M, EMPTY, 90% of downtown business storefronts...EMPTY, many never leased. Small SHOPPING strip centers throughout the whole town, HALF EMPTY.
Each day, I run 3 miles through the area, hundreds of homeless people everywhere, sleeping in bushes, on benches, just horrible and sad.
My local pub has patron who are plumbers, electricians, welders, carpenters, roofers, auto mechanics...half have either lost their jobs or have had hours cut back.
This is reality here, no hope, no change.
Mayra Guerra
JANUARY 19, 2012, 7:42 P.M.
It is our Post-Modern condition. We have focused so much in ‘consuming’ that it has made us forget about the true meaning of ‘design’. Designers have forgotten about their social purpose, and have focused on the consumer driving tools to fulfill people’s desires. However, not everything is lost. I feel that modernism is coming back strong once again because is becoming a necessity of our future societies.
It is our Post-Modern condition. We have focused so much in ‘consuming’ that it has made us forget about the true meaning of ‘design’. Designers have forgotten about their social purpose, and have focused on the consumer driving tools to fulfill people’s desires. However, not everything is lost. I feel that modernism is coming back strong once again because is becoming a necessity of our future societies.
Carol Gregor
AUGUST 17, 2011, 4:01 P.M.
I am afraid design has lost touch with the sacred. Solutions that do not revere our connection and dependence on nature are Band-Aids. Foreclosure is the result of a capitalist business model on two fronts. First, homes are built on inexpensive land that require infrastructure. Less expensive than infill, the market is sold a bigger is better value, demeaning the essence of design itself. Inexpensive, huge homes have destroyed millions of acres of farmland and aquifers and are ready to do so again after the recession is over regardless of what you do at MoMA. These homes are expensive and are deteriorating rapidly. Second, a failed industry at the core is not in a position to repair itself without a new revolutionary system approach only slightly identified in LEED and the Green Building initiative.
There must be a return to the building practices from the past that had one core leader in the design and delivery process. Trained as an engineer, these master builders were schooled in a natural, sacred geometric methodology that was philosophical and practical. The difference between this and our existing 3 tiered architect, engineer and builder approach is innate conflict.
A building is a sacred thing, manifest from nature and in accordance with her underlying principles. Until we regain this relationship, any attempts to solve our nightmare of expensive, cheap, environmentally dysfunctional buildings will be superficial. A much deeper view of the problem is the challenge and the work is philosophical,spiritual,professional and health related.
I am afraid design has lost touch with the sacred. Solutions that do not revere our connection and dependence on nature are Band-Aids. Foreclosure is the result of a capitalist business model on two fronts. First, homes are built on inexpensive land that require infrastructure. Less expensive than infill, the market is sold a bigger is better value, demeaning the essence of design itself. Inexpensive, huge homes have destroyed millions of acres of farmland and aquifers and are ready to do so again after the recession is over regardless of what you do at MoMA. These homes are expensive and are deteriorating rapidly. Second, a failed industry at the core is not in a position to repair itself without a new revolutionary system approach only slightly identified in LEED and the Green Building initiative.
There must be a return to the building practices from the past that had one core leader in the design and delivery process. Trained as an engineer, these master builders were schooled in a natural, sacred geometric methodology that was philosophical and practical. The difference between this and our existing 3 tiered architect, engineer and builder approach is innate conflict.
A building is a sacred thing, manifest from nature and in accordance with her underlying principles. Until we regain this relationship, any attempts to solve our nightmare of expensive, cheap, environmentally dysfunctional buildings will be superficial. A much deeper view of the problem is the challenge and the work is philosophical,spiritual,professional and health related.
I am not among those who believe that we are currently experiencing a temporary downturn; nor that we need simply to wait it out. I am no economist, political scientist or financial analyst. But it is now abundantly clear — to any who follow the information revealed by each new excavation of our assumptions brought on by the global financial crisis — that there were ample signs that the old euphoria was untethered to reality long before the band ceased to play, that many of the causes are structural rather than ephemeral. We are living through a paradigm shift as fundamental as that launched in the early 1980s, when the Reagan and Thatcher revolutions in the English-speaking world set in motion the dual doctrines of the unregulated market and the winnowing of government’s role in large-scale planning for the public good (even as the public sector has continued to grow); and with the accelerated march of globalization that followed the thawing of the Cold War, these privatizing doctrines have become international. What is certain is that we need to be thinking of new ways of intervening in the world rather than waiting for things to return to a "normalcy" that has receded into history — and this is nowhere truer than in architecture and design.
And despite the fact that interpretations of Matta-Clark's work have tended more toward the sculptural and kinesthetic than the semiotic, his building cuts can be understood in the context of a similar interest in the commercialized symbolism of the suburban house. "Architecture is a big business," he told an interviewer in Arts Magazine in May 1976, going on to criticize an "industry that profligates suburban . . . boxes as a context for insuring a passive, isolated consumer."
Jennifer Chung · Birkbeck, University of London
The intertwined modern relations between museums and capitalism is probably mostly the governments' fault across the globe. The versatility of the name of art provided endless potential for private company to back a show or even an institution. Fronting for things has become basic survival skills for modern museums (need not to mention those privately owned mega museum brands). When the states traded glorious fiscal reports and balance sheets with the greater good of humanity, museums were like being exposed to a new kind of lethal virus.... 'mutation' is the key for survival, either museums look the other way and suck it up or close its doors.
The only way to fight this would be to have mainstream media to spread article and discussion like this piece, so people would actually paid more attention and begin to question things.
November 21, 2011 at 9:58pm
The only way to fight this would be to have mainstream media to spread article and discussion like this piece, so people would actually paid more attention and begin to question things.
November 21, 2011 at 9:58pm
How do we parse socially engaged art and urban interventions when they are simultaneously museum programming and automobile branding? Business investment and corporate philanthropy have long been important to the Americanway of life, but the placement of company names in the public realm has also come to embody the powerlessness of ordinary citizens to exercise control over public processes. The capture of these practices by elite cultural institutions threatens to empty them of their socially engaged function and turn them into a sideshow. At the same time, museums have the capacity to provide much-needed access to resources for this type of work and apply it usefully to their own communities. One only needs to look back on MoMA’s legendary postwar exhibitions on housing and modern architectureto see the power of this kind of involvement.
I am looking forward to the Foreclosed show at MoMA, even if some of the connections in this article seem a little forced. I am not sure Frampton / IAUS’s Low Rise High Density project was about suburbanization exactly, or just non-monolithic, mat building type design. I don’t think it addressed the links between capital and buildings, which are the root of the foreclosure crisis. I do have the documents from the CCA laying around here so I should read more closely. Either way, I am eager to see how the teams of designers re-imagine single family homes, hopefully taking the role of finance into consideration.
Donovan told the audience that the foreclosure crisis disproportionately hit low- income and minority households in the suburbs. He noted how in some of these communities the majority of people receiving mortgages during the housing bubble were given subprime loans when many of them qualified for prime ones. And he cited a study that showed that Latinos in this country lost two-thirds of their wealth between 2005 and 2009.
DoNotWorry
The end is not near. Still a good idea to have a home that is paid off and a solid garden. Those who survived the Depression best were not the best little suck ups, but were the most independent of corporate jobs. True then, true now.
December 20, 2011 at 6:35 pm
December 20, 2011 at 6:35 pm
Urban History
Actually, I think the a major part of the whole Levitt phenomenom was that they invented this easy, fast way to build inexpensive homes. There was a huge housing shortage in the country at that time, and that problem could have been solved, and houses would have been less expensive today, had the concept been allowed to expand. However, the building industry was horrified at the idea of "prefabs," since 'it didn't want to have its profit margin cut, and worked to stifle the Levitt building concept by lobbying the government to enact legislation against "prefabricated".
December 25, 2011 at 2:05 am
December 25, 2011 at 2:05 am
Prefab_expert
While there may be some duplicated designs, the Levitt model is a good model that would lower construction of house by over 20%. A house can be built in 30 days with much less wasted raw material is always a cost-saving and good environment advancement. The US construction is too lazy to learn more from the Levitt model.
December 20, 2011 at 12:36 pm
December 20, 2011 at 12:36 pm
Joe
Actually Will is right. I live 3 mins from Levittown. All of the houses are around $400k and the taxes average about $10k per year. Where Will is wrong is in regards to who actually live there. Its cops and teachers. They are the only ones that can afford it. Cops and teachers make 6 figures on Long Island. Thank you Unions. Notice all of the people replying to Will say they bought houses for $75k? Notice how none of them are from Blue states?
December 20, 2011 at 5:14 pm
December 20, 2011 at 5:14 pm
Houstonian
You can get a decent house in any Houston suburb for $75,000, today. Much more than 750 square feet too. The economy did not take as much of a hit as the rest of the country here, but it still took a hit. So, there are jobs here as well. I grew up on Long Island and now live in a Houston suburb. Not sure why so many people still stay in New York, when it is unrealistically expensive.
December 20, 2011 at 1:21 pm
December 20, 2011 at 1:21 pm
Brian
While true, but the original idea was private business. The government played a reserve role, one that they did wonderfully at.
December 20, 2011 at 11:57 am
December 20, 2011 at 11:57 am
Something has to change, said Barry Bergdoll, MoMA's curator for architecture and design, or we will "roll the suburban carpet across all the open land that is left."
"It's just irresponsible to have a model that encourages moving out onto green fields and leaving behind decaying rings of an ever-fattening tree," he said. "I'm interested in not just letting the path of least resistance exist. It's cheaper for a developer to build on virgin territory, but it's not cheaper for people to live on it or get to it."
"It's just irresponsible to have a model that encourages moving out onto green fields and leaving behind decaying rings of an ever-fattening tree," he said. "I'm interested in not just letting the path of least resistance exist. It's cheaper for a developer to build on virgin territory, but it's not cheaper for people to live on it or get to it."
Siobhán Ó Mócháin B.
JANUARY 24, 2012, 7:12 P.M.
For A Regular Guy(Written after reading the story in L.A. Times of a dead man found in a foreclosed home in Westchester, CA on 7/20/2009 by a real estate agent preparing to show the house to a prospect.)
Three bedroom 2 bath
garage backyard lawn
rambling family style
home for kids pets. 1957.
Needs work
refinancing available
forbearance provided
for small fee.
A sunny southern Cal
kind of Monday
in Westchester.
Realty Modern
shows same home
once bestowed
with bank notes
loans interest rates
derivatives
credit-default swaps.
Brokered down by
adjustable rates
pre-payment penalties.
Now liberated by the
free market.
Lien holders
mean holder
sof bankrupt dreams.
FORECLOSED.
Ready to buy
best terms
and cheap!
But oh dear!
What’s a 45-year-old
dead man doing here?
Didn’t we clean this
property up?
Who could
miss the odor
of late payments ?
The gruesome smell
of maxed out credit?
The stench of the
unemployed?
What’s an agent to do?
Come back later.
This regular guy
Laid off. Laid out cold
in the family room.
Second mortgage borrowerr
avaged by pyramid
schemes. No modification
no public offering
for him. No gold man of stocks
no Fed unreserved no inside track
no parachute for this everyday chump.
Lien holdersmean holders
of bankrupt dreams.
FORECLOSED.
For A Regular Guy(Written after reading the story in L.A. Times of a dead man found in a foreclosed home in Westchester, CA on 7/20/2009 by a real estate agent preparing to show the house to a prospect.)
Three bedroom 2 bath
garage backyard lawn
rambling family style
home for kids pets. 1957.
Needs work
refinancing available
forbearance provided
for small fee.
A sunny southern Cal
kind of Monday
in Westchester.
Realty Modern
shows same home
once bestowed
with bank notes
loans interest rates
derivatives
credit-default swaps.
Brokered down by
adjustable rates
pre-payment penalties.
Now liberated by the
free market.
Lien holders
mean holder
sof bankrupt dreams.
FORECLOSED.
Ready to buy
best terms
and cheap!
But oh dear!
What’s a 45-year-old
dead man doing here?
Didn’t we clean this
property up?
Who could
miss the odor
of late payments ?
The gruesome smell
of maxed out credit?
The stench of the
unemployed?
What’s an agent to do?
Come back later.
This regular guy
Laid off. Laid out cold
in the family room.
Second mortgage borrowerr
avaged by pyramid
schemes. No modification
no public offering
for him. No gold man of stocks
no Fed unreserved no inside track
no parachute for this everyday chump.
Lien holdersmean holders
of bankrupt dreams.
FORECLOSED.
Ani
February 24, 2012 at 3:14 am
UltioThe fact that loans are rneittesg in the near term is completely irrelevant. First of all, you make the assumption that just because loans are rneittesg, people are unable to cover any change. Second and most importantly, you clearly have forgotten that many of these adjustments are going to be lower. Every single major rate that they could possibly be tied to (LIBOR, 11th District, Prime, etc) are at all time lows. The “shadow” inventory of foreclosures that you keep referring to are of questionable existence, at best. Banks, by charter, are not allowed to be long term holders of real estate. They have been rapidly selling bulk REOs to vulture funds directly. The absence of these shadow foreclosures hitting the market in the last six months is further proof of this. Supply/demand? Supply is off more than 70% in 18 months and demand is very steady. A 6 month inventory of homes is generally considered the goal and currently San Diego hovers at 3 months. Sounds like their is an inverse supply/demand curve situation at the moment.Pretty feeble insight provided here in the original advice.
UltioThe fact that loans are rneittesg in the near term is completely irrelevant. First of all, you make the assumption that just because loans are rneittesg, people are unable to cover any change. Second and most importantly, you clearly have forgotten that many of these adjustments are going to be lower. Every single major rate that they could possibly be tied to (LIBOR, 11th District, Prime, etc) are at all time lows. The “shadow” inventory of foreclosures that you keep referring to are of questionable existence, at best. Banks, by charter, are not allowed to be long term holders of real estate. They have been rapidly selling bulk REOs to vulture funds directly. The absence of these shadow foreclosures hitting the market in the last six months is further proof of this. Supply/demand? Supply is off more than 70% in 18 months and demand is very steady. A 6 month inventory of homes is generally considered the goal and currently San Diego hovers at 3 months. Sounds like their is an inverse supply/demand curve situation at the moment.Pretty feeble insight provided here in the original advice.
The team identified three challenges affecting Cicero, common to a majority of suburbs: industrial decline, rising unemployment coupled with high poverty rates, and environmental conditions. The team turns these problems into potential opportunities by taking on both the urban fabric of the town and the financial architecture of living and working there.
Replacing the original development plan that utilized public/private partnership, the team proposes the creation of a Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT), a tax designation for an entity investing in real estate, designed to reduce or eliminate corporate tax and distribute the taxable income into the hands of investors. Differing from typical REITs, the REIT for Simultaneous City would propose that the land remain a public asset and the income derived from the development would be shared with the citizens. The proposal for Simultaneous City parallels the existing geographical infrastructure of Temple Terrace while at the same time offering a new layer of financial, structural, and environmental engineering.
Too often during the bubble, banks and builders shunned thoughtful architecture and urban design in favor of cookie-cutter houses that could be easily repackaged as derivatives to be flipped, while architects snubbed housing to pursue more prestigious projects.
RECENT efforts to fix the housing market — including Thursday’s $26 billion settlement with five of the nation’s biggest banks — have focused purely on the financial aspects of the slump. A permanent solution, however, must go further than money to address issues that have been at the core of the crisis but have been wholly ignored: design and urban planning.
But precisely because the groups tackled their missions from multiple angles, they maximized the number of opponents who could prevent any of these projects from getting built. That’s the paradox of trying to transform the suburbs: The only way to get it done is by rewriting laws, rationalizing markets, reforming the construction industry, and changing the culture all at once—which probably can’t be done.
Anonymous
To the post several lines down comparing these elitist idealogues to Steve Jobs: I'm still laughing. Steve jobs didn't create a "trend" as you say. He created great products that people want to buy. Therein is the lesson Architects should learn. Is there room for expressionism and "rethinking the box" in architecture. Pehaps. And if one wants to build there practice on such, go for it. If one does it well enough that people buy-in, then they will have achieved the real American Dream - not one contrived for them by others who "know better" as seems to be the intent of this show.
2/15/2012 6:44 PM CST
2/15/2012 6:44 PM CST
Anonymous
There are many real examples where former "fringe" industrial areas have been reappropriated for residential use. London's Canary Wharf (docklands) and New York's SoHo and Williamsburg areas (warehousing), are good examples. Often it was artists and students seeking low-cost housing at the perifery that created the beach head for the later urban development. But Free Market forces drove these initiatives both at the begining (students) and at the end (yuppies).
Quasi-intellectual architect-driven initiatives have rarely had the same positive result. Almost a century of bombastic architectural "visions' from Corb's plan to level Paris, to Pruitt-Igoe and beyond have repeatedly shown that many architects know less about how people really want to live than do the developers they so easily criticize. So much for the fruits of half-baked liberal thinking rooted in "speculation" rather than informed analysis. Typically, the more theoretically driven the project, the worse were the results. - QED "Foreclosure".
2/15/2012 12:50 PM CST
Quasi-intellectual architect-driven initiatives have rarely had the same positive result. Almost a century of bombastic architectural "visions' from Corb's plan to level Paris, to Pruitt-Igoe and beyond have repeatedly shown that many architects know less about how people really want to live than do the developers they so easily criticize. So much for the fruits of half-baked liberal thinking rooted in "speculation" rather than informed analysis. Typically, the more theoretically driven the project, the worse were the results. - QED "Foreclosure".
2/15/2012 12:50 PM CST
Anonymous
BTW people are stupid- they don't know what they want. It takes people like Steve Jobs to create trends and others will follow. Architecture is no different. The apple of architecture is here, it just takes a while for people to catch on (the amoebae effect). Remember apple was the butt of many jokes from pc users. Now look who's laughing.
2/14/2012 2:24 PM CST
2/14/2012 2:24 PM CST
Anonymous
So much spin and hate on the “Architectural Record”? It looks like student Occupiers have broadened their opinions to include architecture/planning!! I actually feel sorry for them and agree with those who believe that even misplaced, but uncorrupted, passion is better than apathy. But your view of our future is sadly UnAmerican and something that will handicap your life until you wise up.
“Anti Socialists”, “healthy cities” – hilarious! “Eggheady liberal architects”!? LOL Oh how you flatter yourselves! Inexperienced, academic, myopic, global warming eco hustlers who don’t understand the environment, fossil fuels/energy economy, national defense, US economy, our history or American Exceptionalism means that you are incapable of comprehending our future, which robs you of any basis for design. …so as a result we get vanity nonsense like this. ..and wishes for socialism as Athens burns in the wake of spastic entitlement class withdrawal.
Americans were not “given” anything; planning is not a socialist activity in the United States; and the diversity of planning across the country varies from tragic to excellent – something some writing here are obviously unaware of, living in a generation of under-educated, arrogant skepticism of forces you don’t understand.
Market forces drive change, a natural process arrogant socialists have no patience for. You are confused and angry because of the lies you tell yourselves and the turmoil that results. For example: there is no place for over-priced boutique wind/solar power (creates a job killing prosperity tax); oil is cheap and plentiful for hundreds of years; electric cars have already been rejected by the market; human controlled global weather is nonsense (global warming); landfills are a business like any other; recycling is, with few exceptions, just more manufacturing; and you have been betrayed by those who have taught you much of your lives. No matter what eco fantasy world you want to inhabit, everything I’ve written is dead on and there’s not a thing your hatful confusion can do about it.
Take some comfort in knowing that, for better or worse, you are not wise enough to begin to understand our future.
2/14/2012 11:29 AM CST
“Anti Socialists”, “healthy cities” – hilarious! “Eggheady liberal architects”!? LOL Oh how you flatter yourselves! Inexperienced, academic, myopic, global warming eco hustlers who don’t understand the environment, fossil fuels/energy economy, national defense, US economy, our history or American Exceptionalism means that you are incapable of comprehending our future, which robs you of any basis for design. …so as a result we get vanity nonsense like this. ..and wishes for socialism as Athens burns in the wake of spastic entitlement class withdrawal.
Americans were not “given” anything; planning is not a socialist activity in the United States; and the diversity of planning across the country varies from tragic to excellent – something some writing here are obviously unaware of, living in a generation of under-educated, arrogant skepticism of forces you don’t understand.
Market forces drive change, a natural process arrogant socialists have no patience for. You are confused and angry because of the lies you tell yourselves and the turmoil that results. For example: there is no place for over-priced boutique wind/solar power (creates a job killing prosperity tax); oil is cheap and plentiful for hundreds of years; electric cars have already been rejected by the market; human controlled global weather is nonsense (global warming); landfills are a business like any other; recycling is, with few exceptions, just more manufacturing; and you have been betrayed by those who have taught you much of your lives. No matter what eco fantasy world you want to inhabit, everything I’ve written is dead on and there’s not a thing your hatful confusion can do about it.
Take some comfort in knowing that, for better or worse, you are not wise enough to begin to understand our future.
2/14/2012 11:29 AM CST
Anonymous
The problem: Americans were given what they wanted in terms of market economy-based city planning for decades, and "eggheady" liberal architects and planners were ignored.
The solution (according to the people responding to this article): Ignore the "eggheady" liberal architects and do what the American people want: ie more of the same.
No wonder America is so incompetent when it comes to healthy cities. Only a small minority of intelligent liberal green architects and planners embrace a healthy productive path forward, and an overwhelming majority of ignorant architects and free market thinkers couldn't care less or think the solution to the problem is to ignore the solutions and embrace the problem as the only answer - I guess because Ronald Reagan told them to (during a period in his life when he had a debilitating mental illness I might add).
2/13/2012 5:40 PM CST
The solution (according to the people responding to this article): Ignore the "eggheady" liberal architects and do what the American people want: ie more of the same.
No wonder America is so incompetent when it comes to healthy cities. Only a small minority of intelligent liberal green architects and planners embrace a healthy productive path forward, and an overwhelming majority of ignorant architects and free market thinkers couldn't care less or think the solution to the problem is to ignore the solutions and embrace the problem as the only answer - I guess because Ronald Reagan told them to (during a period in his life when he had a debilitating mental illness I might add).
2/13/2012 5:40 PM CST
Anonymous
There's not a big enough return on investment for projects that benefit the general public in America. That's why America's wealthy don't invest in them. The only way to have healthy cities and suburbs is to plan them via the government, and therefore use the wealthy's money via taxes to subsidize them. There's no other way to access the money needed to build green cities. The market economy looks out for the rich, and only the rich. The rich won't build healthy cities and suburbs. So they've left us with no other recourse than the government. The only people with enough power and money to build green are the people we elect and put in office. So choose people who believe in progress and green cities. And if not, then the vast majority of Americans will live in sickness and decay as a "reward" for their conservative political beliefs. They probably deserve it. Unfortunately their children don't.
2/13/2012 5:30 PM CST
2/13/2012 5:30 PM CST
Anonymous
It's always amusing to read the anti-socialist nonsense from bloggers in response to articles like this. Urban planning is a socialist activity, and should be proud of it. It's about limiting the damage that developers do. Every country in the world that has a healthy urban and suburban planning system is either fully Socialist or a Social Democracy. The reason America has been so incompetent in terms of planning is precisely because of the "Big Lie" that the markets should decide how development occurs. The market is just a synonym for "the rich" in our modern economy. They're the ones doing the buying that developers want a piece of. The issue of planning in architecture is by definition a question of whether sensible Socialist policies will begin to be adopted in America or not. If not, then America will continue to fail in terms of responsible planning. There's no magic bullet, no way of playing along with the market economy to get around that fact. It's either embrace some Socialist policies, or don't plan anything. The laissez-faire capitalists of course want to disguise that reality, but it's there regardless. The welfare of the 99% will be ignored in modern America, unless via politics and therefore planning they make their voices heard. End of story.
2/13/2012 5:22 PM CST
2/13/2012 5:22 PM CST
Anonymous
This is a terrific question for the design community but “Academics” are not equipped to address it because by definition they are insulated from the market forces that drive these questions.
Their design responses always seem to find answers in central planning socialism (or communism) where the lord in charge decrees how the little people shall live. In the context of the greatest economy on earth, these solutions always vary from amusing and trendy to useless. Ironically and predictably, the housing solutions generated by real world socialists and communists are among the worst on the planet!
Two years ago I outlined a grant project to design and build "the next American Home" using an award winning, very expensive, AE design and development team that no market rate home owner could ever afford. My local region's weather, utility rates, standard of living, aesthetic sensibilities and real estate market would all form the basis for this project. Once constructed, it would be leased and its overall performance measured over years – including elements like comfort, pride of ownership and livability in addition to the boring engineering stuff like energy performance.
The goal would be to offer a platform for the next generation of America’s homebuilders to reference when that industry recovers. I will not give away all the beans because I may resurrect it someday but needless to say, even in this economy I became too busy to fuss around with it.
2/13/2012 4:12 PM CST
Their design responses always seem to find answers in central planning socialism (or communism) where the lord in charge decrees how the little people shall live. In the context of the greatest economy on earth, these solutions always vary from amusing and trendy to useless. Ironically and predictably, the housing solutions generated by real world socialists and communists are among the worst on the planet!
Two years ago I outlined a grant project to design and build "the next American Home" using an award winning, very expensive, AE design and development team that no market rate home owner could ever afford. My local region's weather, utility rates, standard of living, aesthetic sensibilities and real estate market would all form the basis for this project. Once constructed, it would be leased and its overall performance measured over years – including elements like comfort, pride of ownership and livability in addition to the boring engineering stuff like energy performance.
The goal would be to offer a platform for the next generation of America’s homebuilders to reference when that industry recovers. I will not give away all the beans because I may resurrect it someday but needless to say, even in this economy I became too busy to fuss around with it.
2/13/2012 4:12 PM CST
13 Feb, 2012 - (@caldst)
“Foreclosed” to Open at MoMA - Feb 15 thru July 30; highlights disconnect in the American housing market #architecturehttp://ow.ly/92Rid
Femrica
11 months ago
"He who pays the piper, dictates the tune." Housing delivery, its design and the general structure of the industry is controlled by the institutions that provide the money; whether GSEs(Fannie &Freddie) or banks, these are the true puppeteers. Even the physical architecture, the cookie cutter nature of everything is dictated by the "appraised value", the only language the money lenders understand. Builders, designers and architects can dream all they want, unless there are new ways of structuring how houses are paid for, what consumers want will always be compromised and subverted by dictators of finance.
"He who pays the piper, dictates the tune." Housing delivery, its design and the general structure of the industry is controlled by the institutions that provide the money; whether GSEs(Fannie &Freddie) or banks, these are the true puppeteers. Even the physical architecture, the cookie cutter nature of everything is dictated by the "appraised value", the only language the money lenders understand. Builders, designers and architects can dream all they want, unless there are new ways of structuring how houses are paid for, what consumers want will always be compromised and subverted by dictators of finance.
But the sometimes grandiose architectural conceits are in the end less interesting than the economic ideas on display. It’s not just the McMansion and the white picket fence that are deconstructed here; the very ideal of single-family home ownership comes under scrutiny as well. After all, the foreclosure crisis sprang from financial mechanisms as much as from the built environment.
15 Feb, 2012 - (@CourierMolseed)
#MoMAexhibit, "Foreclosed" shows gap between housing available in U.S. and housing Americans need http://bit.ly/zk1dJ2
Felix Salmon (FS): So, I like this. So, you raise a large amount of money up front to build everything, and you raise that money by selling shares in the real estate investment trust to the broad public, to investors.
J. James R.
Feb 22, 12 5:26 pm
Builders, developers and real estate people have been telling people how to live for years....it's obvious now, more than ever, thats how things are done....people don't know what they want...
If you think it's just builders and developers telling people how to live, you're clearly missing a larger picture. Retailers are a huge factor here too. The problem with suburbia is the lack of "real job" creation.
The problem comes from the concept that many retailers sell products that more-or-less require single-unit, single-family housing units— lawnmowers, automobiles, chest freezers, full-sized appliances, furniture et cetera. The code for this word is "durable goods." And anytime you hear the government, planners or business-types talking about the increase in the purchase of durable goods or stimulating the durable goods market... they're clearly talking about suburbia.
And many of the companies that sell the tools of suburbia actively influence policy development by funding various non-profit and non-governmental organizations. We don't know who does what but there are fair examples.
Cato Insitute, a supporter of laissez-faire capitalism, is quite a staunch critic of urban planning is or has been supported by the likes of General Motors, ExxonMobile, Toyota, Visa, Wal-mart, Volkswagon, Honda, FedEx and Time Warner. None of these companies want to see functioning cities.
And we end up the paradox of...
If most of the jobs are low-wage, who's buying goods and services?
And where do the armies of wage workers live if new suburban development is too expensive?
Builders, developers and real estate people have been telling people how to live for years....it's obvious now, more than ever, thats how things are done....people don't know what they want...
If you think it's just builders and developers telling people how to live, you're clearly missing a larger picture. Retailers are a huge factor here too. The problem with suburbia is the lack of "real job" creation.
The problem comes from the concept that many retailers sell products that more-or-less require single-unit, single-family housing units— lawnmowers, automobiles, chest freezers, full-sized appliances, furniture et cetera. The code for this word is "durable goods." And anytime you hear the government, planners or business-types talking about the increase in the purchase of durable goods or stimulating the durable goods market... they're clearly talking about suburbia.
And many of the companies that sell the tools of suburbia actively influence policy development by funding various non-profit and non-governmental organizations. We don't know who does what but there are fair examples.
Cato Insitute, a supporter of laissez-faire capitalism, is quite a staunch critic of urban planning is or has been supported by the likes of General Motors, ExxonMobile, Toyota, Visa, Wal-mart, Volkswagon, Honda, FedEx and Time Warner. None of these companies want to see functioning cities.
And we end up the paradox of...
If most of the jobs are low-wage, who's buying goods and services?
And where do the armies of wage workers live if new suburban development is too expensive?
toasteroven
Feb 21, 12 11:42 am
sustainable developers?? developers follow incentives and try to minimize risk - without government subsidizing sprawling (i.e. cheap & low capacity) infrastructure and overly restrictive zoning laws they'd very likely build far more high-density mixed-use buildings without parking (but also without green space). without utilities, roads, and other services land is pretty much worthless - and developers typically don't like challenging zoning unless they know the municipality is on board.
also - high-density outside of the city center presents another challenge because of the capacity of the existing services. Some towns in the northeast have put a moratorium on any new building because their existing water and sewer systems cannot handle any additional load. when you think of it, suburban development is often a function of how big the sewer systems are, or how much space is needed for a septic and/or leech field and buffer.
perhaps if as a culture we had a much healthier relationship with our own poop...
sustainable developers?? developers follow incentives and try to minimize risk - without government subsidizing sprawling (i.e. cheap & low capacity) infrastructure and overly restrictive zoning laws they'd very likely build far more high-density mixed-use buildings without parking (but also without green space). without utilities, roads, and other services land is pretty much worthless - and developers typically don't like challenging zoning unless they know the municipality is on board.
also - high-density outside of the city center presents another challenge because of the capacity of the existing services. Some towns in the northeast have put a moratorium on any new building because their existing water and sewer systems cannot handle any additional load. when you think of it, suburban development is often a function of how big the sewer systems are, or how much space is needed for a septic and/or leech field and buffer.
perhaps if as a culture we had a much healthier relationship with our own poop...
Kevin W.
Feb 16, 12 1:30 pm
Builders, developers and real estate people have been telling people how to live for years....it's obvious now, more than ever, thats how things are done....people don't know what they want...Architects stopped telling people what they want in the 1960's....see what we have now? I think as far as far as something develor driven, the Eichler approach today would be a good start....Developer, hiring good and great Architects, offering something different that makes sense.
Builders, developers and real estate people have been telling people how to live for years....it's obvious now, more than ever, thats how things are done....people don't know what they want...Architects stopped telling people what they want in the 1960's....see what we have now? I think as far as far as something develor driven, the Eichler approach today would be a good start....Developer, hiring good and great Architects, offering something different that makes sense.
wurdan freo
Feb 16, 12 10:06 am
Is this guy suggesting Condos are the solution to the real estate crisis? Or does everyone become a renter? Seems like another utopian community to me. And of course... he's going to tell me that if I have ONE child, I only get a two bedroom unit. No thanks. Why does innovation from Architects always have to come in the form of telling people how to live their lives? Maybe innovation could be a business model that allows Architects to incorporate all these good ideas and give the customer what they want instead of telling them what they want?
Some good ideas lost in translation, reducing cost of utilities. Simple solution there. Smaller footprint, better insulation and higher efficiency systems. Hmmm.... looks to be the kind of home that the home builders are putting out right now. Wonder why they're still in business?
Is this guy suggesting Condos are the solution to the real estate crisis? Or does everyone become a renter? Seems like another utopian community to me. And of course... he's going to tell me that if I have ONE child, I only get a two bedroom unit. No thanks. Why does innovation from Architects always have to come in the form of telling people how to live their lives? Maybe innovation could be a business model that allows Architects to incorporate all these good ideas and give the customer what they want instead of telling them what they want?
Some good ideas lost in translation, reducing cost of utilities. Simple solution there. Smaller footprint, better insulation and higher efficiency systems. Hmmm.... looks to be the kind of home that the home builders are putting out right now. Wonder why they're still in business?
Keith Carlson
Feb 15, 12 11:10 am
I thought I would post this interesting interview w/ Michael Bell. It seems we are always discussing ways to put architects back in the driver's seat of the building process. I thought he posed some interesting solutions to immediate, real problems.
I really liked his holistic approach of re-casting the financing business model and working with members of that community to create a new paradigm.
http://www.reuters.com/video/2012/02/14/reuters-tv-a-radical-approach-to-homeownership-feli?videoId=230166482&videoChannel=117757
I am hoping the show runs through June so I can see it in NY.
I thought I would post this interesting interview w/ Michael Bell. It seems we are always discussing ways to put architects back in the driver's seat of the building process. I thought he posed some interesting solutions to immediate, real problems.
I really liked his holistic approach of re-casting the financing business model and working with members of that community to create a new paradigm.
http://www.reuters.com/video/2012/02/14/reuters-tv-a-radical-approach-to-homeownership-feli?videoId=230166482&videoChannel=117757
I am hoping the show runs through June so I can see it in NY.
I thought I would post this interesting interview w/ Michael Bell. It seems we are always discussing ways to put architects back in the driver's seat of the building process. I thought he posed some interesting solutions to immediate, real problems.
I really liked his holistic approach of re-casting the financing business model and working with members of that community to create a new paradigm.
I really liked his holistic approach of re-casting the financing business model and working with members of that community to create a new paradigm.
AP: What chance does a scheme like this have of being realized?
Jeanne Gang (JG): I think we can’t afford not to realize something. We have so many issues especially in the inner ring suburbs where we were looking at, like Cicero, where developers kind of hop-skip over them and sprawl out into further and further-out suburbs, which just increases our dependence on the car.
Jeanne Gang (JG): I think we can’t afford not to realize something. We have so many issues especially in the inner ring suburbs where we were looking at, like Cicero, where developers kind of hop-skip over them and sprawl out into further and further-out suburbs, which just increases our dependence on the car.
Andrew Purcell (AP) : Do you think that Americans are giving up on the suburban dream, then? Because it’s still seems quite resilient to me.
Barry Bergdoll (BB): It is astounding to what extent people’s dreams are fulfilled by images that are supplied to them by the marketplace, by advertising, by television, but I do think that that is shifting. And even some of the dream producers like movies, like television series, are beginning to address the complex realities of suburbs and are starting to show us images of suburbs which are arrival cities for immigrants which have multigenerational families living in the same house. Some of the kind of covering up of those realities in popular entertainment is itself beginning to erode. So, there are many many cracks in the dream.
Barry Bergdoll (BB): It is astounding to what extent people’s dreams are fulfilled by images that are supplied to them by the marketplace, by advertising, by television, but I do think that that is shifting. And even some of the dream producers like movies, like television series, are beginning to address the complex realities of suburbs and are starting to show us images of suburbs which are arrival cities for immigrants which have multigenerational families living in the same house. Some of the kind of covering up of those realities in popular entertainment is itself beginning to erode. So, there are many many cracks in the dream.
A surplus of 5 million McMansion in the United States? | Legally Sociable
March 14, 2012 at 5:02 PM
[...] the middle of a review of the Foreclosed exhibit at MoMA, a housing analyst makes an interesting statement about the surplus of housing currently in the [...]
[...] the middle of a review of the Foreclosed exhibit at MoMA, a housing analyst makes an interesting statement about the surplus of housing currently in the [...]
“Like many areas throughout the country, Cicero, Illinois is blighted with a large percentage of foreclosed and rundown properties. As part of the MOMA exhibition Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream, Jeanne Gang has created a new vision for the area which could transform it into a thriving and healthy neighborhood. The Garden in the Machine is a proposal that uses nature and technology to improve the land, while combining housing and jobs within new, flexible live/work structures interwoven with a variety of public green spaces.”
These fanciful responses seem most ignorant of a basic cause of the foreclosure crisis: With cheap money, we simply overbuilt the country. Even without building new homes, we are still probably a few years away from reaching a point of real demand that will drive the housing market. The problem in The Oranges isn’t that it needs new housing or buildings—The Oranges lost almost 10 percent of their population between 2000 and 2010—but rather that it needs people with jobs. Unfortunately none of Foreclosed’s projects propose ways of removing housing, an incredibly difficult but important task that has stymied communities from Detroit to Phoenix.
John Mindiola III
03.08.12 at 09:55
@Ries is correct. Many people live in the burbs because they don't want to live in city, and visa versa. And, let's not forget that many people live where they live, love it or hate it, because (gasp) they can't afford to live elsewhere. Let's also not forget about the cost of the commute, no matter what form that takes. Design is part of the intrigue, but it's not the whole enchilada.
@Ries is correct. Many people live in the burbs because they don't want to live in city, and visa versa. And, let's not forget that many people live where they live, love it or hate it, because (gasp) they can't afford to live elsewhere. Let's also not forget about the cost of the commute, no matter what form that takes. Design is part of the intrigue, but it's not the whole enchilada.
Ries
03.02.12 at 03:31
One of the answers to "what is it that you really need?" is, probably, NOT architects.
Since well over 90% of the building in America is done without the aid of an architect, it seems that, particularly in the foreclosed suburbs, an architect is a luxury, a status symbol, and one of the first things to be cut.
Certainly architects can bring value to a project- but, in most cases, its not monetary value, and, in fact, it usually adds quite a bit of cost to any project, well beyond the fee, to bring an architect in.
This is a recession based on financial shenanigans, not one caused by a lack of good design.
I fail to see how, in most exurbs, good design will have any affect on the financial aspects that caused this - the lack of jobs, the predatory lending practices, the upside down real estate market, and the inability of many to sell their homes without going bankrupt.
The reason there is a chasm between urban architects and suburban "architecture" is because the stuff they build in the suburbs is driven by an entirely different set of desires, fashions, fantasies, and, most importantly, price points.
One of the answers to "what is it that you really need?" is, probably, NOT architects.
Since well over 90% of the building in America is done without the aid of an architect, it seems that, particularly in the foreclosed suburbs, an architect is a luxury, a status symbol, and one of the first things to be cut.
Certainly architects can bring value to a project- but, in most cases, its not monetary value, and, in fact, it usually adds quite a bit of cost to any project, well beyond the fee, to bring an architect in.
This is a recession based on financial shenanigans, not one caused by a lack of good design.
I fail to see how, in most exurbs, good design will have any affect on the financial aspects that caused this - the lack of jobs, the predatory lending practices, the upside down real estate market, and the inability of many to sell their homes without going bankrupt.
The reason there is a chasm between urban architects and suburban "architecture" is because the stuff they build in the suburbs is driven by an entirely different set of desires, fashions, fantasies, and, most importantly, price points.
Tina
@oboe - Municipalities are trying to retrofit to urbanism because the experts feel they don't have a choice, long-term.
Do you mean in terms of the long view on sustainability wrt enegry and health? B/c I think part of the short term motivation for the retro-fit is economic factors; e.g. demand, attracting/retaining people by providing what the "market" indicates people want, etc.
Feb 22, 2012 12:38 pm
Do you mean in terms of the long view on sustainability wrt enegry and health? B/c I think part of the short term motivation for the retro-fit is economic factors; e.g. demand, attracting/retaining people by providing what the "market" indicates people want, etc.
Feb 22, 2012 12:38 pm
oboe
@Tina,
Do you mean in terms of the long view on sustainability wrt enegry and health? B/c I think part of the short term motivation for the retro-fit is economic factors; e.g. demand, attracting/retaining people by providing what the "market" indicates people want, etc.
No, absolutely. You make a good point about what's driving the short-term urgency. I was thinking in terms of "what happens if the deadlock can't be broken". Eventually that which can't be sustained comes to an end.
What we have now is a deadlock between market forces (and owners of developable property as AWalker pointed out) on the one hand, and existing owners (call them NIMBYs at the risk of starting a fight). Of course, the property owners are few, and potential residents don't necessarily get a vote. So obviously the influence of existing owners is large.
Anyway, I think you see the defenders of the status quo harnessing the power of the culture war. That's why, in my opinion, it makes little sense to say, "I don't care what [the WSJ editorial page] says, I care what my neighbors think." The debate is informed (and distorted) by the big outlets. Not to be too cynical, but your neighbors thing what the WSJ/WaPo editorial page tells them to. And that goes for the city as well as the suburbs.
As far as ambient city-mouse/country-mouse trash-talking goes ("they insulted Franconia in the City Paper!"), I doubt we'll ever be completely free of that. My guess is that cultural trends (and hopefully not decreasing quality of life) will be what drives the transformation of these "urbanizing nodes" in the suburbs.
Feb 22, 2012 1:01 pm
Do you mean in terms of the long view on sustainability wrt enegry and health? B/c I think part of the short term motivation for the retro-fit is economic factors; e.g. demand, attracting/retaining people by providing what the "market" indicates people want, etc.
No, absolutely. You make a good point about what's driving the short-term urgency. I was thinking in terms of "what happens if the deadlock can't be broken". Eventually that which can't be sustained comes to an end.
What we have now is a deadlock between market forces (and owners of developable property as AWalker pointed out) on the one hand, and existing owners (call them NIMBYs at the risk of starting a fight). Of course, the property owners are few, and potential residents don't necessarily get a vote. So obviously the influence of existing owners is large.
Anyway, I think you see the defenders of the status quo harnessing the power of the culture war. That's why, in my opinion, it makes little sense to say, "I don't care what [the WSJ editorial page] says, I care what my neighbors think." The debate is informed (and distorted) by the big outlets. Not to be too cynical, but your neighbors thing what the WSJ/WaPo editorial page tells them to. And that goes for the city as well as the suburbs.
As far as ambient city-mouse/country-mouse trash-talking goes ("they insulted Franconia in the City Paper!"), I doubt we'll ever be completely free of that. My guess is that cultural trends (and hopefully not decreasing quality of life) will be what drives the transformation of these "urbanizing nodes" in the suburbs.
Feb 22, 2012 1:01 pm
Fishman said that perhaps developers should have paid more attention to work coming out of architecture schools. “The economics didn’t take into consideration that the demographic movement was going back to the core,” he said. He added that the subdivisions promoted sprawl, and while they may have been cheap to build, developers never factored in eventual transportation costs. Quite often when developers do consider design a factor it’s not always top notch. He cited advertising for Toll Brothers that trumpet “award winning design” but never tell you what award they won.
CH: The other question is whether we’ll see the market begin to produce smaller homes in the wake of this crisis, whether there’s going to be a lesson learned there, or if we’re just going to start the old Wurlitzer up again and try to dance like we did in the last decade?
MB: I personally think that the people that invest in housing will be fearful of investing in the old versions of housing and they’re going to look for a new product to invest in.
MB: I personally think that the people that invest in housing will be fearful of investing in the old versions of housing and they’re going to look for a new product to invest in.
MB: There’s the Glass-Steagall Act which segregated commercial and
investment banking. There’s the Wagner-Steagall Act which funded public housing. Steagall was on both.
CH: Interesting.
MB: It’s very interesting.
CH: Now we’ve got huge conglomerate banks and no public housing.
investment banking. There’s the Wagner-Steagall Act which funded public housing. Steagall was on both.
CH: Interesting.
MB: It’s very interesting.
CH: Now we’ve got huge conglomerate banks and no public housing.
CH: One of the other architects, Jeanne Gang, who did a project in Cicero in the exhibit, makes this great point that I never thought about in these terms. She said that you’re sort of making a casino bet when you buy a house. You’re betting that it’s going to rise in value. That was a bet that a lot of people made, and now they’re on the wrong side of that bet. But, you’re also betting about what your life is going to look like. How many people are going to inhabit that house? You’re putting money down—you’re putting all your wealth in most cases—into this structure that says, “I am going to be married with the two kids and the dog” or whatever. And the fact is that new family members come in as immigrants possibly or you get divorced or you lose your job or your kids have to move back because they can’t get jobs. So the house is insufficiently flexible to deal with the changing American family.
MB: People have looked toward changing or improving the suburbs
for a long time. You can go back to the 1970s, and academics are often
lambasted for not being sensitive about it. But the reason I’m bringing
this up is that what is different at this point in time is everything from
globalization in terms of where is production happening, what are the
jobs. When you talk about housing, you ultimately always—even if you’re
an architect—end up talking about jobs. What will secure that loan in the
future? So, flexibility comes in. But the difference now, I think, is that
what people realize… And the foreclosure crisis is an awful thing, it is
absolutely a crisis, but it does start to create a situation where people
start to imagine that what we have is not inevitable. And, in fact, it was
produced, and it was dreamed. I think, people don’t like change in housing,
and they should worry about change in housing, but what we have is also
not terribly secure. And, so, I think that’s what you’re bringing up, and
Jeanne was bringing that up quite brilliantly.
CH: One of the things I think Detroit forces us to think of is the fact that
the things we think are natural are contingent.
MB: People have looked toward changing or improving the suburbs
for a long time. You can go back to the 1970s, and academics are often
lambasted for not being sensitive about it. But the reason I’m bringing
this up is that what is different at this point in time is everything from
globalization in terms of where is production happening, what are the
jobs. When you talk about housing, you ultimately always—even if you’re
an architect—end up talking about jobs. What will secure that loan in the
future? So, flexibility comes in. But the difference now, I think, is that
what people realize… And the foreclosure crisis is an awful thing, it is
absolutely a crisis, but it does start to create a situation where people
start to imagine that what we have is not inevitable. And, in fact, it was
produced, and it was dreamed. I think, people don’t like change in housing,
and they should worry about change in housing, but what we have is also
not terribly secure. And, so, I think that’s what you’re bringing up, and
Jeanne was bringing that up quite brilliantly.
CH: One of the things I think Detroit forces us to think of is the fact that
the things we think are natural are contingent.
CH: What does that mean? I think we sort of have a sense of the automobile, the sort of oil-fueled world of post-World War II America and suburban sprawl as these kinds of the things that have conspired to build the great sprawling American suburban landscape. What does rethinking that involve from a design perspective? From a policy perspective?
MB: […] In the 1990s you had a booming economy, you had a kind ofpush to alter, if not end, the welfare state. By the 2000s, you have a real estate bubble. And today you have a foreclosure crisis. But in all of these situations, there are a couple things that have been consistent. The amount of money people spend on housing and transportation is immense. They can’t afford it. You don’t want to tell people they can’t afford something and say that’s the reason to change. You want to be more positive than that. But there are many, many factors about affordability, about energy consumption, and frankly about the role of design in any of it. The American single-family house is a commodity product that has virtually no research and development, no design. Architects, in a spec house in Houston in the late 1990s—their fee was about twelve dollars per house. These are mass-produced commodities. There is no professional engagement. […] I think most of the people in this exhibition are quite
positive and excited about the suburbs. We know it’s a deeply, deeply important part of the American ethos, if not just everyday life of course. But, they’re not inevitable. And the financial underpinnings of them have really dramatically shifted in the last five, ten, fifteen years—not just the last two.
CH: Talk about that R&D thing. You made a point in the video in the exhibition that blew my mind about the comparison between how much money in R&D goes into your iPhone or anti-lock brakes versus an American home.
MB: I did mention anti-lock brakes. For many commodities, before they hit the market, there are billions of dollars that might precede it, whether it’s Clorox or whether it’s an iPhone or a Honda Civic which is quite an ingenious product. Housing as we know it has kind of ironed all of that
out of it, and it did it a long time ago. […] They are paying Mercedes Benz prices for a twenty-year-old used car. The single-family house market atomizes out all of the financial processes, and you still are spending large sums of money, but you’re not getting the sophisticated product. It’s not that it’s not a nice product or something people love, but it could be much, much better in energy and everything else.
MB: […] In the 1990s you had a booming economy, you had a kind ofpush to alter, if not end, the welfare state. By the 2000s, you have a real estate bubble. And today you have a foreclosure crisis. But in all of these situations, there are a couple things that have been consistent. The amount of money people spend on housing and transportation is immense. They can’t afford it. You don’t want to tell people they can’t afford something and say that’s the reason to change. You want to be more positive than that. But there are many, many factors about affordability, about energy consumption, and frankly about the role of design in any of it. The American single-family house is a commodity product that has virtually no research and development, no design. Architects, in a spec house in Houston in the late 1990s—their fee was about twelve dollars per house. These are mass-produced commodities. There is no professional engagement. […] I think most of the people in this exhibition are quite
positive and excited about the suburbs. We know it’s a deeply, deeply important part of the American ethos, if not just everyday life of course. But, they’re not inevitable. And the financial underpinnings of them have really dramatically shifted in the last five, ten, fifteen years—not just the last two.
CH: Talk about that R&D thing. You made a point in the video in the exhibition that blew my mind about the comparison between how much money in R&D goes into your iPhone or anti-lock brakes versus an American home.
MB: I did mention anti-lock brakes. For many commodities, before they hit the market, there are billions of dollars that might precede it, whether it’s Clorox or whether it’s an iPhone or a Honda Civic which is quite an ingenious product. Housing as we know it has kind of ironed all of that
out of it, and it did it a long time ago. […] They are paying Mercedes Benz prices for a twenty-year-old used car. The single-family house market atomizes out all of the financial processes, and you still are spending large sums of money, but you’re not getting the sophisticated product. It’s not that it’s not a nice product or something people love, but it could be much, much better in energy and everything else.
Chris Hayes (CH): Part of what makes Detroit so symbolically powerful is the fact that it is the birthplace of the American car, and the car is one of the two pillars of the American Dream. The other, of course, is the detached single-family home. Such structures make up almost two-thirds of the nation’s housing stock, but more than that, the single-family home is an essential plot point in the story of the American Dream. We all know how it goes: you spend your twenties renting, aimless. You meet someone you love. You marry, settle down, get a career, and get a mortgage on a single family home in a suburb with a good school district and enough space for children. Of course, it was this aspiration that provided fuel for the maniacal engine of destruction that was the great housing securitization machine that Wall Street built during the last decade. The trauma of the housing bubble, and then the financial crisis and the foreclosure epidemic it has left in its wake, has created a landscape of ruin and abandonment. Half-completed developments of McMansions dot exurban cornfields. Blocks of vacant, boarded-up homes blight neighborhoods in inner-ring suburbs. And all of this forces us to reassess our fundamental adherence to the single-family suburban home as the cornerstone of American life. In a brilliant new exhibition at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, five teams of architects
were each assigned a suburban community with a higher foreclosure rate than the national average and asked to imagine in the design a vision for what sustainable, vibrant, post-crisis communities could be if we rethink our most fundamental beliefs about the American house.
were each assigned a suburban community with a higher foreclosure rate than the national average and asked to imagine in the design a vision for what sustainable, vibrant, post-crisis communities could be if we rethink our most fundamental beliefs about the American house.
PH: “It’s creative, but how is it a solution to foreclosures?”
Barry Bergdoll (BB): “The show, I should say, in general is not trying to solve the mortgage crisis. That’s for the banks to sort out. We’re saying that, since we also have learned from it, that the way we build is part and parcel of this massive foreclosure crisis.”
Barry Bergdoll (BB): “The show, I should say, in general is not trying to solve the mortgage crisis. That’s for the banks to sort out. We’re saying that, since we also have learned from it, that the way we build is part and parcel of this massive foreclosure crisis.”
We would argue that neither case is true. We would argue that suburban sprawl is a horribly inefficient (i.e. unsustainably expensive) physical arrangement that free markets would never have allowed to develop the way it did.
When the CNN reporter working on this report took the ideas to the people on the street in Orange, NJ, one person remarked, “Sounds like something from the Jetsons.” How right they are!
That’s the idea, good patrons. Free markets don’t just mean liberty. They also mean progress. They mean development that turns unseen worlds out of science fiction into reality.
That’s the idea, good patrons. Free markets don’t just mean liberty. They also mean progress. They mean development that turns unseen worlds out of science fiction into reality.
Of the proposals on view, perhaps the most appealing is Nature-City, WorkAC’s inventive re-imagining of the modest Portland feeder town of Keizer, Oregon. A surprisingly urban vision for a relatively remote locale, the design boasts a wide variety of housing typologies, all of them arrayed around a municipal complex whose tumulus-like forms suggest a connection to nature fully qualified by the development’s eco-friendly features. As with the Zago group’s plan for Rialto, California, and Gang’s for Cicero, Illinois, Nature-City puts a premium on communal space and services, not only as a means to foster community but as a hedge against the mercenary commercialism that gave us the late housing boom and bust. And to the special credit of Andraos, Wood, and their academic and engineer collaborators, the Keizer scheme avoids the trap (into which Michael Bell’s proposal, Simultenaous City, slips all to easily) of rehearsing the problematic motifs of 20th century social housing, creating instead a novel and lively template for the future of American life.
Of course, for an idea to be sustainable, it also has to be realistic. Much of the MoMA show fails that criterion miserably. Orange, N.J., is not going to build long strings of apartments in the middle of its streets, as suggested by MOS Architects’ Michael Meredith, AIA, and Hilary Sample, AIA. Neither is Keizer, Ore., going to bite on huge towers of three-story homes teetering atop each other—complete with indoor waterfalls—as put forward by Amale Andraos and Dan Wood, AIA, of Work AC. And are those elephants that Andrew Zago dropped in the backyards of Rialto, Calif.? Yes, they really are.
There’s something almost colonialist about this exhibition: Witness five architectural practices hailing from New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago parachute into relatively poor suburbs, spend very little time actually talking to the people who live there, and pitch projects that only a city-dweller could love, and that only a socialist state could finance. “City-building does not necessarily have to take the path laid out by the markets,” writes co-curator Reinhold Martin, who set the terms of the teams’ engagement with The Buell Hypothesis—an eclectic text (it is in part a screenplay) that quite explicitly proposes “unapologetically public housing models on government land.”
Jeremiah Eck FAIA
134 days ago
Felix, thank you. Over the last four decades over half of all the single family homes were built in this country, most of them in the suburbs, through a production system that is inextricably bound up with bankers, builders and brokers. The good news is we will need the same number again over the next four decades, but we must offer a viable alternative to the suburban status quo, just as we have done with the IPad or the Hybird car. The current system in bankrupt-- physically, psychologically, and financially--but America has the capacity to constantly reinvent itself. Unfortunately, academic exercises like "Foreclosed" only put those off who can make the changes and need our help the most.
Felix, thank you. Over the last four decades over half of all the single family homes were built in this country, most of them in the suburbs, through a production system that is inextricably bound up with bankers, builders and brokers. The good news is we will need the same number again over the next four decades, but we must offer a viable alternative to the suburban status quo, just as we have done with the IPad or the Hybird car. The current system in bankrupt-- physically, psychologically, and financially--but America has the capacity to constantly reinvent itself. Unfortunately, academic exercises like "Foreclosed" only put those off who can make the changes and need our help the most.
Robert
133 days ago
Here we go again - architects attempting to be the deciders on who lives in a cooked up utopian paradise. I agree with Dee - didn't we go through this before - actually several times before - go back to Lutyens and others pre-Victorian UK for other references. This argument is as old as time in architecture circles and frankly something I believe in my bones architects need to stay way far away from.
The problems associated with the current debacle in housing goes way beyond just cooking up alternatives to a model that for decades had worked pretty well until the restraints of the banking system and the policy makers in DEE CEE were unshackled. Thank you Barney Frank, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Sarbanes / Oxley, CRA, Derivatives, MBS, CDO's, Wall Street, Glass Steagle (no more), FHA, HMA, Phil Gramm, Rudman, Fannie, Freddie, National Assoc. of Realtors, Mortgage Banking Association, TARP, QE whatever, Helicopter Ben, HARP, HAMP, Obama and the porkulus - the list of imposters posing as statesmen and policy wonks and their attendant fixes goes on and on. To just read this article on the surface and agree would be in my humble opinion horribly misguided and naive.
Wake up architects - putting the design blinders on only will not serve you nor your clients well. A much broader and active view is needed - bone up on economics, finance, politics, local government, proper spheres of authority, the scriptures - you name it. Without a broader and DEEPER view of the market the profession will continue to wallow in the ditch it finds itself in, unable to provide any added value to projects and their sponsoring clients. Clients want value - not just ideas!!! And one final thing......
I LIKE LIVING IN THE SUBURBS!!!
Here we go again - architects attempting to be the deciders on who lives in a cooked up utopian paradise. I agree with Dee - didn't we go through this before - actually several times before - go back to Lutyens and others pre-Victorian UK for other references. This argument is as old as time in architecture circles and frankly something I believe in my bones architects need to stay way far away from.
The problems associated with the current debacle in housing goes way beyond just cooking up alternatives to a model that for decades had worked pretty well until the restraints of the banking system and the policy makers in DEE CEE were unshackled. Thank you Barney Frank, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Sarbanes / Oxley, CRA, Derivatives, MBS, CDO's, Wall Street, Glass Steagle (no more), FHA, HMA, Phil Gramm, Rudman, Fannie, Freddie, National Assoc. of Realtors, Mortgage Banking Association, TARP, QE whatever, Helicopter Ben, HARP, HAMP, Obama and the porkulus - the list of imposters posing as statesmen and policy wonks and their attendant fixes goes on and on. To just read this article on the surface and agree would be in my humble opinion horribly misguided and naive.
Wake up architects - putting the design blinders on only will not serve you nor your clients well. A much broader and active view is needed - bone up on economics, finance, politics, local government, proper spheres of authority, the scriptures - you name it. Without a broader and DEEPER view of the market the profession will continue to wallow in the ditch it finds itself in, unable to provide any added value to projects and their sponsoring clients. Clients want value - not just ideas!!! And one final thing......
I LIKE LIVING IN THE SUBURBS!!!
When we look at contemporary suburbia, it looks more like private property than public property. The system of single family homes and marks vast areas of residential development in the US is an inefficient model, because the collective and investment costs needed to sustain it are not part of a system. The public-private proposal by Bell and Seong underlines a form of reality which is already there. The current system of property ownership, based on mortgages (backed by government through low interest rates) is actually a system of public or subsidized housing.
The work of the Estudio Teddy Cruz, McMansion Retrofitted (2008),which is referred to in this exhibition, is linked to this very question: if a resident could buy a house, would they buy a typical McMansion? The market, in recent years, has developed its image in order to look like the built form of a dream which is then sold as an aspiration. In this sense the MoMA exhibition carries out an important function: it puts these questions back in the hands of the architects and asks them to come up with new and original ideas.And this is done in an intelligent way, as each team has been asked to come up with architectural and planning proposals, but these teams have also been supported in this enterprise by other experts (each project looks at economic questions, and proposed alternatives to traditional concepts of property ownership, resource use and so on). In this way the various answers proposed are not aimed at simply creating a new typology or a new urban form, but also try and understand how the economic, legal and administrative system needs to be changed in order to support these new models.
The message of “Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream,” a new exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, is that it didn’t need to be this way—and that economic crises can have architectural solutions. But from the start, MoMA pulls its punches: Barry Bergdoll, chief curator of architecture and design for MoMA and the show’s curator, concedes in his catalog introduction that “architects, urban and landscape designers, and infrastructure engineers can do little directly about the problem of foreclosed mortgages and households ‘under water’ (that being a crisis of the financial architecture of America).”
johnberkowitzin reply to SometimesLeftSometimesRight
Mar 3rd 2012, 14:36
I agree with you 100%. The problem is that the market is not controlled by people with ideas but by people seeking profit. And building a sustainable and children-friendly environment is not that important. Each building has its own architect, own solutions and etc. But look on the wonderful planning of Brasil (the capital of Brazil), with the coherent architecture and sustainable environment. And it is almost 50 years old right now, but it looks wonderful!
I agree with you 100%. The problem is that the market is not controlled by people with ideas but by people seeking profit. And building a sustainable and children-friendly environment is not that important. Each building has its own architect, own solutions and etc. But look on the wonderful planning of Brasil (the capital of Brazil), with the coherent architecture and sustainable environment. And it is almost 50 years old right now, but it looks wonderful!
Ian jenkins, UK
3/3/2012 14:16
Foreclosures - done to benefit the banksters who pull the strings of whatever government is sitting in the White-house.
Foreclosures - done to benefit the banksters who pull the strings of whatever government is sitting in the White-house.
N. Waters, Ontario, Canada
3/3/2012 13:31
More grandiose plans....which will entail the usual results.....after the motivators have been paid.
More grandiose plans....which will entail the usual results.....after the motivators have been paid.
The American Dream, which for many Americans is the prospect of owning your own home, is dying. Or, at the very least, it is in danger of being lost to a sea of forces, which include overbuilding, overbuying and the economic downturn.
“Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream” (through July 30, 2012) presents conjectural designs for five representative but quite different suburban places where defaults have been especially numerous. There are no mile-high farming machines or magically floating street grids among these concepts. They are serious proposals with recognizable components—more and less radical, but readily buildable. If, that is, there might be a mass market for them.
Hates Idiots
7th Mar
How about these in your face truths.
Government forced mandates made it legal for banks to offer mortgages to people that had no capability to pay back the loans.
The number of people artificially allowed into the housing market by these policies triggered crazy bidding wars, that I was a victim of, and artificially drove up real estate values.
Which in turn drove up rental costs which overall drove a spike in the national cost of housing.
Which resulted in a net loss of real income because wages did not keep up.
The loans the banks were legally allowed to sell to people who could not afford them had time bombs in them like adjustable rates and interest only loans that our poorly educated masses were too dumb to realize would financially destroy them.
And the biggest architect of this mess, Congressman Barney Frank of MA, is being allowed to retire and not go to prison for his part in building this mess.
How about these in your face truths.
Government forced mandates made it legal for banks to offer mortgages to people that had no capability to pay back the loans.
The number of people artificially allowed into the housing market by these policies triggered crazy bidding wars, that I was a victim of, and artificially drove up real estate values.
Which in turn drove up rental costs which overall drove a spike in the national cost of housing.
Which resulted in a net loss of real income because wages did not keep up.
The loans the banks were legally allowed to sell to people who could not afford them had time bombs in them like adjustable rates and interest only loans that our poorly educated masses were too dumb to realize would financially destroy them.
And the biggest architect of this mess, Congressman Barney Frank of MA, is being allowed to retire and not go to prison for his part in building this mess.
Nature City captivated viewers. A series of brief video advertisements by the advertising firm Weiden & Kennedy accompanied the model. The irony of the ads kept them from seeming market-ready, but WORKac nonetheless showed how much images and media must be mastered to construct desire for new suburban prototypes.
The real-estate industry doesn’t know how to finance such sensible arrangements, which have a long history. It’s still easier to borrow for a McMansion, even though the U.S. has about five million too many of them, according to Arthur C. Nelson, a housing analyst who directs the Metropolitan Research Center at the University of Utah.
Michael Bell, in the video above, makes the very good point that architecture and architects are largely absent from the suburbs. But I guess that I was really looking for something much lower-cost than the mega projects that the teams in the MoMA show came up with. Certainly lower in up-front cost, anyway. The foreclosure crisis was caused by people borrowing enormous sums of money and then finding themselves unable to pay it back. The last thing we want to do is risk repeating that all over again.
Neil Padukone
I haven't seen it yet, but I'm looking forward to the Museum of the City of NY exhibit about the grid. You summarize the issue of the grid pretty well here. But one thing that many reviews of the exhibit seem to neglect is what Robert Neuwirth writes about in "Shadow Cities": the power dynamic that was central to the creation of the New York City grid. By laying out the land in blocks, the city was better able to define and allocate plots of land (usually coterminous with building numbers) to landowners. They were better able to assign and keep track of the values and prices of those plots. This inherently favored landowners in what was, at the time, a city largely inhabited by squatters.
In places like Mumbai, where arguably a majority of the city is inhabited---and much of it was literally developed---by squatters in slums and shanties, this commodification of land is very risky. Shutting (poor) squatters out of land is precisely what governments in Mumbai and Beijing are doing now, by bulldozing slums. And this is harmful not just for reasons of justice and equity, but also because the urban poor contribute a great deal of labor and economic activity to the city.
Blocks and grid systems would facilitate that process by specifically defining plots of land and putting a price on them, which would then be an "opportunity cost" of housing the poor.
In places like Mumbai, where arguably a majority of the city is inhabited---and much of it was literally developed---by squatters in slums and shanties, this commodification of land is very risky. Shutting (poor) squatters out of land is precisely what governments in Mumbai and Beijing are doing now, by bulldozing slums. And this is harmful not just for reasons of justice and equity, but also because the urban poor contribute a great deal of labor and economic activity to the city.
Blocks and grid systems would facilitate that process by specifically defining plots of land and putting a price on them, which would then be an "opportunity cost" of housing the poor.
smart dog
03/19/12 05:11 PM
How does this "Fix" anything?
The problems are economic stupidity and corruption, not architecture.
How does this "Fix" anything?
The problems are economic stupidity and corruption, not architecture.
Anonymous
03/19/12 03:27 PM
Gorgeous renderings, but I can't imagine houses like this actually selling or being nice to be in, not that the current suburban developer offerings are so nice but at least they are what people want.
Gorgeous renderings, but I can't imagine houses like this actually selling or being nice to be in, not that the current suburban developer offerings are so nice but at least they are what people want.
Anonymous
I think the market is determining that suburbs are unsustainable and more dense living is the way to go. In suburbs around Chicago, like Arlington Heights, downtowns were designed, developed and built so people can have that downtown feel. People want places to have dinner, then walk to the show, and then have ice cream afterwards. All within walking distance. For those of you who haven't tried it, treat yourself to the experience.
3/22/2012 12:33 AM CDT
3/22/2012 12:33 AM CDT
Anonymous
Paradigm shift. Foreclosures aside for a moment, if you will allow me, the last 50 or so years have seen the continuing expansion of our population into suburbia, into safe, reasonably secure, more open aired environments where one could drive to work in a reasonable amount of time, shop close to home and educate your children at a local school.
This study, I have not read it, seems to advocate a reversal of that movement. A compaction of the habitable structures into higher density areas with less reliance on the automobile but with the option of public transportation.
Those first two words came from a long conversation I had with a loosely knit group of home builders and developers over coffee one morning.
Consensus was that without a paradign shift in buyer attitude about whether they could expect the livibility, security and comfort and a level of freedom in a high density housing project as they would expect in a "normal" development, it had limited appeal. (Their demographic target(s) were the first/second time home buyer with children).
I don't believe that shift will occur without a far more serious change than the foreclosure crisis. And, knowing a bit about govmint and how it "thinks" I'd venture a guess that their stereotypes of high density housing is limited to a condominium complex with a swimming pool and 2car attached garages. Ciao
This study, I have not read it, seems to advocate a reversal of that movement. A compaction of the habitable structures into higher density areas with less reliance on the automobile but with the option of public transportation.
Those first two words came from a long conversation I had with a loosely knit group of home builders and developers over coffee one morning.
Consensus was that without a paradign shift in buyer attitude about whether they could expect the livibility, security and comfort and a level of freedom in a high density housing project as they would expect in a "normal" development, it had limited appeal. (Their demographic target(s) were the first/second time home buyer with children).
I don't believe that shift will occur without a far more serious change than the foreclosure crisis. And, knowing a bit about govmint and how it "thinks" I'd venture a guess that their stereotypes of high density housing is limited to a condominium complex with a swimming pool and 2car attached garages. Ciao
Anonymous
All this silly non-sense thinking that we are gonna change years and years of development centered around a mode of transit in a compressed amount of time - utter foolishness. The market will determine what happens - gubmit policy and high minded utopian ideals will not.
3/21/2012 5:00 PM CDT
3/21/2012 5:00 PM CDT
But during a panel on March 8 at the museum sponsored by the Forum for Urban Design, two developers, an architecture professor, and a real estate lawyer reacted soberly to the adventurous and optimistic schemes. Though the panelists agreed that the foreclosure crisis will lead to major changes in suburban development, they all thought new patterns are less likely to be brought about by a revised American dream than by economic and demographic factors. And all said it would be very difficult to change zoning laws to permit denser new development patterns, especially in existing “inner-ring” suburbs.
One of the main themes in "Foreclosed" is that the car-dependent suburban house is a form of public subsidy, since the federal mortgage tax deduction and low-interest government housing loans helped fuel the bubble. Although private developers built and profited from most of the sprawl, taxpayers subsidized its infrastructure with roads, utility lines and water mains.
This is Temple Terrace. This drawing shows the houses. The drawings show the roads that service those houses. This is the infrastructure. It’s paid for by the city, the state, the federal government. The houses are theoretically private although they are financed in ways that are ultimately public because of mortgage securities, etc. If you follow that as a financial trail and wonder about what’s public and what’s private, at some level it becomes really impossible to justify that much public money to support that much public housing.
We are arguing that Temple Terrace as a model ought to not only acquire the land but also to keep the land rather than handing the land back over to a private developer in the name of the free market; that there could be a way that the government actually could do redevelopment. What we argue is that the city should get much more control; that people should get much richer and much more complex projects; and that in fact if you do it right; it might be possible to do better than the market.
As I made my way through the gallery, I noticed that both Jeanne Gang’s project for Cicero and, in part, Andrew Zago’s for Rialto called for decoupling home ownership from ownership of the underlying land, which would, theoretically, cut home prices and create a new class of public property. This was the exhibition at its most provocative, addressing the forces that have most powerfully shaped suburbs and smaller cities: public policy, government regulations, zoning, the rules governing mortgages, the way roads and utilities are paid for. At its best, Foreclosed was not an architecture show at all. It was a mini-seminar on public policy—and an assault on conventional notions of private property.
Bell told me what his team was thinking: “One basic understanding of REITs that I often heard people criticize is that they’re essentially hedging instruments.” So the upswing in home prices in one part of the world might be played off a drop in value elsewhere. “Instead of real estate being held as a local asset, it gets bundled up as a global asset.
Bell told me what his team was thinking: “One basic understanding of REITs that I often heard people criticize is that they’re essentially hedging instruments.” So the upswing in home prices in one part of the world might be played off a drop in value elsewhere. “Instead of real estate being held as a local asset, it gets bundled up as a global asset.
I am of a generation where many in my age group have a little change in their pocket. They, too, have procreated and need some more space. They need an alternative to the apartments that have sufficed prior to life’s little miracles and changes. But what options are there? We have been handed, in terms of fulfillment of these needs, a suburbs scrawled across the landscape with profit in mind rather than the things that truly matter. We were handed a culture dependent on the quantity of housing rather than community. And, we have been handed a suburbs that lack the intelligent design necessary to maintain environmental sustainability, social interaction, and dare I stretch to say, lacking a soul.
It is important to acknowledge that housing is a tool of political power. Just as high jobless rates work to drive down wages (thus hurting workers and helping employers), so too high rates of homelessness, as well as overcrowding and substandard housing, serve to inflate the profits of real estate developers and mortgage bankers. At this most fundamental level, the threat of homelessness gives the 1% greater leverage over the 99%. If we guarantee that as a nation we will uphold the right to housing codified in Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, then we will empower the poor — a class which these days is expanding to include many who once felt secure in the middle.
Too often public and private are positioned as opposites, as extremes that lead to nothing less than different systems. (The right-wing rhetoric that's branded President Obama as "socialist" is only the latest example.) In this schema, high public good is equated with high government spending, high public debt, and ultimately low private value; likewise high private value is equated with high profit and minimal public good. But no matter its political uses, this sort of either/or thinking is unproductive; the rise of both the corporate social responsibility movement and the non-profit social enterprise sector underscore that public good and private value not only can coexist but can also be mutually reinforcing.
So I believe the hybrid approach is the likeliest way to achieve real innovation in housing as well as in real estate development practices. What might be the role of architects in this effort? The South African architect Iain Low has described a building as a manifesto, a declaration of what is possible. (“I work within the possibility of significantly transforming reality, as opposed to reinventing it," he said.) And indeed, the five projects in Foreclosed show us the possibilities of dreaming big.
So I believe the hybrid approach is the likeliest way to achieve real innovation in housing as well as in real estate development practices. What might be the role of architects in this effort? The South African architect Iain Low has described a building as a manifesto, a declaration of what is possible. (“I work within the possibility of significantly transforming reality, as opposed to reinventing it," he said.) And indeed, the five projects in Foreclosed show us the possibilities of dreaming big.
As a robust player in the housing market, public housing would not only ensure that everyone has adequate housing; it might also spur other housing sectors to better performance. In other words, if the private sector cannot meet the large social goal, then public agencies will develop housing and in this way make the market more competitive.
Another salutary aspect of the exhibition was the designers' recognition that both old and new suburbs fail to meet the growing diversity of housing needs — e.g., extended families, granny flats, home offices, group living, etc. Both "Nature-City," designed by WORKac for a site in Oregon, and "Property with Properties," by Zago Architecture for a site in Southern California, feature units of different sizes, types and densities. Niche demand (including dispersed rural communities, and supportive and transitional housing) can be more nimbly met by entrepreneurial non-profits working with government support than by top-down housing authorities. But even so-called traditional families would benefit from having more choice with regard to housing providers — with government serving as a watchdog against discrimination and retaliation. When public housing is the only housing provider — the provider of last resort, as it often is today — government itself can become the agent of discrimination, as is the case when it imposes “zero tolerance” rules for minor drug possession — the kind of rule that often results in poor families being evicted. While Reinhold Martin wonders whether we can any longer "imagine an architecture without developers," we would argue that to substitute "government" for "developers" seems an insufficiently nuanced proposition, and that government can have more impact by promoting a diversity of public-serving private developers than by commissioning architecture itself.
Prof. Martin argues that these kinds of strategies are often limited and even defined by the "now-dominant paradigm of privatization." But many of these housing strategies are effective in creating low-cost housing and in fact are tightly linked to government action. For example, "affordable housing" — with or without the scare quotes — would not exist without the federal Low Income Housing Tax Credit program, which was created in 1986. Similarly, inclusionary zoning puts private resources to explicitly public purposes, requiring developers to provide a fraction of newly-built units to low-income residents on or off site. In California, until recently, tax increment financing (generated by private businesses) allowed redevelopment agencies to provide the pre-development and gap funding that led to the creation of thousands of units of high-quality affordable housing.
(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
(2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.
— Article 25, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, United Nations
(2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.
— Article 25, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, United Nations
More specifically they were asked, gently but persistently, to design public housing on publicly owned or supported land identified in The Buell Hypothesis: not "affordable housing," or housing provided by "public-private partnerships," but genuinely public housing that learns even from notorious precedents like the Pruitt-Igoe and Cabrini-Green "experiments," as well as from far more successful examples that still endure in cities and suburbs across the country and around the world.
It is a sign of the times that this exhortation has proved controversial not because it reminds us of the economic inequity, the structural racism, and the gender violence that has marked every stage of so much welfare-state public housing, from inception to management, even as it challenges the apparent inevitability of such results. It is controversial because it suggests that the state, or the public sector — conceived along with civil society in terms of multiple, overlapping, virtual and actual publics — might play a more active, direct and enlightened role in the provision of housing and, by extension, of education, health care and other infrastructures of daily life in the United States. In other words, it is a direct challenge to the now-dominant paradigm of privatization. That the design teams did not entirely take up this challenge is, in my view, at least as interesting as what they actually did propose, and is perhaps symptomatic of how deeply the politics of privatization has shaped design culture. Simply put, can we no longer imagine architecture without developers?
It is a sign of the times that this exhortation has proved controversial not because it reminds us of the economic inequity, the structural racism, and the gender violence that has marked every stage of so much welfare-state public housing, from inception to management, even as it challenges the apparent inevitability of such results. It is controversial because it suggests that the state, or the public sector — conceived along with civil society in terms of multiple, overlapping, virtual and actual publics — might play a more active, direct and enlightened role in the provision of housing and, by extension, of education, health care and other infrastructures of daily life in the United States. In other words, it is a direct challenge to the now-dominant paradigm of privatization. That the design teams did not entirely take up this challenge is, in my view, at least as interesting as what they actually did propose, and is perhaps symptomatic of how deeply the politics of privatization has shaped design culture. Simply put, can we no longer imagine architecture without developers?
First, we need to struggle to establish a basic right to housing and a right to the city for all. Eviction and displacement should never be allowed as solutions — they are “solutions” only for landlords and bankers, and they invariably happen at the expense of tenants and homeowners. As amply defined by UN-Habitat and in international covenants, the right to housing is much more than a roof over one’s head; it is a right to a decent quality of life in a viable, sustainable community. Groups like the New York City-based National Economic and Social Rights Initiative and the Habitat International Coalition, which has members and allies worldwide, are strongly advocating for this expanded definition of rights.
Finally, we need an open, democratic approach to long-range planning. I don’t believe it when planners and designers talk about “smart growth,” “retrofitting the suburbs,” and “transit-oriented development.” These seem to me the new mantras for professions that lack the courage to confront the real problems and challenge the dictatorship of developers. The urban planning profession fully endorsed and helped create suburban sprawl when it chose to collaborate with the homebuilding industry and accommodate itself to the highway system. It is now obediently following the market trend towards denser development without critically engaging with and supporting the widespread movements that place quality of life over growth.
These are some big issues to tackle: the impact of neoliberal capitalism on housing, providing housing for all, marrying design and social design, and long-range planning that doesn’t just cater to developers. One exhibit can’t solve all of these concerns but they are important ones that more people should be discussing.
HUFFPOST SUPER USER, Cyrus Trance, I check facts, 261 Fans
04:41 AM on 07/23/2012
In some of the harder hit areas A investors are buying up properties for cash and renting them out.
This means that huge sections of the community will be rentals which is not good.
In some of the harder hit areas A investors are buying up properties for cash and renting them out.
This means that huge sections of the community will be rentals which is not good.
sale bored, 169 Fans
12:52 AM on 07/23/2012
Toss out the tax exemption on mortgage interest and RE will bottom in 6 months. Cut the current exemption to two thirds the first year, then to one third the second and then to zero exemption for the third year, for all interest over $4k per year per house.
Toss out the tax exemption on mortgage interest and RE will bottom in 6 months. Cut the current exemption to two thirds the first year, then to one third the second and then to zero exemption for the third year, for all interest over $4k per year per house.
January, 83 Fans
12:44 AM on 07/23/2012
"We need another housing boom."
We need a "community" boom. Sprawling suburbs don't build community. Neither does living on top of each other (recall what has happened to public housing). Most disappointing is that we do not even seem able to recognize what "community" is or what it might look like.
I don't blame builders; it's a lot bigger than that. Most of us do not want any outsiders sticking their noses into our business. Just look how hard it is to protect children, women, and the elderly. Our cities require pioneers, and most of us are simply not up to that, as heroic as it might sound.
No, there is no easy answer. But can't we at least begin asking the right question? "Why can't we just get along together?" Then let's build whatever that takes.
"We need another housing boom."
We need a "community" boom. Sprawling suburbs don't build community. Neither does living on top of each other (recall what has happened to public housing). Most disappointing is that we do not even seem able to recognize what "community" is or what it might look like.
I don't blame builders; it's a lot bigger than that. Most of us do not want any outsiders sticking their noses into our business. Just look how hard it is to protect children, women, and the elderly. Our cities require pioneers, and most of us are simply not up to that, as heroic as it might sound.
No, there is no easy answer. But can't we at least begin asking the right question? "Why can't we just get along together?" Then let's build whatever that takes.
HUFFPOST SUPER USER, John Shaw, 265 Fans
12:24 AM on 07/23/2012
At worst, like the whip and buggy mode, sprawling suburbs must die a natural death.
At best, many prefab'd sub-divisions of suburban labyrinths will have to die off - ebb and flow - to satisfy the natural attrition due to dwindling market demand...
Either way, no intervention is necessary...let's walk away from the 2008 debacle with the lessons learned and a commitment not to repeat it again.
At worst, like the whip and buggy mode, sprawling suburbs must die a natural death.
At best, many prefab'd sub-divisions of suburban labyrinths will have to die off - ebb and flow - to satisfy the natural attrition due to dwindling market demand...
Either way, no intervention is necessary...let's walk away from the 2008 debacle with the lessons learned and a commitment not to repeat it again.
HUFFPOST SUPER USER, realitytrumpsbull, two 'alves of coconut!, 1330 Fans
12:23 AM on 07/23/2012
Since the mexican drug lords and international high-dollar real estate speculators have pretty much cornered the market on having a roof overhead, when can we expect The Government/associated business entities to start setting up the low-cost campsites and RV/trailer parks, or the high-capacity public confinement facilities/gas chambers/whatever?
Since the mexican drug lords and international high-dollar real estate speculators have pretty much cornered the market on having a roof overhead, when can we expect The Government/associated business entities to start setting up the low-cost campsites and RV/trailer parks, or the high-capacity public confinement facilities/gas chambers/whatever?
HUFFPOST SUPER USER, psnyder325, Yep, I'm a Socialist. Deal., 1429 Fans
05:06 AM on 07/23/2012
I'm not sure how I see the deflation of an over-inflated housing market brought about by greedy mortgage bankers and speculators has anything whatsoever to do with Obama. If we had kept sensible regulations in place during the Reagan/Bush/Clinton/Bush years, 2008's crash wouldn't have happened, and housing would not have shot through the roof. Obama is picking up the pieces. The previous 4 presidents and previous Congresses caused the problem through being in bed with the criminal international banking cartel.
I'm not sure how I see the deflation of an over-inflated housing market brought about by greedy mortgage bankers and speculators has anything whatsoever to do with Obama. If we had kept sensible regulations in place during the Reagan/Bush/Clinton/Bush years, 2008's crash wouldn't have happened, and housing would not have shot through the roof. Obama is picking up the pieces. The previous 4 presidents and previous Congresses caused the problem through being in bed with the criminal international banking cartel.
HUFFPOST SUPER USER, pepper1311, POGS are dirt, 403 Fans
04:38 AM on 07/23/2012
Mary, thank you I have said this all along. It took 30+ years for the bubble to burst it will take many to inflate again.
Mary, thank you I have said this all along. It took 30+ years for the bubble to burst it will take many to inflate again.
MaryfromIL, 996 Fans
02:36 AM on 07/23/2012
During the 1930's depression, 50% of the houses were foreclosed on. So Obama didn't do too badly.
There was no way to keep the housing bubble at that high rate, foreclosures are a result of natural market settle.
During the 1930's depression, 50% of the houses were foreclosed on. So Obama didn't do too badly.
There was no way to keep the housing bubble at that high rate, foreclosures are a result of natural market settle.
The exhibit is at root an attempt to exploit the trauma at hand -- a foreclosure crisis that has swept through suburbs with malevolent force -- as an opportunity to reexamine the conditions that got us here. For decades, homebuilders and their financiers marketed an appealing version of the American dream, the idea that nourishing family life plays out in new single-family homes, the trophies of upward mobility. That vision has gone cancerous. We are wasting hours in traffic and dollars on gasoline. We are squandering land on individual lots that could be used as broader green space. Government is surrendering vast sums to maintain highways when it could repurpose that money toward energy-efficient mass transit.
In the mythologized version of recent American history -- which is to say, the part where the suburbs devolved from the wholesome backdrop for family life into ground zero for a devastating foreclosure crisis -- we essentially got what we asked for.
Americans demanded gleaming houses on individual squares of lawn far removed from urban centers, and the people who finance and construct real estate delivered the goods. This is how we wound up with expanding rings of suburban sprawl orbiting every metropolitan area. This is how we turned ever-larger swaths of open space into grids of look-alike homes, the inventory that came to be tinder for the foreclosure inferno. The developers, bankers, salespeople and their government enablers were merely working to satisfy a public craving.
But the real estate bubble was in fact an orgy of profiteering run by and for the benefit of special interests that stuck the public with the cleanup. Investment banks poured money into housing because mortgages had become raw materials for a lucrative business churning out mortgage-backed securities. Homebuilders carved acreage into subdivisions far in excess of demand because money was free and volume was good for share prices. Money was free because the Federal Reserve kept interest rates low while Fannie and Freddie kept guaranteeing mortgages. Land was accessible because the government expanded highways and subsidized gas prices.
Americans demanded gleaming houses on individual squares of lawn far removed from urban centers, and the people who finance and construct real estate delivered the goods. This is how we wound up with expanding rings of suburban sprawl orbiting every metropolitan area. This is how we turned ever-larger swaths of open space into grids of look-alike homes, the inventory that came to be tinder for the foreclosure inferno. The developers, bankers, salespeople and their government enablers were merely working to satisfy a public craving.
But the real estate bubble was in fact an orgy of profiteering run by and for the benefit of special interests that stuck the public with the cleanup. Investment banks poured money into housing because mortgages had become raw materials for a lucrative business churning out mortgage-backed securities. Homebuilders carved acreage into subdivisions far in excess of demand because money was free and volume was good for share prices. Money was free because the Federal Reserve kept interest rates low while Fannie and Freddie kept guaranteeing mortgages. Land was accessible because the government expanded highways and subsidized gas prices.
Audience Member: I used to be a homeowner in Fort Lee, but the taxes got to be too high. As you know in New Jersey the taxes for homes are among the highest in the country. So, I sold the home at a loss in this economy and received a HUD voucher to get a rental space. In my town, I was told there is a lack of public housing. If I were to go into a HUD building, I could move in but not move out. It would be better for someone of my age to get a HUD voucher and just try to find affordable housing with that voucher. Now that new development is not taking into consideration affordable housing, so my question to you is since the housing authority in my town said they cannot approach the developer, and the town that is making the deal with the developers cannot request affordable housing, can gentlemen like you make any suggestions? I understand that Governor Christie of New Jersey has the idea that affordable housing, the HUD program, is something where the developers that have put in money into the fund for these things, the funds have not been used, and that money he wants the government to take. So, the affordable housing in New Jersey is stagnant and looks like it’s going away. Can you make any suggestion how affordable housing can have a future and how there can be better communication with developers that are getting a great deal for people like me?
BL: What you essentially did in maybe two minutes is cut a broad swath right through just about every problem that we kind of touched upon up here and hopefully to some extent a lot of these projects started to poke at. I would, with all due respect to my colleagues, suggest they didn’t really get into that cut. And, when Barry said this would be a little more nuts and bolts, I didn’t realize we were talking this nuts and bolts, but you’re absolutely right. You point out a whole series of problems starting from the fact that you’ve been displaced, put in a position where you could no longer afford your house because of the taxes on that house. Now you’re being left with very few options. I would hope on a really basic level that your voucher is portable, so that you aren’t stuck just looking for housing in Fort Lee which I know can be somewhat challenging. […] The whole Affordable Housing Trust Fund is a problem because it’s like the old George Bernard Shaw play Major Barbara: It allows these guys to buy their way out of providing affordable housing. […] As long as you continue to take what amounts to developers’ ransom money, you’re going to continue to have segregated neighborhoods. You’re going to continue to have folks like yourself who are stuck, getting forced out of their neighborhood…
BL: What you essentially did in maybe two minutes is cut a broad swath right through just about every problem that we kind of touched upon up here and hopefully to some extent a lot of these projects started to poke at. I would, with all due respect to my colleagues, suggest they didn’t really get into that cut. And, when Barry said this would be a little more nuts and bolts, I didn’t realize we were talking this nuts and bolts, but you’re absolutely right. You point out a whole series of problems starting from the fact that you’ve been displaced, put in a position where you could no longer afford your house because of the taxes on that house. Now you’re being left with very few options. I would hope on a really basic level that your voucher is portable, so that you aren’t stuck just looking for housing in Fort Lee which I know can be somewhat challenging. […] The whole Affordable Housing Trust Fund is a problem because it’s like the old George Bernard Shaw play Major Barbara: It allows these guys to buy their way out of providing affordable housing. […] As long as you continue to take what amounts to developers’ ransom money, you’re going to continue to have segregated neighborhoods. You’re going to continue to have folks like yourself who are stuck, getting forced out of their neighborhood…
BL [in response to an audience question]: Quite frankly, the financiers don’t come without the policy. Maybe as a policymaker or someone who’s directly involved in policy, that might seem narcissistic if not naïve, but you did not see the widespread investment in personal mortgages until there was a tax break. You didn’t see the widespread investment and the ability for private public partnerships until there was a tax break. And those tax breaks were enabled with policy.
MJ: But we’re still only tentatively seizing these opportunities. In some sense, when public bodies dither, private developers leap. In Huntington, Long Island in 2010, after three years of planning and endless meetings, a mixed-income, mixed-use rental and homeownership development proposed by Avalon Bay Communities and located less than a half-mile from the Long Island Rail Road station was defeated. The politics of change are extremely hard.
MJ: In fact, amidst the rubble and smoldering ruins of the South Bronx, building these 1950s, Beaver Cleaver, suburban tract homes was as provocative and improbable an act as building any of the five projects proposed in Foreclosed. It went contrary to and undermined every conceivable narrative about the South Bronx and the folks who lived there. It provided people with hope, an ineffable but indispensible quality that something could be done to roll back the firestorm of devastation. And it provided them with a model for how to do that: draw upon the ambition, energy, and resources of organized community residents, marry it with significant philanthropic and more importantly government resources and political will, and use those relationships to leverage private capital.
MJ: If the subprime crisis has cruelly afflicted some suburban areas, the great transformation of the city’s economy from one based upon manufacturing to a service-based economy dominated by the financial services industry initially gutted the city’s neighborhoods.
Marc Jahr (MJ): I think it’s also important to note that I’m neither an architect nor a city planner. My background is as a community and tenant organizer and as an affordable housing finance practitioner. And clearly those are the lenses I look at the world through because I’ve come to realize that if you can’t finance it, you can’t build it. And if it doesn’t resonate with neighborhood residents, if they’re not involved in some way in the planning and implementation of the initiative, then the odds of it being durable are going to be slim. I suppose that’s why I took mild umbrage at Andrew Zago’s comment—Andrew, where are you?—as part of Foreclosed, his team focused upon Rialto, California, that the pedagogical lesson is that with all the value other disciplines bring to urbanism, new urban projects should be not only architect-led but architecture-led. I think that approach can lead to playful, intriguing, but problematic architectural plans.
Luanne_Taylor
try selling a NONforeclosure in the midst of it!
Typical_Boston_Liberal
Please discuss the fact that cash-in-hand contractors are buying a huge portion of the available homes around most major cities and chopping them up for rental.
jamesguy74
I think that this foreclosure crisis gives the typical American suburbs to basically start over. Housing prices are down dramatically, so it makes the American dream more affordable for first time home buyers.
Progressives_LoveAmerica
tlstryker, it's true & I don't blame them. If I were being foreclosed on, I'd do the same thing: Put out rotting food all over the place & put out the welcome wagon for rodents, possums, raccoons, vagrants, etc. The bank will be welcomed by stench
incognito-ergo-sum
Typical_Boston_Liberal, Once they own all the rentals, they will cut care and raise prices.
Luanne_Taylor
so only those with enough cash can purchase the foreclosures
toncuz
hopefully everyone knows that Fannie and Freddie were VICTIMS of Wall Street and Republican deregulation of derivatives...NOT the cause
Typical_Boston_Liberal
Not if contractors buy the house first with cash on hand.
hp_blogger_Clay Chiles
I want to see some nonprofit buy up foreclosed homes and then give them away to people who lost their homes to foreclosure after falling victim to predatory lending.
MariJman
hp_blogger_Clay Chiles, they couldn't pay the taxes
toncuz
Or we can CLAW BACK foreclosure losses from the bank accounts of the criminal bankers
Luanne_Taylor
foreclosures have COST Americans way too much net worth...
SheilaKhani
JamesPowers, be sure to do the math before buying a house- make sure you buy the house, not the bank - be sure if do the math with HOA and property tax (which comes up to be 10% of your net income on average- in California)
MariJman
Eddie_VanderMolen, you know the banker fat cats and government lifers will never go for anything progressive when it comes to money
Luanne_Taylor
now I continue to either LOSE big bucks on sells, or I am stuck!
Luanne_Taylor
every day a new foreclosure pops up and you think, great another decline in the neighborhood prices
Sharon_Morell
tlstryker, With interest rates this low if you can afford to buy you would be wise to do so
Luanne_Taylor
interest rates won't help to buy the foreclosed properties
Luanne_Taylor
look at the houses that are NOT selling in an area and you will find the folks trying to NOT compete
NoMoniker
Who is buying the foreclosed homes? Certainly not the millions who've been foreclosed on. Rich investors?
A New Conversation (132)
The nation’s ongoing foreclosure crisis has ushered in a new era of lending, volumes of new regulations, even a new federal agency … and now, a new way of looking at architecture and the suburban culture.
We’ve been invited by the Museum of Modern Art and PS1 in New York to undertake a summer-long workshop to re-imagine the American suburb and the American dream of home ownership in the shadow of the home foreclosure crisis. It is an incredibly important opportunity for us to have a venue at such a prestigious institution, and we hope it will be an opportunity to help shape the national conversation on what home means today. This workshop will lead to an exhibition of our work, together with that of four other teams, at MoMA in New York next January.
Chia
4. Great article, passion is obvious on both sides of the argument.
“Zago vehemently attacked Dunham-Jones and New Urbanism for not having produced a single piece of “significant” architecture, asking when they would give up in failure.” Probably as heated af a forum of this type could be.
May 25, 2011, @ 3:29 pm
“Zago vehemently attacked Dunham-Jones and New Urbanism for not having produced a single piece of “significant” architecture, asking when they would give up in failure.” Probably as heated af a forum of this type could be.
May 25, 2011, @ 3:29 pm
In an effort to begin a conversation on the foreclosure crisis, architecture, and suburbanism, we have just launched Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream, the second workshop and exhibition in the series Issues in Contemporary Architecture. Like last year’s Rising Currents, Foreclosed uses the model of a workshop with public open houses at MoMA PS1, followed by an exhibition at MoMA, with five interdisciplinary teams each working on designated sites.
Denise Roux
AUGUST 10, 2011, 12:23 P.M.
I am 58-year-old education professional. I also write for the local paper. This morning I decided to create a blog to chronicle my foreclosure experience because it is a very interesting story, and I am a story-teller. Would my posts fit with what is going on here?
I am 58-year-old education professional. I also write for the local paper. This morning I decided to create a blog to chronicle my foreclosure experience because it is a very interesting story, and I am a story-teller. Would my posts fit with what is going on here?
Because what partly makes the draconian new rules stick is everyday discourse, conversations public and private that no longer wince at the suggestion that “financial health” is built on the perverse pleasure of watching someone lose their home or their health care. The fact that this brutal feeling is just that—a feeling—suggests that the art of architecture might be a good place to start, to learn to think and feel differently about the movie now playing in a theater near you.
In an effort to harness the ideas of the creative community to provoke change, the Whitney Independent Study Program and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) have embarked on curatorial projects that deconstruct “foreclosure” in markedly different ways. Essentially, both ask for a new, creative perspective on how to fill the vacant, unused and struggling spaces produced by the financial crisis.
Where the Whitney ISP/Kitchen exhibition and discussion aimed to be open-ended, so as to allow for interdisciplinary connections at all scales, MoMA grounded itself in real sites where architecture as a specific discipline can alter an environment and thus change the course of an economic downward spiral. The exhibition, as the title suggests, will interrogate and, one hopes, reframe the “American Dream” that has shaped our flawed housing policies and design preferences. It remains to be seen if the plans imagined by assembled firms will go farther than MoMA’s walls, but the show has the potential to popularize innovative and economically sustainable design themes.
However, as the exhibition moves forward and the emerging conversation surrounding foreclosure continues among cultural institutions, the creative minds at work must be cognizant of their objectives: to truly aid those who are losing their homes and to build a new platform on which Americans, and citizens internationally, can construct housing paradigms and approaches to ownership, investment and property.
If, as Samuel Johnson famously said, “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel,” are the fine arts the last refuge of a humanist liberal? Whereas art museums once confined themselves to collecting and presenting for the edification and education of the masses, some institutions now see that education extending beyond the typical boundaries of art. "If the 20th century was primarily about collecting, I believe the 21st is about programming," MoMA director Glenn Lowry says in Cembalest’s piece. "Our goal is not so much to be the change agent, but rather, to create the kind of conversation that might lead at some future date to change by addressing critically important problems that engage specialists within the field as well as a more general public." A recent program at the MoMA titled "Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream" seems out of place in a modern art museum, but in response to the U.S. foreclosure crisis of the past few years, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon just doesn’t seem that relevant, at least directly. Lowry, and others hosting similar forums, claim not to be “change agents,” but the very act of promoting the “conversation” in a civil manner is a refreshing change.
So in addition to stories about college graduates moving back in with their parents because they can't find a job, and stories about foreclosures and our crumbling infrastructure, we will focus on efforts to revitalize -- and even re-imagine -- our communities.
One such effort is being sponsored by the Museum of Modern Art. The 14-month program is called "Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream," and is an effort to rethink America's suburbs in the wake of the foreclosure crisis -- and spur dialogue and debate around the subject. The project is "premised on reframing the current crisis as an opportunity," writes curator Barry Bergdoll, "an approach that is in keeping with the fundamental American ethos where challenging circumstances engender innovation and out-of-the-box thinking."
Innovation and out-of-the-box thinking are exactly what we need right now. Among the many tragedies unfolding across the country because of the tectonic shifts going on in our economy is the horrible waste of human resources. We don't just have a surplus of under-utilized workers, we have a surplus of untapped energy and creativity and talent.
One such effort is being sponsored by the Museum of Modern Art. The 14-month program is called "Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream," and is an effort to rethink America's suburbs in the wake of the foreclosure crisis -- and spur dialogue and debate around the subject. The project is "premised on reframing the current crisis as an opportunity," writes curator Barry Bergdoll, "an approach that is in keeping with the fundamental American ethos where challenging circumstances engender innovation and out-of-the-box thinking."
Innovation and out-of-the-box thinking are exactly what we need right now. Among the many tragedies unfolding across the country because of the tectonic shifts going on in our economy is the horrible waste of human resources. We don't just have a surplus of under-utilized workers, we have a surplus of untapped energy and creativity and talent.
“If the 20th century was primarily about collecting, I believe the 21st is about programming,” he says. “This project is not about collecting anything. It’s about engaging in serious research that results in vibrant public programs.” The focus is the process, not the immediate outcome, Lowry stresses. “Our goal is not so much to be the change agent,” he says, “but rather, to create the kind of conversation that might lead at some future date to change by addressing critically important problems that engage specialists within the field as well as a more general public.”
In these exhibitions museum visitors were shown a profile of the architect who functions not simply as an artist who can give brilliant form to briefs written by others but more broadly as an interdisciplinary artistic and intellectual entrepreneur. In avoiding monographic displays, we are determined to promote not individual architects, but rather architecture, landscape, and design as such. We also aim to foreground the full gravitas of the central role of designers in creating and maintaining our public realm — which is more crucial than ever in a period in which the public posting of private wish lists on social media sites often passes as a form of public discourse.
Pauline S
09.17.11 at 01:50
Thank you, Barry, for helping us learn from architecture's past and enabling us to benefit from great minds working to solve the new problems we face today. Your thought-provoking exhibitions are a serve to all who are grappling with the environmental, social, financial and other issues that keep us awake at night. Thanks for providing us with forum for discussion to discover a range of solutions.
Thank you, Barry, for helping us learn from architecture's past and enabling us to benefit from great minds working to solve the new problems we face today. Your thought-provoking exhibitions are a serve to all who are grappling with the environmental, social, financial and other issues that keep us awake at night. Thanks for providing us with forum for discussion to discover a range of solutions.
taxes2high
September 22, 2011 at 4:32PM
Excellent article! Orange is the perfect subject for this study. What is needed is a larger vision that breaks free of local politics and entrenched special interests. Unfortunately, that will be very difficult.
Excellent article! Orange is the perfect subject for this study. What is needed is a larger vision that breaks free of local politics and entrenched special interests. Unfortunately, that will be very difficult.
Still, to some curators, being all talk is not necessarily a bad thing. “Our purpose as a museum is to experiment,” says Nicanor. “It’s not an end—we are not going to come up with the design for the next bicycle, for example, but we are going to get people talking about it.”
NEARLY 100 ARCHITECTURE aficionados crowded into the steamy third-floor rooms of MoMA/PS1 last June to hear five architect teams discuss their latest projects. Their mandate: solve the country’s housing crisis.
“Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream,” an ongoing series of workshops that will culminate in an exhibition at MoMA in February, aims to do nothing less than provide new models for how metropolitan areas-specifically large suburbs in five areas around the country-might be improved. “The projects are not meant to provide solutions to immediate site,” says Barry Bergdoll, MoMA’s chief curator of architecture and design. “They are meant to provide ideas for fundamental change.”
“Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream,” an ongoing series of workshops that will culminate in an exhibition at MoMA in February, aims to do nothing less than provide new models for how metropolitan areas-specifically large suburbs in five areas around the country-might be improved. “The projects are not meant to provide solutions to immediate site,” says Barry Bergdoll, MoMA’s chief curator of architecture and design. “They are meant to provide ideas for fundamental change.”
As New York City was coming out of its darkest years, art did not exactly lead the way. Who would have asked it to try? Now two institutions have joined forces to do just that. The Noguchi Museum, in collaboration with Socrates Sculpture Park, offers "Civic Action: A Vision for Long Island City."
"Change the dream and you change the city." The line could describe their hopes exactly. Instead, it helps introduce five other plans for suburban America, each with a commitment to cities and to dreaming. The Museum of Modern Art calls the show "Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream." Yet, the curators are not looking for new architecture to house an older ideal. Rather, they want to change thinking, the kind that brought the tangle of postwar suburban sprawl and, in their minds, the doomed housing bubble.
"Change the dream and you change the city." The line could describe their hopes exactly. Instead, it helps introduce five other plans for suburban America, each with a commitment to cities and to dreaming. The Museum of Modern Art calls the show "Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream." Yet, the curators are not looking for new architecture to house an older ideal. Rather, they want to change thinking, the kind that brought the tangle of postwar suburban sprawl and, in their minds, the doomed housing bubble.
Two interrelated claims provide the premise for "Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream," a recent workshop and forthcoming exhibition organized by the Department of Architecture and Design of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The first is that the foundation of the American dream, particularly as it has evolved over the past century, is ownership of a singlefamily suburban house; the second is that America's current foreclosure crisis should force a wholesale rethinking of this dream.
Bergdoll and Martin describe their directive to the teams as "not to redesign the house, but to redesign the dream."
All five teams have responded to this directive to some degree by proposing social and infrastructural systems that attempt, on a large scale, to align with the new cultural desires and economic realities of American suburban living. Amale Andraos and Dan Wood of WORK Architecture Company, working on SalemKeizer, Oregon, propose a contemporary update on the notion of a garden city, addressing a range of ecological issues. Hilary Sample and Michael Meredith of MOS, analyzing the Oranges, New Jersey, explore the potential of suburban streets to offer a new kind of civic space in a less car-dependent future. Jeanne Gang of Studio Gang, focusing on Cicero, Illinois, seeks a new flexibility in housing that will accommodate the rapidly shifting immigrant populations in the suburbs outside Chicago. Andrew Zago of Zago Architecture, studying Rialto, California, subverts the strict hierarchies of property boundaries that have traditionally structured suburban space. And Michael Bell of Visible Weather, examining Temple Terrace, Florida, considers the relationship between relatively homogenous Florida suburbs and the more diverse and less prosperous neighboring urban communities.
All five teams have responded to this directive to some degree by proposing social and infrastructural systems that attempt, on a large scale, to align with the new cultural desires and economic realities of American suburban living. Amale Andraos and Dan Wood of WORK Architecture Company, working on SalemKeizer, Oregon, propose a contemporary update on the notion of a garden city, addressing a range of ecological issues. Hilary Sample and Michael Meredith of MOS, analyzing the Oranges, New Jersey, explore the potential of suburban streets to offer a new kind of civic space in a less car-dependent future. Jeanne Gang of Studio Gang, focusing on Cicero, Illinois, seeks a new flexibility in housing that will accommodate the rapidly shifting immigrant populations in the suburbs outside Chicago. Andrew Zago of Zago Architecture, studying Rialto, California, subverts the strict hierarchies of property boundaries that have traditionally structured suburban space. And Michael Bell of Visible Weather, examining Temple Terrace, Florida, considers the relationship between relatively homogenous Florida suburbs and the more diverse and less prosperous neighboring urban communities.
Jennifer Chung · Birkbeck, University of London
The intertwined modern relations between museums and capitalism is probably mostly the governments' fault across the globe. The versatility of the name of art provided endless potential for private company to back a show or even an institution. Fronting for things has become basic survival skills for modern museums (need not to mention those privately owned mega museum brands). When the states traded glorious fiscal reports and balance sheets with the greater good of humanity, museums were like being exposed to a new kind of lethal virus.... 'mutation' is the key for survival, either museums look the other way and suck it up or close its doors.
The only way to fight this would be to have mainstream media to spread article and discussion like this piece, so people would actually paid more attention and begin to question things.
November 21, 2011 at 9:58pm
The only way to fight this would be to have mainstream media to spread article and discussion like this piece, so people would actually paid more attention and begin to question things.
November 21, 2011 at 9:58pm
d
Why not write some news. Just more drivel. This article has been written 50 times in the last 30 years
December 20, 2011 at 12:57 pm
December 20, 2011 at 12:57 pm
Alexander J Felson
MARCH 21, 2012, 12:40 P.M.
First, I really appreciate the commentary from both KB (12/15) and DK (03/07) regarding the rewilding concepts in relation to suburbanization. I would like to respond first to DK’s point of building dense and compact cities and leaving the “hinterland and wilderness as intact as possible” is the ideal and I certainly do not disagree with this position. That said this is not what is taking place on the ground. Urbanization is continuing to spread into the hinterlands here in the US, in China, India, and Brazil and around the globe. The proposal here is to consider the potential for these exurban developments to adopt an ecological mandate.The focus on the MOMA exhibit and analysis is also very specific and thus the proposal needs to be seen in its context. We were specifically tasked with looking at foreclosure housing projects and how as designers and scientists we might bring federal funding to address some of the issues faced. Thus the site was selected for us, and due to its proximity to the San Bernardino National Forest and the ecologically intact conditions of the surrounding context including the Lytle Creek Wash, we saw the notion of creating a neighborhood focused in part on ecological management as an opportunity for collaboration between developers, the federal government and future homeowners.A third factor to consider is climate change and global warming. The earth is changing in part through large-scale anthropogenic causes. These are creating pressures and constraints on the hinterland ecosystems and organisms. Already, there are discussions of how to foster species migration as their ranges shift north. This is an area that scientists are keenly interested in the role they might play. Consider the species introductions, assisted migrations and other efforts scientists are already participating with the goal of enhancing ecosystems. In other words, just leaving the hinterlands out there “undisturbed” by the built environment does not mean they remain undisturbed, and to maintain ecosystems and organisms human interventions will likely be an important component. Consider John Foley’s diagram of the changing landscape conditions – where is the “hinterlands” in his diagram?Finally, Rewilding (and this goes back to KB’s comments) is a radical proposal and one that is debated amongst ecologist. Much of the issue arises from the concern over human – wildlife conflict that would likely ensue if we were to reintroduce large carnivores etc. to the US. At the same time, most ecologists would agree that top down predation would benefit ecosystem health and lead to greater diversity of species. Thus the issue is one of public acceptance. As a result, getting this concept out there through a variety of venues (given that Rewilding is in the “marketing” stage) should mostly benefit the cause. It is a much more radical concept than simply allowing people to manage biological systems at the urban fringe and is intended to create debate and discussion.The MoMA exhibit is pervaded by architectural discourse of the suburb and could use this layer of integration of knowledge into new suburban forms. The architect and their modes of working and analysis were prioritized and sites open to large development were sites for new visions. Still, the rewilding concept is part of the exhibit, which means that tens of thousands of museumgoers visiting the exhibit will have the opportunity to reflect on what role people can play in managing ecosystems in their neighborhoods, and on the potential value of rewilding as a concept to consider for promoting ecosystem function.
First, I really appreciate the commentary from both KB (12/15) and DK (03/07) regarding the rewilding concepts in relation to suburbanization. I would like to respond first to DK’s point of building dense and compact cities and leaving the “hinterland and wilderness as intact as possible” is the ideal and I certainly do not disagree with this position. That said this is not what is taking place on the ground. Urbanization is continuing to spread into the hinterlands here in the US, in China, India, and Brazil and around the globe. The proposal here is to consider the potential for these exurban developments to adopt an ecological mandate.The focus on the MOMA exhibit and analysis is also very specific and thus the proposal needs to be seen in its context. We were specifically tasked with looking at foreclosure housing projects and how as designers and scientists we might bring federal funding to address some of the issues faced. Thus the site was selected for us, and due to its proximity to the San Bernardino National Forest and the ecologically intact conditions of the surrounding context including the Lytle Creek Wash, we saw the notion of creating a neighborhood focused in part on ecological management as an opportunity for collaboration between developers, the federal government and future homeowners.A third factor to consider is climate change and global warming. The earth is changing in part through large-scale anthropogenic causes. These are creating pressures and constraints on the hinterland ecosystems and organisms. Already, there are discussions of how to foster species migration as their ranges shift north. This is an area that scientists are keenly interested in the role they might play. Consider the species introductions, assisted migrations and other efforts scientists are already participating with the goal of enhancing ecosystems. In other words, just leaving the hinterlands out there “undisturbed” by the built environment does not mean they remain undisturbed, and to maintain ecosystems and organisms human interventions will likely be an important component. Consider John Foley’s diagram of the changing landscape conditions – where is the “hinterlands” in his diagram?Finally, Rewilding (and this goes back to KB’s comments) is a radical proposal and one that is debated amongst ecologist. Much of the issue arises from the concern over human – wildlife conflict that would likely ensue if we were to reintroduce large carnivores etc. to the US. At the same time, most ecologists would agree that top down predation would benefit ecosystem health and lead to greater diversity of species. Thus the issue is one of public acceptance. As a result, getting this concept out there through a variety of venues (given that Rewilding is in the “marketing” stage) should mostly benefit the cause. It is a much more radical concept than simply allowing people to manage biological systems at the urban fringe and is intended to create debate and discussion.The MoMA exhibit is pervaded by architectural discourse of the suburb and could use this layer of integration of knowledge into new suburban forms. The architect and their modes of working and analysis were prioritized and sites open to large development were sites for new visions. Still, the rewilding concept is part of the exhibit, which means that tens of thousands of museumgoers visiting the exhibit will have the opportunity to reflect on what role people can play in managing ecosystems in their neighborhoods, and on the potential value of rewilding as a concept to consider for promoting ecosystem function.
29 Dec, 2011 - (@metroframes)
MoMA| Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream This foreclosure mess might be the catalyst for rethinking our cities. bit.ly/tAUJ66
These totalizing impulses, common to architectural discourse, strive to encompass all possible contingencies by re-defining suburbia along the lines of dense ideal urbanities. Questions of audience aside, such gestures could be taken to be constructive. And, quite possibly, we need such gestures, the insinuation of the new (no matter how fantastic) in order to see our way to potentials hidden in the midst of what we are currently stuck with. Yet in this process, the inherent heterogeneity of suburbs become flattened. They become objects upon which total transformations are imposed.
To be clear, the mission was not to solve the current foreclosure crisis [4]. Instead, the teams were charged with catalyzing, rethinking, and conversing about it. And they were asked to do this on a massive conceptual scale. Given the enormity of the task, it’s understandable if the architectural results are big. How could they not be?
Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream is an exploration of new architectural possibilities for cities and suburbs in the aftermath of the recent foreclosure crisis.
"The foreclosure crisis revealed a crisis of the imagination that has delayed an urgently needed conversation about the default settings of the ‘American Dream’ and its most visible symbol, the suburban house. These projects can help start such a conversation," said Reinhold Martin, Director of Columbia University's Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture, who also co-conceived the exhibition.
"MoMA has always aspired to be a showcase for the most significant and creative architecture and design work being done today...but there are times when it can also take the lead to serve as a catalyst to invite architects and designers to work in new ways on the most pressing issues of our times,” said Barry Bergdoll, MoMA's Philip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture and Design, who co-conceived the exhibition. “Often these challenges are not posed by everyday commissions. Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream invited new dialogues between the disciplines that shape our environments in suburbs and cities, as well as between the financial and physical architectures of housing, transport, and daily life. Questioning outdated assumptions, the designs in turn invite new discussions about a territory too often ignored by the design professions and too often leapfrogged by developers—the first ring suburbs of major cities. These projects suggest more sustainable, more equitable, futures, filled with optimism for places where that is often in short supply."
Anonymous
It's about time we start to engage new ideas for urbanization. Happy to see people proposing something for us to discuss.
2/13/2012 4:36 PM CST
2/13/2012 4:36 PM CST
jameswhadley wrote
What are we all doing? None of these projects would be accepted by the public who would have to live in them. (Some are better than others at being contextual and/or livable, but where do you walk the dog.) A discussion that begins to sell the public on the need for re-thinking the American lifestyle has to come before the design studies. Otherwise it's just "posturing." And probably scary for the average home-buyer or apartment seeker.
Problem no. 1 for architects today is entering and starting to lead that discussion. Otherwise we will be ignored... vigorously. And probably planners are more important in the discussion than architects.
James W. Hadley AIA (aka anonymous)
2/13/2012 2:54 PM CST
Problem no. 1 for architects today is entering and starting to lead that discussion. Otherwise we will be ignored... vigorously. And probably planners are more important in the discussion than architects.
James W. Hadley AIA (aka anonymous)
2/13/2012 2:54 PM CST
13 Feb, 2012 - (@acsarchitect)
Controversial + causing a lot of discussion: American housing exhibit “Foreclosed” Opens at MoMA : http://bit.ly/AAyLIF #architecture
While there are ample reasons to be skeptical about Gang's design for Cicero, it should help kick-start a much-needed debate about alternatives to the standard single-family house on a grassy lot. Our homes should fit the realities of how we live, not some preordained myth of the American dream. But making the right fit among form, function and finance is no simple matter, as a close look at Gang's design reveals.
14 Feb, 2012 - (@everydaytourist)
http://bit.ly/z1vn32 #MoMAlooks @ suburbs can they b saved, need more housing types/densities, innovation not imitation #urbanism#yycplan
"The foreclosure crisis has led to a major loss of confidence in the suburban dream. The idea of single-family houses on private lots reachable only by car has been broken, and this new reality has hit especially hard in suburbs. It is here, rather than in the next ring of potential sprawl, where architects, landscape designers, artists, ecologists, and elected officials need to rethink reshaping urban America for the coming decades.
The Buell Hypothesis imagines that the stimulus package codified in the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act had channeled federal funding into the provision of new public housing. This counterfactual provides the conceptual basis for Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream, a collaboration between the Buell Center and the Museum of Modern Art dedicated to changing the national housing conversation by projecting new imaginaries of American housing, suburbia and citizenship.
Come see what these luminaries have in store for America.
The 2008 financial collapse sent shock waves all over the world—there is no question as to how devastating the recession has been, in regards to families exiled due to mortgage default, stagnant high unemployment rates, and the hopeless shellacking of the idea of a quick recovery. But for a few certain architects, the past three years has wiped the national slate clean, leaving a country that is ready to be rebuilt and reworked for the modern era.
By altering the cultural narrative that is as pervasive as it was when first introduced into mainstream society in 1931 by James Truslow Adams, we can rewrite and ultimately redesign the future of American cities. These five proposals on display at MoMA, while optimistic and idealistic in nature, do capture the spirit of change and forward thinking in both design and practice. While differing in scale and execution, all five projects address the notion of the "American Dream" as an ideal that needs to be refigured in order to reflect current needs and demands of contemporary society.
What happens next is the continuation of the dialogue that began at MoMA PS1 (where the architects began the initial stages of research and design) and has transferred into the Architecture and Design galleries in the Museum. In order to establish solutions to current problems, such as the emergency housing crisis in America, we must propose ideas (as the aforementioned teams have done) through careful research and study before proceeding with rebuilding and redevelopment efforts. What Bergdoll demonstrates throughout Foreclosed and in this exhibition series is the importance of involving architects and design practitioners in the early stages of development of larger problems and social issues, such as the housing crisis and the global warming crisis, respectively, on both a local and global scale. Thanks to these efforts, the architecture and design community can now offer a more substantial role in the redevelopment of cities and, more importantly, ways of thinking about how we live in the expanded spatial environment.
The designs on display at MoMA will never be built in the real world. They are, however, a meaningful addition to a conversation we’ve waited too long to have about the way we will live and work in this country for the next hundred years, and the next American dream.
Laurie Manfra
2. I feel the reviewer missed the mark this time. The design teams for Foreclosed are young architects (hardly deserving of the term “starchitects,” since they have comparatively built far less than today’s typical starchitect.) I visited the open studios and lectures that were held at P.S.1 over the past year and a half. The program is meant to be thought-provoking and exploratory, as opposed to concrete in its proposed solutions. I was impressed by the amount of data compiled by the teams (in their efforts to document the megaregions) and the thoughtfulness evident in their evolving research. The exhibition is meant to inspire people with new ideas, and new approaches to familiar problems. Obviously, architects can’t solve the foreclosure problem (that’s our banking system’s responsibility), but they can document patterns of potential future growth for these massive regions, which the teams certainly accomplished by last August during the open studios. The purpose of the excerise is to imagine new housing opportunities in regions where two large cities share resources and transport systems. Mr. Bell doesn’t mention this fact. If the teams were working in small neighborhoods and failed to engage the community, his criticisms would ring true. But these are large-scale regions with massive populations.
February 22, 2012, @ 12:50 p.m.
February 22, 2012, @ 12:50 p.m.
Perhaps a side effect of the downturn in the housing market in recent years is a willingness to think boldly about a new future for American suburbs. “Foreclosed,” a new exhibit at MoMA, proposes several solutions:
Each proposal in “Foreclosed” actively seeks to address the issues that many dying towns in America face today, as industry leaves and bills go unpaid. While the ideas may seem too radical to implement, it’s this type of innovative thinking that will put American housing on a more sustainable and affordable path.
So I looked closer, reading everything I could but it seemed like "Rehousing the American dream" meant putting a band-aid on these cities and suburbs instead of rethinking the problem altogether.
With this exhibit, MoMA heightens an awareness of the U.S. foreclosure problem via architecture, design, and planning, albeit a niche perspective. This exhibit both inspires and provokes. Depending on who’s telling the foreclosure story: the promises of government and bankers, the opines of economists and media, the taut tales of the foreclosed, our planners are hardwired dreamers raising questions, presenting the what-ifs, creating visions and realities that can inspire. Ironically, the woeful boarded up homes that are seen everywhere as we drive through neighborhoods, dreaded by those who own housing near the monuments of foreclosure, are also needed reminders and initiators at this juncture that there is still much to do and more what-ifs are desirable.
21 Feb, 2012 - (@1100architect)
MoMA’s Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream is inspiring interesting discussions about the suburban/urban divide: http://goo.gl/MYJYy
What is it that you really need? the architects ask. And How long will you need it? Their responses are flexible spaces and flexible financial instruments, a clever response to the frustration one feels over homeless here and empty houses there, people with too much space and those with too little. These are necessary questions, and there is no doubt architects need to be involved from the beginning with finding answers. The fact that every team felt the need to redesign the ownership structure of the suburbs, as well as the suburban home, indicates a willingness to go beyond the aesthetic that is one of the best reveals of this MoMA series.
oboe
I think the more extreme viewpoints including have left people very defensive, and believing things about urbanism that give ammo the antiurbanists, and make their job of persuasion easier.
By way of a comparison: gay people have been struggling for marriage equality for decades now. Many cultural conservatives are very angry about this, and feel their way of life is under assault. It's a difficult thing to persuade them. Frequently, you'll see footage of some gay pride parade somewhere, which is repeated on a loop for the express purpose of stoking this outrage.
Do gay pride parades make arguing for gay marriage more difficult? Of course. But that's not the fundamental problem.
Same goes for environmentalism: if it weren't for that guy with dreadlocks on that college campus somewhere in the midwest who goes on about Gaia, would folks like George Will have signed on to "cap and trade" by now?
If no one ever said anything mean about suburban cul-de-sacs on GGW, do you think the Randall O'Toole's of the world would cease talking about shadowy urbanists trying to take away your car? Or UN initiatives that threaten our freedom? After all, that's where your average "man on the street" gets such nonsense, not because they read some urbanist gadfly in the comments section of an obscure blog somewhere.
C'mon. Municipalities are trying to retrofit to urbanism because the experts feel they don't have a choice, long-term. But industries (and that includes conservative political parties) that benefit from suburban sprawl will fight with every fiber of their being to prevent that from happening. Do you really think the Rush Limbaughs of the world are going to find TOD religion if the David Alperts of the world start praising ample parking?
Sure there are individuals with essentially zero influence who bad-mouth suburbia, and that may register with the very, very few people who read GGW, but in the larger debate, they're hardly even background noise.
Feb 22, 2012 11:47 am
By way of a comparison: gay people have been struggling for marriage equality for decades now. Many cultural conservatives are very angry about this, and feel their way of life is under assault. It's a difficult thing to persuade them. Frequently, you'll see footage of some gay pride parade somewhere, which is repeated on a loop for the express purpose of stoking this outrage.
Do gay pride parades make arguing for gay marriage more difficult? Of course. But that's not the fundamental problem.
Same goes for environmentalism: if it weren't for that guy with dreadlocks on that college campus somewhere in the midwest who goes on about Gaia, would folks like George Will have signed on to "cap and trade" by now?
If no one ever said anything mean about suburban cul-de-sacs on GGW, do you think the Randall O'Toole's of the world would cease talking about shadowy urbanists trying to take away your car? Or UN initiatives that threaten our freedom? After all, that's where your average "man on the street" gets such nonsense, not because they read some urbanist gadfly in the comments section of an obscure blog somewhere.
C'mon. Municipalities are trying to retrofit to urbanism because the experts feel they don't have a choice, long-term. But industries (and that includes conservative political parties) that benefit from suburban sprawl will fight with every fiber of their being to prevent that from happening. Do you really think the Rush Limbaughs of the world are going to find TOD religion if the David Alperts of the world start praising ample parking?
Sure there are individuals with essentially zero influence who bad-mouth suburbia, and that may register with the very, very few people who read GGW, but in the larger debate, they're hardly even background noise.
Feb 22, 2012 11:47 am
AWalkerInTheCity
@oboe
Im not concerned about randall otoole and Rush limbaugh - Im concerned about my neighbors in Fairfax county. And yes, they do hear the memes floating around - GGW may have a small audience, but they see this stuff in City Data, in City Paper, etc, etc.
WRT to gay pride parades - presumably they help individuals finding their identities. I presume urbanists have no such needs, as a general rule.
And yeah, I would suggest that over the top environmentalism ("industry must die" types) DO impact the conversation on cap and trade.
yes, there are powerful lobbies against the kinds of changes a place like FFX needs. There are ALSO powerful lobbies for, including owners of land that is suitable for high density development. When those powerful forces clash, the inclinations of the citizenry can matter. And yes, the belief by some folks who dont listen to Rush that urbanism is about demonizing their way of life, is an obstacle.
Feb 22, 2012 11:58 am
Im not concerned about randall otoole and Rush limbaugh - Im concerned about my neighbors in Fairfax county. And yes, they do hear the memes floating around - GGW may have a small audience, but they see this stuff in City Data, in City Paper, etc, etc.
WRT to gay pride parades - presumably they help individuals finding their identities. I presume urbanists have no such needs, as a general rule.
And yeah, I would suggest that over the top environmentalism ("industry must die" types) DO impact the conversation on cap and trade.
yes, there are powerful lobbies against the kinds of changes a place like FFX needs. There are ALSO powerful lobbies for, including owners of land that is suitable for high density development. When those powerful forces clash, the inclinations of the citizenry can matter. And yes, the belief by some folks who dont listen to Rush that urbanism is about demonizing their way of life, is an obstacle.
Feb 22, 2012 11:58 am
HogWash
@AWalker, But see, thats where the demonization blinds people...and I think the more extreme viewpoints including have left people very defensive, and believing things about urbanism that give ammo the antiurbanists, and make their job of persuasion easier. These include the impressions that urbanists beleive A. that everyone should be carfree B. That no one should live in a SFH C. That everyplace on Greater Washington outside of the district is "bad" regardless of density, etc, etc....I find the distortion of urbanism involved in those memes particularly troubling. It makes a sophisticated vision of a reinvented metropolitan america sound like the ravings of naive hipsters.
Well you've surely said a mouthful here and it is as reasonable and objective and nonconfrontational as they come. The problem is, you'll still have people defending (maybe naturally) the idea that "well that's not us, we're just trying to better xyz."
I can't tell you the number of times I've heard similar sentiments shared by DC residents who don't consider themselves "urbanists" but do rely on their cars and in cases, transit.
Feb 22, 2012 12:57 pm
Well you've surely said a mouthful here and it is as reasonable and objective and nonconfrontational as they come. The problem is, you'll still have people defending (maybe naturally) the idea that "well that's not us, we're just trying to better xyz."
I can't tell you the number of times I've heard similar sentiments shared by DC residents who don't consider themselves "urbanists" but do rely on their cars and in cases, transit.
Feb 22, 2012 12:57 pm
oboe
@Tina,
Do you mean in terms of the long view on sustainability wrt enegry and health? B/c I think part of the short term motivation for the retro-fit is economic factors; e.g. demand, attracting/retaining people by providing what the "market" indicates people want, etc.
No, absolutely. You make a good point about what's driving the short-term urgency. I was thinking in terms of "what happens if the deadlock can't be broken". Eventually that which can't be sustained comes to an end.
What we have now is a deadlock between market forces (and owners of developable property as AWalker pointed out) on the one hand, and existing owners (call them NIMBYs at the risk of starting a fight). Of course, the property owners are few, and potential residents don't necessarily get a vote. So obviously the influence of existing owners is large.
Anyway, I think you see the defenders of the status quo harnessing the power of the culture war. That's why, in my opinion, it makes little sense to say, "I don't care what [the WSJ editorial page] says, I care what my neighbors think." The debate is informed (and distorted) by the big outlets. Not to be too cynical, but your neighbors thing what the WSJ/WaPo editorial page tells them to. And that goes for the city as well as the suburbs.
As far as ambient city-mouse/country-mouse trash-talking goes ("they insulted Franconia in the City Paper!"), I doubt we'll ever be completely free of that. My guess is that cultural trends (and hopefully not decreasing quality of life) will be what drives the transformation of these "urbanizing nodes" in the suburbs.
Feb 22, 2012 1:01 pm
Do you mean in terms of the long view on sustainability wrt enegry and health? B/c I think part of the short term motivation for the retro-fit is economic factors; e.g. demand, attracting/retaining people by providing what the "market" indicates people want, etc.
No, absolutely. You make a good point about what's driving the short-term urgency. I was thinking in terms of "what happens if the deadlock can't be broken". Eventually that which can't be sustained comes to an end.
What we have now is a deadlock between market forces (and owners of developable property as AWalker pointed out) on the one hand, and existing owners (call them NIMBYs at the risk of starting a fight). Of course, the property owners are few, and potential residents don't necessarily get a vote. So obviously the influence of existing owners is large.
Anyway, I think you see the defenders of the status quo harnessing the power of the culture war. That's why, in my opinion, it makes little sense to say, "I don't care what [the WSJ editorial page] says, I care what my neighbors think." The debate is informed (and distorted) by the big outlets. Not to be too cynical, but your neighbors thing what the WSJ/WaPo editorial page tells them to. And that goes for the city as well as the suburbs.
As far as ambient city-mouse/country-mouse trash-talking goes ("they insulted Franconia in the City Paper!"), I doubt we'll ever be completely free of that. My guess is that cultural trends (and hopefully not decreasing quality of life) will be what drives the transformation of these "urbanizing nodes" in the suburbs.
Feb 22, 2012 1:01 pm
CH: The other question is whether we’ll see the market begin to produce smaller homes in the wake of this crisis, whether there’s going to be a lesson learned there, or if we’re just going to start the old Wurlitzer up again and try to dance like we did in the last decade?
MB: I personally think that the people that invest in housing will be fearful of investing in the old versions of housing and they’re going to look for a new product to invest in.
MB: I personally think that the people that invest in housing will be fearful of investing in the old versions of housing and they’re going to look for a new product to invest in.
TS: The mortgage deduction incentivizes buying the biggest lot you can and putting the biggest, 3,000-square-foot house that you can on it. Bob is right. If we’re going to move to a future where that’s not what the model is—it’s maybe scaled down a little bit more, maybe more demure—then, we should reincentivize the way the tax cut—
Victoria Defrancesco Soto (VDS): I also think there’s the emotional part of it. How do you roll back half a century of the American Dream? I mean, what type of public service announcements are you going to put forward? “The American Dream has changed…” I mean, that’s even a bigger challenge. It’s a huge challenge.
CH: How’s this: “Embrace the Dream: Rent.” Anyone? Any takers on that?
CH: How’s this: “Embrace the Dream: Rent.” Anyone? Any takers on that?
CH: I cannot tell you how much I love this exhibit. I just thought it was really fascinating to start thinking in these terms. And in some ways it brings the discussion we’ve had in Detroit—which is a discussion about “How do you take this moment of crisis and ruin and abandonment and turn it into an opportunity to kind of rethink things?”—to the national level where we have communities … some of these communities that were assigned have foreclosure rates as high as thirteen, fourteen, fifteen percent. Tell me about what your team did, where you were assigned to look at, and how you started to think about what kind of place you would design in the wake of the foreclosure crisis.
Michael Bell (MB): We were asked by the Museum to work on a site called Temple Terrace, Florida. It’s the northeast corner of Tampa, and a little town. It’s 22,000 people. It was an incorporated city in 1926. It preceded the growth of Tampa. Tampa eventually came to meet Temple Terrace, in a kind of typical American situation where something that was very rural became urban, “quasi-urban” one could say. Temple Terrace actually had a relatively low foreclosure rate: 168 foreclosures in a town of 10,000 households. So, in looking at all of this, it actually became much more of a scenario of looking at “How did Temple Terrace operate historically? Financially? What was its density?” Etc., etc. It became much more of a project about trying to produce a future that would be more secure against those kinds of problems, rather than being immediately reactive to the problem now. And I think that’s true for the whole exhibition.
Michael Bell (MB): We were asked by the Museum to work on a site called Temple Terrace, Florida. It’s the northeast corner of Tampa, and a little town. It’s 22,000 people. It was an incorporated city in 1926. It preceded the growth of Tampa. Tampa eventually came to meet Temple Terrace, in a kind of typical American situation where something that was very rural became urban, “quasi-urban” one could say. Temple Terrace actually had a relatively low foreclosure rate: 168 foreclosures in a town of 10,000 households. So, in looking at all of this, it actually became much more of a scenario of looking at “How did Temple Terrace operate historically? Financially? What was its density?” Etc., etc. It became much more of a project about trying to produce a future that would be more secure against those kinds of problems, rather than being immediately reactive to the problem now. And I think that’s true for the whole exhibition.
25 Feb, 2012 - (@iCONN)
MOMA maps new routes through the mortgage-foreclosure crisis http://bit.ly/xezq27
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
Poppy Harlow (PH): Looking at life after the foreclosure crisis, the exhibit reimagines how we live.
Finding solutions for post-suburbia is one of the most critical issues facing North America and this exhibition, not surprisingly, has touched a nerve with observers well versed with the pitfalls of pie-in-the-sky planning. With or without its contentious POVs, Foreclosed has nonetheless opened a timely and critically-loaded discourse to broader audiences.
28 Feb, 2012 - (@NotOnly)
Not a lot of love for Moma's "Foreclosed", just check out the @ArchRecordreader comments! http://archrecord.construction.com/news/2012/02/F …
For Martin, the vitriol on the Internet illustrates how public discourse on housing crumbles at its foundation. “What hasn’t been asked is, what is the role of the government in addressing the housing crisis?” Martin says. “Again, that’s a question we’re barely able to enunciate in public because of the stigmas associated with public housing and the durability of the fetish of the single-family home. You can see from some of the reactions that we were denounced for asking that. There was a certain amount of name-calling. That is not surprising, but it’s interesting; event though these are hypothetical projects, they draw out the political contours of the country. They draw out different strategies: more activist strategies that consider this to be fiddling while Rome burns, purely academic speculation that doesn’t take into account the voices of the people who would actually live in these places.
Jeremiah Eck FAIA
134 days ago
Felix, thank you. Over the last four decades over half of all the single family homes were built in this country, most of them in the suburbs, through a production system that is inextricably bound up with bankers, builders and brokers. The good news is we will need the same number again over the next four decades, but we must offer a viable alternative to the suburban status quo, just as we have done with the IPad or the Hybird car. The current system in bankrupt-- physically, psychologically, and financially--but America has the capacity to constantly reinvent itself. Unfortunately, academic exercises like "Foreclosed" only put those off who can make the changes and need our help the most.
Felix, thank you. Over the last four decades over half of all the single family homes were built in this country, most of them in the suburbs, through a production system that is inextricably bound up with bankers, builders and brokers. The good news is we will need the same number again over the next four decades, but we must offer a viable alternative to the suburban status quo, just as we have done with the IPad or the Hybird car. The current system in bankrupt-- physically, psychologically, and financially--but America has the capacity to constantly reinvent itself. Unfortunately, academic exercises like "Foreclosed" only put those off who can make the changes and need our help the most.
In conclusion, these five projects open up debates concerning a process of change, and offer some sophisticated and informed ideas about future development and new values. They understand the need for radical change and offer answers which are linked to contemporary realities, including demographic changes, new social structures and advanced economic models. But on their own, perhaps, they have not succeeded in creating a different "Dream" or a new collective idea centered on real radical change. Despite this, it is to be hoped that the progress that these projects represent is not lost in the future when we finally overcome the crisis and, as in 1973, the need for structural change is no longer seen as a priority.
After the MOS project, everyone who works in that area will have to take into account what they have proposed. A new idea is thus introduced into suburbia, something which is typical of the historic city: whatever is added must take account of what is already there. The merit of Thoughts on Walking City is that, perhaps, it creates a new dream which is not necessarily happy or workable. In a realistic way it asks residents to attempt to live in spaces which have greater limits (the project is marked by many stairways and pedestrian routes).
Some of the projects have the ability to create quite a lively town hall debate. Hilary Sample and Michael Meredith from MOS Architects worked on a proposal for urban-leaning Orange, N.J., that would create ribbon-like structures that would house a combination of homes, businesses and commercial space — and be built on top of current public streets. It’s not exactly car-friendly.
The projects range from ready-to-build to conceptual to downright wild. Barry Bergdoll, MoMA’s chief curator for rchitecture and Design, who conceived the exhibition with Reinhold Martin, the director of Columbia University’s Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture, hopes that each can serve as a catalyst for discussion. Lots of hot-button issues involving housing are hinted at, including who pays for it, how is it made and how it can impact our health.
SometimesLeftSometimesRight
Mar 3rd 2012, 13:35
I saw the show two days ago with my husband and kids (9 and 11). It's been the topic of conversation since then. I hate to think about what sort of world we are leaving our children, not only are our cities and infrastructure falling apart but more importantly there seems to be nobody proposing an alternative to our current state of decay. Although they look very well considered, I'm not sure all the proposals are reasonable, but it's wonderful to have people seriously proposing an alternative to our sinking status quo. I wish there was more of exhibitions like this forcing us to think how we are all responsible for the construction of our world, our cities and suburbs. And more importantly that urban development and infrastructure are our legacy we leave our children.
I saw the show two days ago with my husband and kids (9 and 11). It's been the topic of conversation since then. I hate to think about what sort of world we are leaving our children, not only are our cities and infrastructure falling apart but more importantly there seems to be nobody proposing an alternative to our current state of decay. Although they look very well considered, I'm not sure all the proposals are reasonable, but it's wonderful to have people seriously proposing an alternative to our sinking status quo. I wish there was more of exhibitions like this forcing us to think how we are all responsible for the construction of our world, our cities and suburbs. And more importantly that urban development and infrastructure are our legacy we leave our children.
George, Lymington
3/3/2012 14:48
plus ca change...
plus ca change...
The financial crisis left large swathes of the the US derelict and decimated, leading many to question the pursuit of the American Dream.
And with the problem of widespread foreclosures embodying the issues faced by families and communities across the county, leading designers have now offered a new vision of the future.
And with the problem of widespread foreclosures embodying the issues faced by families and communities across the county, leading designers have now offered a new vision of the future.
Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream recently opened at the Museum of Modern Art, featuring new housing design proposals for five suburban sites across the country. But if you spend too much time staring at the show's fancy architectural models or sleek renderings, you may miss the curators' point. The physical exhibition and even its title are "decoys" at the center of a series of open workshops and symposia, designed to provoke public discussion on the future of housing in the United States. As MoMA curator Barry Bergdoll put it, "Gone is the idea of an exhibition that opens and closes in the galleries."
On March 8, the Forum for Urban Design and the Museum of Modern Art, with generous support by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, gathered a national homebuilder, a former NYC City Planning Director turned suburban developer, a prominent Phoenix advocate, and a leading New Urbanist to debate the proposals put forth in the MoMA exhibition, Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream.
Wake up and good morning. In the wake of this country's (and especially this state's) burst housing bubble and disastrous economic hit, this is the type of rethinking that should be going on. The scene above is a fresh look (dubbed Visible Weather) at what the future of Temple Terrace, the 22,000-population city on Tampa's northeast corner, could look like, according to architects Michael Bell (a Columbia University professor) and Eunjeong Seong.
In a spirited dialogue that took on the American Dream, the words of Socrates, Glaucon, Jay–Z and Clipse filled the rotunda of Columbia University’s Low Library on Saturday, February 18th. The intent of the day of discussion was to consider “What is Foreclosed?” As part of the Temple Hoyne Buell Center and Museum of Modern Art exhibition Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream, a panel of anthropologists, architects, planners and institution leaders gathered to assess how the American Dream was brought to a breaking point, and considered ways to reshape our collective housing desires
Reactions, responses, and reviews of the Museum of Modern Art’s recently opened exhibition regarding housing in the American suburbs have steadily been popping up here and elsewhere on the Internet. The five design proposals put forth in Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream have been called “propositions” in the spirit of instigation, catalyzing necessary conversation on cultural assumptions and priorities. I admit that I am too closely tied to the exhibition’s project to offer any sort of fair review, but it is with that spirit in mind that I argue those five propositions and the show in which they are contained manage both to reveal and underscore a fundamental conflict in the planning, design, and development of affordable housing and in the approaches taken and not taken in response to the crisis still being faced.
First, there is the abject lesson of how not to accommodate a society’s population – the exhibit Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream at the Museum of Modern Art, where teams of architects, economists, and artists re-imagined five areas devastated by the 2008 housing crisis. The hotspots in New Jersey, Florida, Illinois, southern California and Oregon are all primarily suburban environments, though not as far-flung as the so-called zombie subdivisions miles from anywhere.
The ideas in the exhibit prompted much commentary about how realistic they were, from James Russell, Blair Kamin, Diana Lind, Bryan Bell and my colleague Sarah Goodyear. Members of the team that re-imagined a factory site in Cicero, Illinois, Jeanne Gang and Greg Lindsay, penned a New York Times op-ed calling for a fresh design and policy approach to housing for the 21st century. Curator Barry Bergdoll said the proposals were meant to be "provocations."
The ideas in the exhibit prompted much commentary about how realistic they were, from James Russell, Blair Kamin, Diana Lind, Bryan Bell and my colleague Sarah Goodyear. Members of the team that re-imagined a factory site in Cicero, Illinois, Jeanne Gang and Greg Lindsay, penned a New York Times op-ed calling for a fresh design and policy approach to housing for the 21st century. Curator Barry Bergdoll said the proposals were meant to be "provocations."
Anonymous
Paradigm shift. Foreclosures aside for a moment, if you will allow me, the last 50 or so years have seen the continuing expansion of our population into suburbia, into safe, reasonably secure, more open aired environments where one could drive to work in a reasonable amount of time, shop close to home and educate your children at a local school.
This study, I have not read it, seems to advocate a reversal of that movement. A compaction of the habitable structures into higher density areas with less reliance on the automobile but with the option of public transportation.
Those first two words came from a long conversation I had with a loosely knit group of home builders and developers over coffee one morning.
Consensus was that without a paradign shift in buyer attitude about whether they could expect the livibility, security and comfort and a level of freedom in a high density housing project as they would expect in a "normal" development, it had limited appeal. (Their demographic target(s) were the first/second time home buyer with children).
I don't believe that shift will occur without a far more serious change than the foreclosure crisis. And, knowing a bit about govmint and how it "thinks" I'd venture a guess that their stereotypes of high density housing is limited to a condominium complex with a swimming pool and 2car attached garages. Ciao
This study, I have not read it, seems to advocate a reversal of that movement. A compaction of the habitable structures into higher density areas with less reliance on the automobile but with the option of public transportation.
Those first two words came from a long conversation I had with a loosely knit group of home builders and developers over coffee one morning.
Consensus was that without a paradign shift in buyer attitude about whether they could expect the livibility, security and comfort and a level of freedom in a high density housing project as they would expect in a "normal" development, it had limited appeal. (Their demographic target(s) were the first/second time home buyer with children).
I don't believe that shift will occur without a far more serious change than the foreclosure crisis. And, knowing a bit about govmint and how it "thinks" I'd venture a guess that their stereotypes of high density housing is limited to a condominium complex with a swimming pool and 2car attached garages. Ciao
But during a panel on March 8 at the museum sponsored by the Forum for Urban Design, two developers, an architecture professor, and a real estate lawyer reacted soberly to the adventurous and optimistic schemes. Though the panelists agreed that the foreclosure crisis will lead to major changes in suburban development, they all thought new patterns are less likely to be brought about by a revised American dream than by economic and demographic factors. And all said it would be very difficult to change zoning laws to permit denser new development patterns, especially in existing “inner-ring” suburbs.
Unfortunately, most of these ideas get lost in the pretty models and large-scale renderings, buried under architectural gloss and the dominance of design. I have the utmost respect for the goals of the Buell Hypothesis, and I would argue that most of us at Polis are attempting to engage in a new public conversation on urbanism. However, I question the degree to which the exhibit pushes this conversation forward. Perhaps it is my own distrust of high architecture, or of architecture and architects as the primary drivers of this conversation. Much is made in the Buell text of the history of modernism and public housing, a history that made many non-designers like myself inherently distrustful of a conversation about changing cities that seems to foreground physical models.
Rebecka
Thu Mar 22, 10:52:00 AM EDT
Thanks Alex for a great post with a much-needed critical perspective! I hope I can see the exhibit myself this summer, and I will have your comments in mind. I agree that the discussion needs to be pushed forward, especially as the human tendency all too often is to look back.
Thanks Alex for a great post with a much-needed critical perspective! I hope I can see the exhibit myself this summer, and I will have your comments in mind. I agree that the discussion needs to be pushed forward, especially as the human tendency all too often is to look back.
Hopefully this can start two conversations: how can we design communities so that they are more affordable, efficient, and supportive, and secondly, how do we start to address a culture heavily dependent on quantity of housing rather than quality of community? Given the continuing stagnation of economic conditions, this is a conversation that needs to start soon, as the foundations we depend on are not built to last.
Several design critics have disparaged the MoMA show for some of its arty solutions, such as the nature corridors in Rialto, California, populated by elephants and the MOS design for Orange, which would put mixed-use buildings into existing streets, leaving little room for cars. However, as with many architecture exhibits, the elaborate models in "Foreclosed" should be seen as starting points for discussion rather than completed plans. The resounding message of this powerful exhibit is that we cannot go back to business as usual when it comes to our built environment.
SJ:What's wrong with sparking a discussion? Foreclosures are still on the rise. Home prices are still declining. This is bringing up a different concept.
Shibani Joshi (SJ): I love this concept, because I think this idea -- the white-picket-fence dream -- is now starting to get out-dated...It's not working anymore.
SV: But don't you think we can decide for ourselves...?
Shibani Joshi [brunette]: But this is what artists are doing. This is what they do. They inspire thoughts. They inspire discussion. What's wrong with it?
SV: But don't you think we can decide for ourselves...?
Shibani Joshi [brunette]: But this is what artists are doing. This is what they do. They inspire thoughts. They inspire discussion. What's wrong with it?
The following excerpt from the Foreclosed videos on the MOMA website is from the presentation by Michael Bell of Visible Weather. He challenges some of our most basic and entrenched beliefs about the built environment, most significantly that the free market has not served us properly in how it has built our housing and developed our neighborhoods. He’s right, look around: the free market has built crap for over half a century, and we still unquestioningly stand by it. He says the American house is a lousy commodity, that we need to use channels that work to improve it including the involvement of government.
However, the approaches appear somewhat utopistic and idealistic. For instance, the proposed model for Oranges, New Jersey would eliminate almost all of the streets which of course would have ecological benefits, but this is hardly realizable. Although car dependency in the suburbs is an issue – which needs to be tackled – it would have been important to also see some ideas which actually could be realized immediately. Within this model cars would not be able to exist at all in the center of the city. In addition, the model Nature City proposes that organic waste should be burned which in return would produce Methan and, thus, create fuel. However, it is questionable if this is realizable in a city due to the smell which is released. Moreover, the proposed housing solutions for Cicero, Illinois are great since they give an individual freedom, however, standardized housing solutions often create issues in reality.
The response to this show has been almost overwhelmingly negative, which is unfortunate. The projects, so speculative in nature, have com in for a good deal of criticism, some of it valid, as to their practicability and humanity. More broadly, however, they have been attacked as condescending visions imposed on the suburbs by urban-dwelling architectural elites. The idea was to drum up discussion, not to breed polarisation.
Those not paying attention have seemed to mistake it for a standard architectural exhibition, and in their defense it does have some very swish models-this is MoMA, after all. But this is not a show about form, in the old MoMA tradition. It is about shifting expectations, somewhat more challenging terrain. Its underlying thesis is something called the Buell Hypothesis, the product of Columbia University architecture students and faculty, that argues that the American dream must be reinvented wholesale for the 21st century.
We were sold a faulty dream. But it is our own failing if we do not make an attempt to actually change that dream to meet the needs of all of us moving forward. We have brilliant ideas in circulation, everywhere. Ones that can lay the blueprints to a promising future. Heck, all you have to do is head to the Museum of Modern Art in New York to see for yourself.
If we can change the dream we can, possibly, change reality.
If we can change the dream we can, possibly, change reality.
Presented to the viewing public at the MOMA are a series of models re-imagining the ways in which we could be cohabiting the world, ways in which we possibly should be. Each model looks much like the structural design of a city in many a sci-fi films imagining, proving something so obvious and disconcerting: that sci-fi authors have the capability of thinking outside the box and looking forward in a way the politicians of our day cannot, or will not.
Uniquely, this was not a contest. The five teams were invited to host open conversations with each other at MoMA, and the 5 designs, though wildly different, were actually the product of open collaboration. They have provided five new models of living, working, and commuting in a metropolis. Some of the ideas look like the product of a J.G. Ballard nightmare, but others are truly innovative.
Though seemingly farfetched, at the very least this exhibition will influence future community design toward more progressive and sustainable development.
The show’s mission was “to come up with inventive solutions for the future of American Suburbs.” Great, we thought, let’s see some solutions!
Or, as Socrates says to Glaucon while stuck on I-95, “It may be time to dream a different dream.”
Ignore the architecture, and Foreclosed travels well-trodden ground: Increase density, provide a mix of housing sizes and types, and shrink the distance between work and home. Mixed use, as always, reigns supreme, albeit now with a community composting twist. The designs aim to provide a variety of housing opportunities for Americans at any point along the income/immigrant/household-size ladder. But when has that not been the demand of American housing?
When the various speculations are viewed through the framing of The Buell Hypothesis, the American Dream is inverted from home ownership to social and economic cooperation. In this sense it's not surprising that people are dismissive of the exhibition. But if people are looking for ideas that maintain the suburban status quo, one may ask why they haven't been discovered and implemented yet? A handful of architects will not have the answers to such a great problem, especially since it involves, as The Buell Hypothesis attests, global finances and infrastructure. The projects attempt to give the viewer and reader something to think about, but ultimately it's the group at Columbia's Buell Center that sparks this more than the models, drawings, and films from the architects.
24 Jun, 2012 - (@jolee10)
http://www.moma.org/interactives/e …Saw this exhibit on Friday...just wow. This will change the world.
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/keizer/
The ongoing assault on the public sector relies upon a chorus of hackneyed themes: government is the problem, not the solution; welfare is socialism, etc. Reinhold Martin is advocating a direct response: strengthen the public sector in order to stand in solidarity with the poor and dispossessed. We would like to reframe the debate with a related but different emphasis: the public sector is essential to the protection of human rights, and housing is a human right.
Think of Foreclosed, then, as a highly controlled laboratory experiment, a mapping of constraints and a documentation of erasures. It represents one contribution that a university and a museum can make together, as participants in the public sphere, or the multivalent space in which public opinion — and "common sense" — is formed and contested. Whether it contributes to anything like a shift in the dominant paradigm remains to be seen. Thus far, indications are that it has touched a nerve. Whether that translates merely into a nervous reaction or into strategies for structural transformation from below, from above, and from the sides — this is our mutual challenge to take up in this discussion, and beyond.
Within these contours you can detect the pervasive, historically constructed barrier that has increasingly prevented us, over the past 40 years or so, from using the word “public” in public in anything like an informed, enlightened, and unapologetic way when it comes to housing. Changing the conversation is a necessary but not sufficient part of changing the practical reality. I therefore ask all participants in this debate — which of course may ultimately include not only those whose responses follow but also readers who wish to comment or contribute — to consider how we might, perhaps with the help of Foreclosed, reclaim the project of "public housing" in some form.
Now you could rightly object that this merely reproduces architecture’s ideological role as a regressive image-machine by emphasizing "dreams" over material or economic processes. But the point is not that a collective fantasy or narrative like the "American Dream" defines or produces the single-family house and its all-too-real plumbing, wiring, driveways, roads, subdivisions, and so on.
Instead, the dream is conjured out of these material things and fed back into them as a guiding norm. Similarly, architectural projects, no matter how fanciful or abstract, are real, material things (models, drawings, and videos, in this case) that put ideas (and maybe dreams) on the table for detailed debate by interested parties. Yes, this too could be a distraction, and the still unmet challenge is to assemble all of the parties, from residents to public officials to investment bankers, in an agonistic yet equitable setting. Nevertheless, the large models of large-scale proposals sitting on tables in a MoMA gallery represent a deliberate curatorial decision, since models have a way of generating discussion and assembling publics around themselves. The tables on which the models sit might even foreshadow our efforts with this online roundtable, which the Buell Center has convened in collaboration with Architects, Designers, and Planners for Social Responsibility to explore the contours that configure the debate surrounding housing and suburbanization itself.
Instead, the dream is conjured out of these material things and fed back into them as a guiding norm. Similarly, architectural projects, no matter how fanciful or abstract, are real, material things (models, drawings, and videos, in this case) that put ideas (and maybe dreams) on the table for detailed debate by interested parties. Yes, this too could be a distraction, and the still unmet challenge is to assemble all of the parties, from residents to public officials to investment bankers, in an agonistic yet equitable setting. Nevertheless, the large models of large-scale proposals sitting on tables in a MoMA gallery represent a deliberate curatorial decision, since models have a way of generating discussion and assembling publics around themselves. The tables on which the models sit might even foreshadow our efforts with this online roundtable, which the Buell Center has convened in collaboration with Architects, Designers, and Planners for Social Responsibility to explore the contours that configure the debate surrounding housing and suburbanization itself.
Earlier this year Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream opened at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The exhibition quickly became controversial, with some labeling it elitist and paternalistic, others defending it as powerful and ambitious. Here Reinhold Martin, co-organizer of Foreclosed, and Raphael Sperry and Amit Price Patel, of Architects/Designers/Planners for Social Responsibility, continue the debate — in a virtual roundtable — along with IDEO.org fellow Liz Ogbu and urban planner Tom Angotti of Hunter College.
Architects and planners who want to act effectively — to get to the heart of the matter — will have to stop changing the subject and moving the discussion into the familiar territory — the design studio — that they can control.
KSlaught
As a non-design professional, for whom I would assume the exhibit and Mr. Martin's statement might be aimed at, I find the discussion interesting, but somewhat baffling. Mr. Martin's use of language and terminology is inherently exclusionary to those who are not of the academic/professional of which he is a part. The other essays here are more readily understandable to a layperson.
The disappointment expressed by Mr. Martin, that none of the teams used a public process to inform their entry is legitimate. Based upon lectures at the Alaska Design Forum, it appears that many designers have little interaction with the end users, whether it is housing stock or another product. The most apparently successful designers are those who engage the end users, whether it is residents of Medellin, Colombia, Aboriginal Australians, or buyers at Sacks 5th Avenue.
Mr. Agnotti accurately summarized the problem, that we cannot design ourselves out of a problem, whether it is sprawl, foreclosures, or racial divides. The faith in design to solve problems is similar to the faith in technology to solve our problems. Perhaps it would be useful to step out of the the world view that seems to inhabit these conversations and look for a different one. Take as an example that of social work, where they ideally look for and base their work on the clients' strengths and desires. Lecturing or telling society to change, without asking why it should or what currently drives the actions, will just result in frustration and a smaller and smaller audience.
07.05.12 at 02:52
The disappointment expressed by Mr. Martin, that none of the teams used a public process to inform their entry is legitimate. Based upon lectures at the Alaska Design Forum, it appears that many designers have little interaction with the end users, whether it is housing stock or another product. The most apparently successful designers are those who engage the end users, whether it is residents of Medellin, Colombia, Aboriginal Australians, or buyers at Sacks 5th Avenue.
Mr. Agnotti accurately summarized the problem, that we cannot design ourselves out of a problem, whether it is sprawl, foreclosures, or racial divides. The faith in design to solve problems is similar to the faith in technology to solve our problems. Perhaps it would be useful to step out of the the world view that seems to inhabit these conversations and look for a different one. Take as an example that of social work, where they ideally look for and base their work on the clients' strengths and desires. Lecturing or telling society to change, without asking why it should or what currently drives the actions, will just result in frustration and a smaller and smaller audience.
07.05.12 at 02:52
25 Jun, 2012 - (@pete_aquino)
On Places, a debate inspired by the MoMA exhibition Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream, organized by the B... http://bit.ly/OkzuhV
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
These are some big issues to tackle: the impact of neoliberal capitalism on housing, providing housing for all, marrying design and social design, and long-range planning that doesn’t just cater to developers. One exhibit can’t solve all of these concerns but they are important ones that more people should be discussing.
HUFFPOST SUPER USER, psnyder325, Yep, I'm a Socialist. Deal., 1429 Fans
05:02 AM on 07/23/2012
We need a sea change in American attitudes before anything will change. First, does everyone really need a lawnmower ALL OF THEIR OWN?? Pooled resources would help a great deal. And why do people need so much land? We live in a patio home with a small back yard and very small front yard. It is more environmentally responsible. Then there is the trend to obscenely large houses. Does a couple with no children really NEED a 5K sf house? It is environmentally irresponsible to have such a house. Look at the wasted space and energy.
We must get past the concept of individualism and "what's here for me" and into the concept of sharing in our communities and doing what is best for all of us. The Republicans, of course, don't play well with others and want their individual "rights" regardless of how damaging it is to the community. In the end, it is unlikely that anything will be done that is intelligent until we're falling completely apart. Individualism is the curse of humanity.....and may well be the end of it.
We need a sea change in American attitudes before anything will change. First, does everyone really need a lawnmower ALL OF THEIR OWN?? Pooled resources would help a great deal. And why do people need so much land? We live in a patio home with a small back yard and very small front yard. It is more environmentally responsible. Then there is the trend to obscenely large houses. Does a couple with no children really NEED a 5K sf house? It is environmentally irresponsible to have such a house. Look at the wasted space and energy.
We must get past the concept of individualism and "what's here for me" and into the concept of sharing in our communities and doing what is best for all of us. The Republicans, of course, don't play well with others and want their individual "rights" regardless of how damaging it is to the community. In the end, it is unlikely that anything will be done that is intelligent until we're falling completely apart. Individualism is the curse of humanity.....and may well be the end of it.
eric14, 1232 Fans
04:22 AM on 07/23/2012
You are right. But given the existing housing stock, it would be good to have some ideas about transforming suburbs. Are there ways they can be improved? Change zoning? Bring in workplaces?
You are right. But given the existing housing stock, it would be good to have some ideas about transforming suburbs. Are there ways they can be improved? Change zoning? Bring in workplaces?
January, 83 Fans
12:44 AM on 07/23/2012
"We need another housing boom."
We need a "community" boom. Sprawling suburbs don't build community. Neither does living on top of each other (recall what has happened to public housing). Most disappointing is that we do not even seem able to recognize what "community" is or what it might look like.
I don't blame builders; it's a lot bigger than that. Most of us do not want any outsiders sticking their noses into our business. Just look how hard it is to protect children, women, and the elderly. Our cities require pioneers, and most of us are simply not up to that, as heroic as it might sound.
No, there is no easy answer. But can't we at least begin asking the right question? "Why can't we just get along together?" Then let's build whatever that takes.
"We need another housing boom."
We need a "community" boom. Sprawling suburbs don't build community. Neither does living on top of each other (recall what has happened to public housing). Most disappointing is that we do not even seem able to recognize what "community" is or what it might look like.
I don't blame builders; it's a lot bigger than that. Most of us do not want any outsiders sticking their noses into our business. Just look how hard it is to protect children, women, and the elderly. Our cities require pioneers, and most of us are simply not up to that, as heroic as it might sound.
No, there is no easy answer. But can't we at least begin asking the right question? "Why can't we just get along together?" Then let's build whatever that takes.
We need another housing boom. This was my takeaway from this inspiring exhibit. Not another boom that redistributes wealth from middle class families to financial executives while sapping public coffers, but one that works in reverse, yielding reinvigorated communities built to last, adapt and thrive.
Many people may be put off by the concept of living in such close confines. Many will resist the elimination of streets as an unimaginable inconvenience. But the drawing is less a literal prescription than a critique of existing conditions. The thinkers at MOS Architects have forced us to examine how maintaining those streets, many forlorn, has sapped municipal finances. They have compelled us to consider how our mortgage model effectively transfers wealth from households to financial institutions by requiring that we engage in expensive real estate transaction to move.
None of these designs is likely to be built, and their individual merits and aesthetic appeal are largely beside the point. The point is the exercise that produced them: setting aside the conditions that have constrained our housing choices -- applicable zoning, traditional ownership structures and standard financial models -- to imagine what communities could become were architects free to consider only fruitful living and the best usage of resources.
But should developers, architects, marketers and financiers just hit the restart button and repeat the patterns that led to the U.S. foreclosure crisis? According to the Museum of Modern Art exhibition, “Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream,” the answer is no.
Instead of letting the recent crisis go to waste, the MoMA’s Architecture and Design Department and Columbia University’s Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture created some dynamic new architectural visions to address the needs of American communities
Instead of letting the recent crisis go to waste, the MoMA’s Architecture and Design Department and Columbia University’s Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture created some dynamic new architectural visions to address the needs of American communities
"The financial and foreclosure crisis was such a psychic shock that it created the perfect moment to have this discussion. Before the crisis, the ubiquitous American Dream image being marketed to people was the suburban house of the 1950s — living in the perpetual hereafter of television. When the rumbling financial and foreclosure crises disturbed that dream, a new conversation became possible. Topics and ideas that had been “‘foreclosed’ by the housing boom, could be re-opened” after the bust.
Now why did this exhibit fascinate my 11 year old daughter? The answer is not that she has studied these issues in 5th grade nor is it that I have spent time with her talking about foreclosures. The answer is that the exhibit included "a wide array of models, renderings, animations, and analytical materials" that captured her attention and her interest.
Very often disciplines divide serious issues, which are then studied in one silo when the problem and the solution transcend many silos and disciplines. As the exhibit clearly demonstrates, we can "rehouse the American dream" but certainly not by doing the same old things in the same old ways. See the exhibit before it closes on August 13th or pick up the book which has the same title. Economics and architecture never looked better together.
Very often disciplines divide serious issues, which are then studied in one silo when the problem and the solution transcend many silos and disciplines. As the exhibit clearly demonstrates, we can "rehouse the American dream" but certainly not by doing the same old things in the same old ways. See the exhibit before it closes on August 13th or pick up the book which has the same title. Economics and architecture never looked better together.
Reinhold Martin: So it’s an election year. The question is, really, as people kind of operating around municipal and regional public sectors, what it would take to move this discussion we’re having in the big city here out into America, broadly construed whether we’re calling that “suburbia” or not. In other words, out into a space, a sphere, a site of discussion, in which the underlying values are on the table in a manner that is at least comparable to the way the practice of finance is currently on the table or the way, say, healthcare was on the table a few years ago. It’s quite striking that, during an election year after four years of this crisis, housing is still not on the table. What do you think?
BL: One of the things I thought to do in preparation for this talk was to chart, from the Bush administration through the Obama administration, the number of times the word “housing” appears in the State of the Union address. I got really depressed, so I stopped. In essence—again, because it is so polarizing, and I can’t wait to see what they said on Fox News—you’re going to have to wait until December. You’re going to have to wait until he gets reelected. You’re going to have to wait until Shaun Donovan has four more years. Then we can start to have a meaningful discussion. But until then, I don’t think anything that you put on the national political agenda that talks about “public” or “housing” other than possibly bailing out mortgages and/or bailing out more bank —I don’t know how that’s going to gain any traction or do anything other than alienate more voters. But once December comes, then it’s a different story.
MJ: I wouldn’t disagree with that. I think there’s a curious rupture between the importance of housing in our lives and the importance of it in the political discourse, if you will. I think in New York City there are two things that are important to New Yorkers: real estate and romance. And real estate inevitably trumps romance. “Who’s got the right rent-stabilized apartment? I’ll take that one!” “Ok, you’re moving in with me. I’m not moving in with you.” Here it is so central to our lives. Go to a party in a single-family house in a neighborhood or something: “So, did you hear the house down the street went for so-many dollars?” It dominates our conversation in so many ways, and yet it’s so difficult for it to enter into the discussion even in the aftermath of this colossal, this calamity that has occurred. […] In some ways, when it gets into the public policy realm, it’s like “My eyes glaze over.” I’m talking about QRMs [Qualified Residential Mortgages], and you’re falling asleep. Let’s admit it. It is hard. It’s really hard to raise this issue in an effective manner.
BL: One of the things I thought to do in preparation for this talk was to chart, from the Bush administration through the Obama administration, the number of times the word “housing” appears in the State of the Union address. I got really depressed, so I stopped. In essence—again, because it is so polarizing, and I can’t wait to see what they said on Fox News—you’re going to have to wait until December. You’re going to have to wait until he gets reelected. You’re going to have to wait until Shaun Donovan has four more years. Then we can start to have a meaningful discussion. But until then, I don’t think anything that you put on the national political agenda that talks about “public” or “housing” other than possibly bailing out mortgages and/or bailing out more bank —I don’t know how that’s going to gain any traction or do anything other than alienate more voters. But once December comes, then it’s a different story.
MJ: I wouldn’t disagree with that. I think there’s a curious rupture between the importance of housing in our lives and the importance of it in the political discourse, if you will. I think in New York City there are two things that are important to New Yorkers: real estate and romance. And real estate inevitably trumps romance. “Who’s got the right rent-stabilized apartment? I’ll take that one!” “Ok, you’re moving in with me. I’m not moving in with you.” Here it is so central to our lives. Go to a party in a single-family house in a neighborhood or something: “So, did you hear the house down the street went for so-many dollars?” It dominates our conversation in so many ways, and yet it’s so difficult for it to enter into the discussion even in the aftermath of this colossal, this calamity that has occurred. […] In some ways, when it gets into the public policy realm, it’s like “My eyes glaze over.” I’m talking about QRMs [Qualified Residential Mortgages], and you’re falling asleep. Let’s admit it. It is hard. It’s really hard to raise this issue in an effective manner.
BL: From the outset, I think it was clear that the public was welcome to come in and be part of the conversation, but hoping that MoMA continues to move forward and have other activities and exhibitions that focus on housing, I would hope that the next iteration of this conversation is actually brought out to the public as opposed to asking the public to come in. […] There are three necessary components to a productive dialectic: the abstract, the negative, and the concrete. Similarly, though not immediately corollary, there are three necessary participants in a healthy discussion on housing: the architects, the policymakers, and the public. So, speaking on behalf of the policymakers and in the hopes that we both endeavor to include the public early and often, I say, “Welcome Back.”
BL: I don’t think there are too many conversations you can have in the public discourse where a term like “unwed welfare mother” is completely commonplace and assumed as being an acceptable term to throw around, but when you talk about public housing it is. In fact, it’s almost assumed. So, in a lot of ways we need to get out from our own bad image.
BL: With the second [Mt. Laurel] decision, it was one of the first states to not necessarily recognize housing as a need or as an inalienable human right, but what it did recognize was that a society or a community or a municipality has an obligation to its residents to provide low-income housing options. And so, in a way, it kind of turned the provision-of-housing argument in on itself and put that on the role of society which, in a lot of ways, is what The Buell Hypothesis argues. But the problem that New Jersey is running into—and this is an affordable housing development in Mt. Laurel—is that the infrastructure that is required to sustain that low level of density for low-income families is not really practical. That’s why COAH [Coalition on Affordable Housing] is being challenged. That’s why Mt. Laurel I and II are being challenged. That’s why a lot of this is being rethought. And I’m not saying that we should come down on one side or the other, but one thing I really enjoy about the comparison of these projects is what the issues of density mean to that debate.
BL: I think it’s important for us, especially within the context of this exhibition, to look at New Jersey because we’re not really talking about what we understood to be “suburbia” any more, and we’re also not really talking about what we understood to be “the city” anymore. East Orange and “Thoughts on a Walking City” are an excellent example of that. The Oranges, if they were compared to the largest cities in the United States, would be the fifth densest city in the United States. It actually has over 16,000 people per square mile. (To give you some frame of reference, New York only has 27,000 people per square mile, and the drop-off after New York is rather rapid.) So, I applaud MOS for their somewhat backhanded recognition that, despite this density, there still aren’t enough services, there still isn’t enough affordable housing, and “Oh, and by the way, you’re all fat.” The answer they came up with, which I don’t disagree with at all, is that we actually need to make it denser, what they suggest is essentially Smart Growth on steroids. […] The way Smart Growth is essentially practiced now is in very small increments, and to the extent that it’s practiced in these small increments, it’s working. But if it were practiced at a much larger scale, as MOS suggested, who knows what the implications could be? I like to think that could be very beneficial.
Brian Loughlin (BL): I want to thank the Museum for reengaging the issue of housing after what has been a long and notable absence. I think we can argue that also absent, from this never-ending conversation about the public’s role in the provision of housing to its citizens—as it continues in media and budget hearings and courtrooms and in community meetings— have been the contributions of academic institutions like the Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture. In fact, I would go so far as to say that in large part, Architecture (with a big A) has pulled back from the discourse on social housing in this country since the proclaimed death of modern architecture with the fall of Yamasaki’s buildings in ’72. Even the Congress for New Urbanism, coauthors of this fine document here, through their involvement with HOPE VI, have inserted themselves into the void where traditional public housing and modern architecture reportedly failed, by quietly steering its supposed cure. But, they’ve sought to do so without the appearance of Architecture (again, big A) or authorship, relying instead on the stylistics of nostalgia and the will of the public as apparently expressed in community charrettes.
MJ: We cannot assume that the quality of transit-oriented development is a given. While I don’t want to end on that note, it’s worthwhile insofar as it’s cautionary. It reminds us that we can take nothing for granted. Rehousing also challenges us not to take anything for granted, to think not only about the ways out of the foreclosure crisis, but also ways out of the suburban cul-de-sac we’ve been trapped in during the post-World War II period. It’s a forceful statement that we needn’t assume nor accept more of the same, that we can alter the path of and look and feel and underlying meaning of our homes and communities. And, for that reason, we should embrace its provocations.
MJ: But we’re still only tentatively seizing these opportunities. In some sense, when public bodies dither, private developers leap. In Huntington, Long Island in 2010, after three years of planning and endless meetings, a mixed-income, mixed-use rental and homeownership development proposed by Avalon Bay Communities and located less than a half-mile from the Long Island Rail Road station was defeated. The politics of change are extremely hard.
MJ: While we didn’t fall prey to the siren song of large-scale master plans, our fine-grain plans have sometimes also proven to be small-bore. And although we’ve done much better in recent years, fine architecture has been far more the exception than the rule. And that’s where this project serves as a wonderful provocation. It reminds us not to allow the urgency of the crisis and the need for immediate solutions to blind us to the larger opportunities the crisis presents to us.
Because the teams were tasked with presenting provocations and not solutions to the foreclosure crisis, we were able to use their proposals as a starting point for a discussion at MoMA on June 13 with Marc Jahr, President of the NYC Housing Development Corporation, and Brian Loughlin, Chief Architect, Jersey City Housing Authority. Marc and Brian reflected on ways in which the five Foreclosed team proposals could be applied to the New York and New Jersey regions, both to help emphasize the fact that the projects were intended to be seen as representational archetypes as opposed to proscriptive solutions, and to shift the emphasis from the national to the local agenda.
janetvarney
Are you tired of Little Boxes on the Hillside? Can foreclosure ultimately lead to a more unique America?
hp_blogger_Vanessa Smith
Do you think this is a positive thing? Weigh in!
Progressives_LoveAmerica
I think the lighter side of foreclosure would be the obvious catharsis people being foreclosed upon get from willfully neglecting the state of their homes & basically turning them into trash heaps in the knowledge that the banks will be taking them
tlstryker
my blodd pressure rises when we talk about foreclosures. I don't even own a home. I just tie it to all that has happened. A reminder of the peak behind the curtain we all got...then nothing changed. Damn!
Tom_Servo
I can't talk about this. It makes me ill. check you people out tomorrow.
Luanne_Taylor
at 51 I wanted to try to live in some new cities...
Populations & Demographics (58)
Janet Jenkins
AUGUST 17, 2011, 3:30 P.M.
You forgot the burden on the non existentent middle class.
You forgot the burden on the non existentent middle class.
“American workers have a much more nomadic lifestyle than they did in the ’50s and ’60s. They don’t live in just one home for 30 years anymore. Rent-to-own patterns might serve a lot of people better.”
FairfieldFox
September 18, 2011 at 3:40PM
Truth is, the Great Migration destroyed the great cities of Detroit, Cleveland, Chicago (Orly the Daley’s could hold this wondrously toddlin’ town together; Rahm’s clueless), Newark, L.A., Philadelphia and NYC. They aren’t coming back. Neither are places like Orange and Irvington, the former Camptown. Parasites will use our tax dollars in a quixotic attempt to recapture history, while pocketing some easy Money. Then, a thesis can be griten, a PhD for someone’s daughter in Urban Planning? Sure, why not? Then, a fellowship on the tazxpayers’ cuff. The rip-off.
It seems like only yesterday, that I could hop on the bus, for a dime, with friends and go “downtown”, to catch a ballgame, a movie or just mingle with the delightful crowds. Then, around 1958, that became dangerous for kids under 15….then under 20….then EVERYONE. The jostling started. The Huggins, the 5 vs. 2 shakedowns. The stabbings and the shootings and the rapes. A cannonball, they said, could be fired down every “Main Street”, without injuring a soul…because everyone had fled. What a helluva migration, as we look back over what was, and can never be again. Only yesterday.
Truth is, the Great Migration destroyed the great cities of Detroit, Cleveland, Chicago (Orly the Daley’s could hold this wondrously toddlin’ town together; Rahm’s clueless), Newark, L.A., Philadelphia and NYC. They aren’t coming back. Neither are places like Orange and Irvington, the former Camptown. Parasites will use our tax dollars in a quixotic attempt to recapture history, while pocketing some easy Money. Then, a thesis can be griten, a PhD for someone’s daughter in Urban Planning? Sure, why not? Then, a fellowship on the tazxpayers’ cuff. The rip-off.
It seems like only yesterday, that I could hop on the bus, for a dime, with friends and go “downtown”, to catch a ballgame, a movie or just mingle with the delightful crowds. Then, around 1958, that became dangerous for kids under 15….then under 20….then EVERYONE. The jostling started. The Huggins, the 5 vs. 2 shakedowns. The stabbings and the shootings and the rapes. A cannonball, they said, could be fired down every “Main Street”, without injuring a soul…because everyone had fled. What a helluva migration, as we look back over what was, and can never be again. Only yesterday.
The project focused on developing 2.2 miles of boulevard in Temple Terrace with housing, government offices and retail spaces. An interesting thing to note is that Temple Terrace is expected to have a 40% population gain within the next ten years, and the suburb has been trying to stop growth. Taking a radically different approach, Bell has developed a plan that can serve as an economic model to sustain growth and allow the suburb to enjoy prosperity. Plus, the model will help the region transition from a 4.5 people/acre site into a functioning 40 people/acre. The planned complex has attributes of a city and will be quite energy efficient as a way to provide an alternative solution to attract people. We loved how the architecture is designed for experiences to overlap as a person within his courtyard has a certain amount of privacy, yet can open the doors to view people in their offices lower in the complex or communicate with their other neighbors flanking their residence.
Gang’s approach truly centered around the people of Cicero, and through a series of personal interviews, she could understand the needs of the people and attempt to address them. Gang introduced the project siting it as an “Arrival City” since most of Cicero is dominated by immigrants.
These efforts make a broader point about the quality of place. In cities across the country, from New York to New Orleans, we’ve seen when artists move in, others follow—from families looking to raise their children in dynamic, diverse neighborhoods to young creative professionals with skills that are essential to the 21st-century global economy.
Each team took as its subject a specific locale affected by the real estate collapse. Studio Gang, together with a multidisciplinary team of experts that included writer Greg Lindsay and urban designer Rafi Segal, took on the problem of “arrival cities,” towns that act as ports of entry to immigrants from around the world. “These places can work—or they can turn into slums,” noted Ms. Gang, whose speculative plan for immigrant-heavy Cicero, Illinois, would turn abandoned industrial facilities into integrated live-work environments.
Bergdoll and Martin describe their directive to the teams as "not to redesign the house, but to redesign the dream."
All five teams have responded to this directive to some degree by proposing social and infrastructural systems that attempt, on a large scale, to align with the new cultural desires and economic realities of American suburban living. Amale Andraos and Dan Wood of WORK Architecture Company, working on SalemKeizer, Oregon, propose a contemporary update on the notion of a garden city, addressing a range of ecological issues. Hilary Sample and Michael Meredith of MOS, analyzing the Oranges, New Jersey, explore the potential of suburban streets to offer a new kind of civic space in a less car-dependent future. Jeanne Gang of Studio Gang, focusing on Cicero, Illinois, seeks a new flexibility in housing that will accommodate the rapidly shifting immigrant populations in the suburbs outside Chicago. Andrew Zago of Zago Architecture, studying Rialto, California, subverts the strict hierarchies of property boundaries that have traditionally structured suburban space. And Michael Bell of Visible Weather, examining Temple Terrace, Florida, considers the relationship between relatively homogenous Florida suburbs and the more diverse and less prosperous neighboring urban communities.
All five teams have responded to this directive to some degree by proposing social and infrastructural systems that attempt, on a large scale, to align with the new cultural desires and economic realities of American suburban living. Amale Andraos and Dan Wood of WORK Architecture Company, working on SalemKeizer, Oregon, propose a contemporary update on the notion of a garden city, addressing a range of ecological issues. Hilary Sample and Michael Meredith of MOS, analyzing the Oranges, New Jersey, explore the potential of suburban streets to offer a new kind of civic space in a less car-dependent future. Jeanne Gang of Studio Gang, focusing on Cicero, Illinois, seeks a new flexibility in housing that will accommodate the rapidly shifting immigrant populations in the suburbs outside Chicago. Andrew Zago of Zago Architecture, studying Rialto, California, subverts the strict hierarchies of property boundaries that have traditionally structured suburban space. And Michael Bell of Visible Weather, examining Temple Terrace, Florida, considers the relationship between relatively homogenous Florida suburbs and the more diverse and less prosperous neighboring urban communities.
Donovan told the audience that the foreclosure crisis disproportionately hit low- income and minority households in the suburbs. He noted how in some of these communities the majority of people receiving mortgages during the housing bubble were given subprime loans when many of them qualified for prime ones. And he cited a study that showed that Latinos in this country lost two-thirds of their wealth between 2005 and 2009.
“Outsiders tear up things, they’ve messed up the city, they don’t want to learn.” Cicero was an immigrant enclave with proud and strong working-class people who, with opportunity, moved away and were replaced by another proud and strong working-class community of a different ethnicity and cultural need. Some things, however, were common: a desire to have their children receive the best education, to work and become American, to benefit from this strange new gateway.
Chere Lott
FEBRUARY 10, 2012, 4:45 P.M.
As an urbanist and lawyer, I think deeply about these issues. I find the efforts in Cicero to be interesting, but somehow missing the point of other communities of “outsiders” on the inside, like the Chatham of my youth. I am sympathetic to the plight of hardworking immigrants but would offer the story of the middle class community that is suffering by bureaucratic malfeasance of displacing the black poor into these neighborhoods with insufficient support systems and resources. Chicago is, according to the Manhattan Institute, the most segregated city in the US. It is also still has a large black population..for historical reasons. What design opportunities exist to revitalize the far south side? Is a Walmart the key to salvation? (I think, not) Mr Gates, I saw your show here in LA at the Moca Geffen and am very intriqued by the synergy that you create with your interests…arts, urban planning. I would like the opportunity to meet with you in Chicago to discuss ideas and opportunities for creating interest in saving Chatham.
As an urbanist and lawyer, I think deeply about these issues. I find the efforts in Cicero to be interesting, but somehow missing the point of other communities of “outsiders” on the inside, like the Chatham of my youth. I am sympathetic to the plight of hardworking immigrants but would offer the story of the middle class community that is suffering by bureaucratic malfeasance of displacing the black poor into these neighborhoods with insufficient support systems and resources. Chicago is, according to the Manhattan Institute, the most segregated city in the US. It is also still has a large black population..for historical reasons. What design opportunities exist to revitalize the far south side? Is a Walmart the key to salvation? (I think, not) Mr Gates, I saw your show here in LA at the Moca Geffen and am very intriqued by the synergy that you create with your interests…arts, urban planning. I would like the opportunity to meet with you in Chicago to discuss ideas and opportunities for creating interest in saving Chatham.
macphile
I live in the sprawlingest (yes, it's a word) city there is, let me tell you, and there has to come a point where we stop. People already have 1-hour commutes or more, all so they can have their perfect (cheaply built) house in good school districts. If they go much further, they'll be in the district of the next city over. Quality of life isn't just about keeping your kids away from the minorities and "teh gayz." It should also be about how much of your life you're spending in traffic jams and whether there's any nature left for your kids to see because you've bulldozed it all (just so you can complain when the neighborhood is "invaded" by wild animals). And those lawns...and those deed restrictions. It's all a blight. A blight, I say.
December 20, 2011 at 5:44 pm
December 20, 2011 at 5:44 pm
Laughing Cow
It is very apparent that you are uneducated on the DEVASTATING effect of the suburban model in todays society.
It affected gender roles and pollution sky-rocketed because they through these homes up with NO regard to solar orientation and etc. It increased dependency on the car and was a nightmare for the family that had one car... which was almost everyone...
Not only that it also decreased the amount of diversity in a given area which has added to more social problems in our communities
December 20, 2011 at 1:18 pm
It affected gender roles and pollution sky-rocketed because they through these homes up with NO regard to solar orientation and etc. It increased dependency on the car and was a nightmare for the family that had one car... which was almost everyone...
Not only that it also decreased the amount of diversity in a given area which has added to more social problems in our communities
December 20, 2011 at 1:18 pm
guest
actually, you are wrong about who can afford these houses. i live in another central long island suburb and i can tell you that the only people who can afford houses now are plumbers, electricians, any other skilled blue collar workers, and central american or south asian immigrants who are shopkeepers. most "white collar" people are earning far less money and can't afford to move here
December 20, 2011 at 2:21 pm
December 20, 2011 at 2:21 pm
KPMCO
I would not make assumptions like that Marcus. I am single, no children, and bought a 4 BR house. Know why? ROOMMATES! Do you realize how little I pay out of pocket every month for my mortgage and utilities? I put my extra money toward the principal to pay the house off faster. Sometimes it's not about keeping up with the Joneses. It's about financial realities and being smart enough to know what I am able to afford alone...and then maximizing it so I can pay it off as fast as I can.
My roommates help with housework, maintenance, and even watching the dogs when I am not home. It's like a small family here. I expect to have this house paid off within 8-10 years if I can do it. Can you say that?
December 20, 2011 at 3:13 pm
My roommates help with housework, maintenance, and even watching the dogs when I am not home. It's like a small family here. I expect to have this house paid off within 8-10 years if I can do it. Can you say that?
December 20, 2011 at 3:13 pm
"You might find more diversity in suburbs than in center cities in some places," particularly because immigrants are increasingly moving straight to the suburbs instead of to the inner city, said June Williamson, an associate professor of architecture at the City College of New York and author of the book "Retrofitting Suburbia."
Brookings' William Frey said suburbs used to be associated with the white middle class. That's no longer the case: "The suburbs are kind of a microcosm of America. It used to be, when you said you lived in the suburbs, you were telling somebody something about who you are demographically, and now you're not telling anything about who you are."
Brookings' William Frey said suburbs used to be associated with the white middle class. That's no longer the case: "The suburbs are kind of a microcosm of America. It used to be, when you said you lived in the suburbs, you were telling somebody something about who you are demographically, and now you're not telling anything about who you are."
The team discovered that the town's stately bungalows of the 20th Century were being cut up into various smaller apartments for multiple residents. This casual yet effective process helped create affordable housing with easy transit access to Chicago that was within the grasp of first generation immigrants.
In addition, the team also discovered the importance of organic brownfield remediation in Cicero, even if it meant the land would remain underdeveloped. Through commonplace planting, the toxic industrial sites scattered across the residential fabric would change into safer cleaner zones for future community use. Finally, within certain regions of each parcel, the once zoned industrial land could be converted into a dense collection of affordable modular beds, baths, and public space by using the existing industrial structures and materials on each site such as truss frames and brick partition walls. The new clusters would become and important blend of adaptive reuse and new construction that utilized a sizable amount of Cicero's historical past while creating a new 21st century anchor that can accommodate thousands immediately adjacent to one of Chicago's commuter rail corridors.
In addition, the team also discovered the importance of organic brownfield remediation in Cicero, even if it meant the land would remain underdeveloped. Through commonplace planting, the toxic industrial sites scattered across the residential fabric would change into safer cleaner zones for future community use. Finally, within certain regions of each parcel, the once zoned industrial land could be converted into a dense collection of affordable modular beds, baths, and public space by using the existing industrial structures and materials on each site such as truss frames and brick partition walls. The new clusters would become and important blend of adaptive reuse and new construction that utilized a sizable amount of Cicero's historical past while creating a new 21st century anchor that can accommodate thousands immediately adjacent to one of Chicago's commuter rail corridors.
Cicero, an aging inner-ring suburb set on the edge of metropolitan Chicago, has lately become an arrival point for new immigrants to the region. Built for a previous generation, the original single- family houses have often been repurposed as multifamily dwellings by more recent residents. Presently Cicero is experiencing a high rate of foreclosure of industrial as well as residential properties, which has prompted the team led by Jeanne Gang of Studio Gang to develop a proposal with a distinctive feature that concerns the dialogue between architecture and both human and natural ecologies, interweaving a response to both situations.
In 2011 and 2012, Gang Architects and MoMA shined a spotlight on the Chicago suburb of Cicero alongside a widely overlooked programming need, small affordable housing units in American suburbia. The structured bungalow homes and factories of Cicero’s decaying industrial fabric morphed over time into a new affordable gateway city in Chicagoland for first generation Hispanics. The bungalow was cut up to accommodate the new individuals and families who initially tried to purchase the entire home but would quickly fall into foreclosure. The changing role of the suburban residential fabric from blue collar factory town to a modern day Ellis Island had to be addressed in the wake of Cicero’s local housing crisis. Compared to the town’s past, Cicero was now a community of individuals and small families just starting out in America who simply strive for a small bed and bath that allows for a strong stable foundation in the United States. Through their research and design, Jeanne Gang and her team hit on this vital suburban issue and carried the line of the MoMA exhibit, showing the distinct importance of new inner suburb density in the United States.
The exhibit springs from the belief (fleshed out in the Buell Center report) that fewer and fewer Americans have or want the lives that suburbs were designed for. Today, we mostly live alone, or share quarters with roommates and fluid configurations of relatives. We start kitchen-table businesses with vendors in China and customers all over the world. We’re starting to think of the car not as a passport to independence but as a toxic jail cell. For decades, coveting a house you couldn’t afford was a patriotic sentiment, an essential ingredient of the American Dream.
The other star of the exhibition is Jeanne Gang, the Chicago architect. She and her teammates tackled the problems of Cicero, an older Chicago suburb that is filled with rotting industrial facilities but not the kind of housing needed by its large immigrant population. They decided to play to Cicero’s strengths, as what Gang calls an “arrival city,” by creating modular housing that can go up or down in size as families evolve. They also reclaimed industrial facilities as gardens and, like most of the teams, came up with an unconventional financing scheme. Like the very different WORKac proposal, Gang’s Cicero proposal seems practically shovel-ready, even though, as she pointed out in a New York Times op-ed, it remains illegal under Chicago’s zoning code.
The town, Gang notes, is an "arrival city," where immigrants proceed directly instead of settling first in Chicago. The official 2010 census population is 84,000, but town officials say it's probably closer to 100,000 to 110,000 because of undocumented residents. The super mercados and taquerias that line Cicero's commercial streets hint at its shift from a haven for Eastern European immigrants to those from Mexico.
Craig Kootsillas
11 months ago
I think there's no doubt that there is a trend towards "large multigenerational groupings" given the immigrant population explosion.
It's never been part of our culture.
Our goal used to be to become an adult and get out on one's own.
I think there's no doubt that there is a trend towards "large multigenerational groupings" given the immigrant population explosion.
It's never been part of our culture.
Our goal used to be to become an adult and get out on one's own.
TomPaine4
11 months ago
What crap. For example, says Jeanne Gang, "Cicero’s code also defines "family" in a way that excludes the large, multigenerational groupings." Too much trouble to look? Here is the definition, from the Cicero Illinois Code of Ordinances, sec 46-466:
"Family means a single individual, doing his own cooking, and living upon the premises as a separate housekeeping unit, or a collective body of persons doing their own cooking and living together upon the premises as a separate housekeeping unit in a domestic relationship based upon birth, marriage, or other domestic bond, as distinguished from a group occupying a boardinghouse, lodginghouse, club, fraternity or hotel."
So, multigenerational, and related by birth? That's a family. Large? Not in the definition. Not related by blood, nor by marriage, but cooking and living together, based on a domestic bond? Family, again.
I have no love for Cicero, but Jeanne Gang can make municipal ordinances look reasonable by comparison.
Let's go on to the very next phrase, "now common across the country." Are we to believe that large multigenerational groupings are now common across the country? If they are common, then these onerous regulations aren't having much effect. If they aren't common, then we have Jeanne Gang reporting what she wishes were true, in place of what is. Tool.
What crap. For example, says Jeanne Gang, "Cicero’s code also defines "family" in a way that excludes the large, multigenerational groupings." Too much trouble to look? Here is the definition, from the Cicero Illinois Code of Ordinances, sec 46-466:
"Family means a single individual, doing his own cooking, and living upon the premises as a separate housekeeping unit, or a collective body of persons doing their own cooking and living together upon the premises as a separate housekeeping unit in a domestic relationship based upon birth, marriage, or other domestic bond, as distinguished from a group occupying a boardinghouse, lodginghouse, club, fraternity or hotel."
So, multigenerational, and related by birth? That's a family. Large? Not in the definition. Not related by blood, nor by marriage, but cooking and living together, based on a domestic bond? Family, again.
I have no love for Cicero, but Jeanne Gang can make municipal ordinances look reasonable by comparison.
Let's go on to the very next phrase, "now common across the country." Are we to believe that large multigenerational groupings are now common across the country? If they are common, then these onerous regulations aren't having much effect. If they aren't common, then we have Jeanne Gang reporting what she wishes were true, in place of what is. Tool.
jla-x
Feb 23, 12 12:07 pm
Sub-urban and suburban are also two very different things. I would argue that sub-urban is not bad. A good example of this is in some parts of Brooklyn, Queens, and Nassau county NY. The density is greater than the typical suburban environment, and there is a small business walkable street scape that flanks a mix of multi and single family housing in many of these neighborhoods. There is also access to public transit in and out of the city. There is a mix of home owners and renters, and the opportunity to own a house and rent out the top floor. There is a sense of community and a feeling of being in a small town within a city. The film "Do the Right Thing" by Spike Lee so clearly expresses this. Another issue is density. More density is not the solution alone. We need to find an appropriate balance of density, production, and economy so that development can be in some sort of sustainable balance. I think that sub-urban form has the greatest potential for a sustainable development because there is enough space to support a mix of agriculture, industry,small business, housing, park space, etc...as well as enough density to support local businesses with regard to employees and consumers. Cities like manhattan will never be able to become hybrid typologies because things like urban agriculture and production will be far too expensive due to crazy high land prices. The only problem with the sub-urban typology is that it sometimes becomes gentrified over time as we see in brooklyn or the opposite happens where it becomes a ghetto due to the home values going down as density goes up like in Jamaica Queens (balance is always a thin line). On the other hand, suburban development lends itself to exploitation by corporate interests as James R. clearly articulates. The American dream of owning a single family home is not going away. It is a part of the American culture that dates back hundreds of years. We need to find a solution to the problem without ignoring the cultural mentality that led to it. This is why ideas like the ones in the MoMA exhibit never work. I believe that we need to study examples that already work like Astoria, and go from there.
Sub-urban and suburban are also two very different things. I would argue that sub-urban is not bad. A good example of this is in some parts of Brooklyn, Queens, and Nassau county NY. The density is greater than the typical suburban environment, and there is a small business walkable street scape that flanks a mix of multi and single family housing in many of these neighborhoods. There is also access to public transit in and out of the city. There is a mix of home owners and renters, and the opportunity to own a house and rent out the top floor. There is a sense of community and a feeling of being in a small town within a city. The film "Do the Right Thing" by Spike Lee so clearly expresses this. Another issue is density. More density is not the solution alone. We need to find an appropriate balance of density, production, and economy so that development can be in some sort of sustainable balance. I think that sub-urban form has the greatest potential for a sustainable development because there is enough space to support a mix of agriculture, industry,small business, housing, park space, etc...as well as enough density to support local businesses with regard to employees and consumers. Cities like manhattan will never be able to become hybrid typologies because things like urban agriculture and production will be far too expensive due to crazy high land prices. The only problem with the sub-urban typology is that it sometimes becomes gentrified over time as we see in brooklyn or the opposite happens where it becomes a ghetto due to the home values going down as density goes up like in Jamaica Queens (balance is always a thin line). On the other hand, suburban development lends itself to exploitation by corporate interests as James R. clearly articulates. The American dream of owning a single family home is not going away. It is a part of the American culture that dates back hundreds of years. We need to find a solution to the problem without ignoring the cultural mentality that led to it. This is why ideas like the ones in the MoMA exhibit never work. I believe that we need to study examples that already work like Astoria, and go from there.
Andrew Purcell (AP) : Do you think that Americans are giving up on the suburban dream, then? Because it’s still seems quite resilient to me.
Barry Bergdoll (BB): It is astounding to what extent people’s dreams are fulfilled by images that are supplied to them by the marketplace, by advertising, by television, but I do think that that is shifting. And even some of the dream producers like movies, like television series, are beginning to address the complex realities of suburbs and are starting to show us images of suburbs which are arrival cities for immigrants which have multigenerational families living in the same house. Some of the kind of covering up of those realities in popular entertainment is itself beginning to erode. So, there are many many cracks in the dream.
Barry Bergdoll (BB): It is astounding to what extent people’s dreams are fulfilled by images that are supplied to them by the marketplace, by advertising, by television, but I do think that that is shifting. And even some of the dream producers like movies, like television series, are beginning to address the complex realities of suburbs and are starting to show us images of suburbs which are arrival cities for immigrants which have multigenerational families living in the same house. Some of the kind of covering up of those realities in popular entertainment is itself beginning to erode. So, there are many many cracks in the dream.
It’s important to take a long view of the suburban/urban divide and realize that the pendulum has by now swung all the way to cities and may be swinging back to the ‘burbs. Poverty, unemployment and environmental degredation are now facing cities and suburbs in equal measure. But there are good reasons to expect that the suburbs, with their ethnic diversity, will become increasingly vibrant places.
CH: I cannot tell you how much I love this exhibit. I just thought it was really fascinating to start thinking in these terms. And in some ways it brings the discussion we’ve had in Detroit—which is a discussion about “How do you take this moment of crisis and ruin and abandonment and turn it into an opportunity to kind of rethink things?”—to the national level where we have communities … some of these communities that were assigned have foreclosure rates as high as thirteen, fourteen, fifteen percent. Tell me about what your team did, where you were assigned to look at, and how you started to think about what kind of place you would design in the wake of the foreclosure crisis.
Michael Bell (MB): We were asked by the Museum to work on a site called Temple Terrace, Florida. It’s the northeast corner of Tampa, and a little town. It’s 22,000 people. It was an incorporated city in 1926. It preceded the growth of Tampa. Tampa eventually came to meet Temple Terrace, in a kind of typical American situation where something that was very rural became urban, “quasi-urban” one could say. Temple Terrace actually had a relatively low foreclosure rate: 168 foreclosures in a town of 10,000 households. So, in looking at all of this, it actually became much more of a scenario of looking at “How did Temple Terrace operate historically? Financially? What was its density?” Etc., etc. It became much more of a project about trying to produce a future that would be more secure against those kinds of problems, rather than being immediately reactive to the problem now. And I think that’s true for the whole exhibition.
Michael Bell (MB): We were asked by the Museum to work on a site called Temple Terrace, Florida. It’s the northeast corner of Tampa, and a little town. It’s 22,000 people. It was an incorporated city in 1926. It preceded the growth of Tampa. Tampa eventually came to meet Temple Terrace, in a kind of typical American situation where something that was very rural became urban, “quasi-urban” one could say. Temple Terrace actually had a relatively low foreclosure rate: 168 foreclosures in a town of 10,000 households. So, in looking at all of this, it actually became much more of a scenario of looking at “How did Temple Terrace operate historically? Financially? What was its density?” Etc., etc. It became much more of a project about trying to produce a future that would be more secure against those kinds of problems, rather than being immediately reactive to the problem now. And I think that’s true for the whole exhibition.
The ideas underlying the project are drawn from SMART growth strategies that have been developed to stem the tide of urban sprawl. But this project also dips into important issues related to the demographic change in the structure of neighborhoods that needs to be taken into account. For example, the case of Cicero, Illinois, emphasizes the role of immigration from Mexico in changing the sociodemographic structure of this Chicago suburb. In fact, they even name the Mexican states of Jalisco, Colima, and Michoacan as being major sources of the area's residents. It's a complicated story, of course, but two things that I did not see in the exhibit (despite the apparent emphasis on their importance) were references to where jobs are and what transportation systems exist to get people from these re-imagined communities to their jobs--whatever and wherever they may be.
Any honest attempt to fix the suburbs has to start with facing up to why so many Americans live in the suburbs in the first place, and who those Americans are. Suburban families are bigger than urban families; they like their space; and they like living in places where they’re a good distance from their neighbors and a long way indeed from people of other social classes.
Jeanne Gang's project, The Garden in The Machine, is perhaps the project which deals most directly with a redefinition of the American Dream and with how the market needs to change in order to create a new set of ideas lined to the real demands created by new demographic groups (immigrants, new kinds of families) and with the mixed and simultaneous use of spaces for work and living. Gang argues that a redefinition of "The Dream" is not only a question of housing, but also involves a transformation of economic systems linked to work and education
Neo Urban Planner
Mar 24th 2012, 11:25
I have been working on new style of urban planing among capital cities. The fundamental difference between urban city and suburb has almost similar meaning of difference between individual-life style and nuclear family-life style. Urban city needs excitement. Suburb needs relax. It is good to be focused on Hispanic-Family's tradition for re-developing suburb community environment. Is there any support to business start-up for those new residents ? Maybe they should develop those project with economists and/or investors to be real american dream makers.....
I have been working on new style of urban planing among capital cities. The fundamental difference between urban city and suburb has almost similar meaning of difference between individual-life style and nuclear family-life style. Urban city needs excitement. Suburb needs relax. It is good to be focused on Hispanic-Family's tradition for re-developing suburb community environment. Is there any support to business start-up for those new residents ? Maybe they should develop those project with economists and/or investors to be real american dream makers.....
typingmonkey
Mar 2nd 2012, 19:31
It looks to me like the Orange NJ proposal is to place buildings in the centers of certain street segments to create
1 - density
2 - mixed use (neighborhood retail/commercial services)
3 - capillary cul-de-sacs (where kids can play without through traffic)
These could put services close to residents, and make walking/biking to them more attractive at the same time. This, in turn, could reinvigorate the local economy and sense of community. Not an easy task in existing grids, so we must begin thinking of unconventional solutions. Fire engines, by the way, routinely serve cul-de-sacs.
I have also long championed flexibility in housing to better accomodate the diverse life paths taken in modern times and other cultures. The American Dream/white picket fence/Mayberry suburb fails badly at this, making your Cicero concept another valuable exercise. In 2012 America, we have a working class that may marry 3 times or not at all. We are all step-this and step-that. College kids might need to return home for years. Grandma might need closer care. Families aren't really nuclear, they are fissile, fusile, orbital and subatomic. So bring back the courtyard, with apartments around it.
The reintegration of nature into our communities is another worthy goal. I think creek daylighting, community gardens, and village greens are all good ideas. The cougar idea must be whimsy, but it helps us avoid getting trapped in the fallacy that land is a purely human medium.
CH, I advise you to spend more time off the island of Manhattan. Go to Alaska. Go to Detroit. Go to a hutong. And go to a desolate American suburb. Then go back to MoMA and tell me what you see.
It looks to me like the Orange NJ proposal is to place buildings in the centers of certain street segments to create
1 - density
2 - mixed use (neighborhood retail/commercial services)
3 - capillary cul-de-sacs (where kids can play without through traffic)
These could put services close to residents, and make walking/biking to them more attractive at the same time. This, in turn, could reinvigorate the local economy and sense of community. Not an easy task in existing grids, so we must begin thinking of unconventional solutions. Fire engines, by the way, routinely serve cul-de-sacs.
I have also long championed flexibility in housing to better accomodate the diverse life paths taken in modern times and other cultures. The American Dream/white picket fence/Mayberry suburb fails badly at this, making your Cicero concept another valuable exercise. In 2012 America, we have a working class that may marry 3 times or not at all. We are all step-this and step-that. College kids might need to return home for years. Grandma might need closer care. Families aren't really nuclear, they are fissile, fusile, orbital and subatomic. So bring back the courtyard, with apartments around it.
The reintegration of nature into our communities is another worthy goal. I think creek daylighting, community gardens, and village greens are all good ideas. The cougar idea must be whimsy, but it helps us avoid getting trapped in the fallacy that land is a purely human medium.
CH, I advise you to spend more time off the island of Manhattan. Go to Alaska. Go to Detroit. Go to a hutong. And go to a desolate American suburb. Then go back to MoMA and tell me what you see.
A plan for Cicero, a suburb of Chicago, may be the most reasonable of the bunch (pictured top). Studio Gang Architects try to accommodate Cicero's influx of Hispanic families. The suburb's old bungalows are replaced by stacks of flats and spaces that can be shared among families. The most enthralling site, however, is the one imagined by WORKac for Keizer, a suburb of Oregon. A high-rise is a stack of individual, peak-roofed houses—a bland suburban form becomes a building block for a fantastical tower. A small mountain has a path that spirals down its slope, passing flats tucked neatly into the hillside. One wonders, however, whether the inhabitants of this hill will relish the scent of compost burning in the mountain's interior. Similarly, residents enjoying a grass-covered roof might be unsettled by the immediate proximity of a grizzly bear, as displayed in the architects' model.
The suburbs may be in need of change, but surely not the changes proposed here.
The suburbs may be in need of change, but surely not the changes proposed here.
Andrew Zago imagines building Rosena Ranch with shared outdoor space and many types of homes, so that families of different incomes and sizes could be neighbours. Mr Zago's plan has the benefit of beautiful design—buildings are shaded by intricate, coloured lattices. Yet even this plan, sadly, indulges in the ridiculous. A design for an adjacent zoo of elephants and lions might be forgiven if Mr Zago did not also welcome wildlife into the development itself. He suggests watering holes and feeders to attract not just birds and wild sheep but mountain lions and coyotes. A child's jaunt on a tricycle might become quite exciting.
A design for a suburb near Tampa, Florida is much less dangerous and slightly less silly. The suburb, which never had a town centre, suggested building one at a busy intersection. This sounds quite sensible. But the architects at Visible Weather scrap this plan and propose instead a 225-acre site along a commercial strip north of town. The result is a complex of offices for city bureaucrats and start-ups, with homes on the top floor. Part of suburbia's challenge is creating a sense of community while still preserving privacy.
EVERY exhibition aspires to make a strong impression. “Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream” at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) manages to bowl over the visitor within the first 15 seconds. Unfortunately, the impression is one of intermingled bemusement and nausea. For this viewer, the feeling has yet to subside.
The exhibition is disappointing largely because its premise is so fascinating. Barry Bergdoll, MoMA's chief curator of architecture and design, and Reinhold Martin, director of Columbia University's Buell Centre, set out to explore five struggling suburbs. These pockets of the American landscape are in the midst of a transformation. Yes, they were ravaged by the housing crisis, but they were changing even before the recession. Suburban poverty rose by 53% from 2000 to 2010, compared with a 26% jump in cities. In many suburbs, white, nuclear families have been replaced by multigenerational Hispanic ones. The old car culture has become unsustainable, as petrol guzzles a greater share of families' budgets and the need for exercise becomes ever more apparent. All this begs for new types of transport and housing. MoMA wisely seized the chance to imagine a new future for the suburbs. The result, unfortunately, is absurd.
The exhibition is disappointing largely because its premise is so fascinating. Barry Bergdoll, MoMA's chief curator of architecture and design, and Reinhold Martin, director of Columbia University's Buell Centre, set out to explore five struggling suburbs. These pockets of the American landscape are in the midst of a transformation. Yes, they were ravaged by the housing crisis, but they were changing even before the recession. Suburban poverty rose by 53% from 2000 to 2010, compared with a 26% jump in cities. In many suburbs, white, nuclear families have been replaced by multigenerational Hispanic ones. The old car culture has become unsustainable, as petrol guzzles a greater share of families' budgets and the need for exercise becomes ever more apparent. All this begs for new types of transport and housing. MoMA wisely seized the chance to imagine a new future for the suburbs. The result, unfortunately, is absurd.
Ara Hovnanian set the stage by exploring his own company’s strategy for adapting new homes to a post-crisis reality: by building multi-generational, multi-household homes for boomerang children, aging parents, and older siblings. Joe Rose followed, arguing the Buell Hypothesis of “Change the dream and you change the city” might be better adapted to “Respect the dream and you change the city,” suggesting that dismissing the suburban dream would never lead to a suburban makeover.
By creating varied but neighboring housing typologies—ranging from 100-square-foot apartments with communal living spaces, to 600-square-foot one-bedroom apartments, to larger three-bedroom apartments—and providing for varied forms of tenure, a community can be created based on the diversity of residents and not on antiquated, inflexible notions of housing. The college student who can only afford the 100-square-foot SRO is an asset to the single mother in the three-bedroom rental who needs to work in the afternoons. The returning veteran may not need much in the way of square footage, but will need the attention of on-site social services, within walking distance of his apartment. The architecture can and should support this type of organic connection. Seniors seeking companionship and affordability can live in a shared three-bedroom apartment that lays out exactly as a family-sized unit. Housing options can better respond to personal need rather than financial status.
Most people want to own their own home because home ownership historically offered a sense of financial security, and it satisfies the human desire to control one’s own environment. As we have tragically learned, this vision was illusory for the millions who lost their homes in foreclosure, and for those who are now debt-burdened by their home investments.
It is time we re-imagined and retooled the old, stale notions of what constitutes a stable home.
It is time we re-imagined and retooled the old, stale notions of what constitutes a stable home.
But the panelists also agreed that reinventing housing and changing development patterns will involve an understanding of market demographics, complex attitudes toward density, and nuts-and-bolts fixes like reforming restrictive zoning.
But during a panel on March 8 at the museum sponsored by the Forum for Urban Design, two developers, an architecture professor, and a real estate lawyer reacted soberly to the adventurous and optimistic schemes. Though the panelists agreed that the foreclosure crisis will lead to major changes in suburban development, they all thought new patterns are less likely to be brought about by a revised American dream than by economic and demographic factors. And all said it would be very difficult to change zoning laws to permit denser new development patterns, especially in existing “inner-ring” suburbs.
AU: It's our housing policy too. Do you like your tax dollars subsidizing these developers building these tract houses in the suburbs---
SV: Yes.
AU: --- that are completely financially unsustainable?
SV: Who says they're completely financially unsustainable? Who says this?
AU: Well, why is poverty increasing at double the rate in suburbs as it is in cities?
SV: Because maybe poor people have moved out of the city and gotten a place in suburbs.
AU: Well that's the only place they can afford to buy houses.
SV: Yes.
AU: --- that are completely financially unsustainable?
SV: Who says they're completely financially unsustainable? Who says this?
AU: Well, why is poverty increasing at double the rate in suburbs as it is in cities?
SV: Because maybe poor people have moved out of the city and gotten a place in suburbs.
AU: Well that's the only place they can afford to buy houses.
Rethinking suburbs as self-sufficient urbanized areas where work and life coexist in communal and environmentally-sustainable ways are the best use of the masses of land that have become unfeasible to support after the foreclosure crisis. The nuclear family of the bungalow house is no longer the American family, and with the change in American family must come a change in the American dream.
The different models include infrastructure additions that seem too rational and essential to not be in tact already; indispensable items such as recycling centers, co-generating electrical plants, light rails, and even gardens for people to grow their own food. They display structures that could house families or groups of all shapes and sizes as that is the reality of the situation. The nuclear family is a thing of the past and possibly never truly existed. Life is not that simple and frankly never has been.
Ignore the architecture, and Foreclosed travels well-trodden ground: Increase density, provide a mix of housing sizes and types, and shrink the distance between work and home. Mixed use, as always, reigns supreme, albeit now with a community composting twist. The designs aim to provide a variety of housing opportunities for Americans at any point along the income/immigrant/household-size ladder. But when has that not been the demand of American housing?
Second, contrary to the myth that ours is a “post-racial” society, the foreclosure crisis has disproportionately affected communities of color, as did the housing crises that have recurred throughout U.S. history. For more than half a century, U.S. housing policy, with bipartisan support, has supported the “American Dream” of individual homeownership as the answer to the exclusion of African Americans from access to decent housing. But lately the dream turned into a nightmare when predatory lenders targeted the very populations that had been excluded, when greenlining led to gentrification and displacement in many cities, and when disinvestment in public housing began to eat away at one of the last of the mid-century social safety nets. All of these trends have reinforced structural inequalities and for the most part left intact neighborhood segregation.
As they now exist, these researchers speculate, many suburban places are not meeting the needs of the residents who live there. As we’ve written, the demographics of the suburbs are changing. Suburban cities around the country are home to growing immigrant communities who have been disproportionately affected by the foreclosure crisis. And today the largest share of the American poor live in the suburbs. These cities are increasingly ill equipped to deal with the needs of poor families who need access to things like good public transit and multi-generational housing.
28 Jun, 2012 - (@libbybrittain)
@jaredhechtDid you see the Foreclosed exhibit at MOMA? Really cool stuff related to that shift. http://www.moma.org/foreclosed/
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
smeeeee, 133 Fans
07:50 AM on 07/23/2012
What builds community is working together, and families intermarrying. But we don't need to work together, since survival needs are all provided for on the whole, plus we have this American mythos of individual independence. And we move around a lot, that is also a disadvantage. If you go someplace where people do need to work together and have lived there a couple of generations, you will find community.
What builds community is working together, and families intermarrying. But we don't need to work together, since survival needs are all provided for on the whole, plus we have this American mythos of individual independence. And we move around a lot, that is also a disadvantage. If you go someplace where people do need to work together and have lived there a couple of generations, you will find community.
The Cicero plan may be the most intriguing, because it is crafted for a community that holds large numbers of recent immigrants from Mexico and Central America. We may tend to think of the suburbs as an expression of inclinations to break free of the city and get closer to nature, but these residents are generally not motivated by urban escape fantasies: They want to be closer to jobs and they want the opportunity to start businesses, and want access to good schools for their children and decent housing at an affordable price. For them, separating residential and commercial life is an inconvenience and a hardship, a relic of housing policy best relinquished.
BL: I don’t think there are too many conversations you can have in the public discourse where a term like “unwed welfare mother” is completely commonplace and assumed as being an acceptable term to throw around, but when you talk about public housing it is. In fact, it’s almost assumed. So, in a lot of ways we need to get out from our own bad image.
MJ: In some ways, in its effort to strengthen the demographics of certain communities, the city used the crisis of the ’70s and ’80s to subtly suburbanize low- and moderate-income neighborhoods through its land disposition and financing strategy. It pushed the needle just a bit in the direction of homeownership, and under Mayor Bloomberg’s plan up until the real estate bubble burst, homeownership—single-family, cooperative, and condominium—continued to be integral to the plan. But what has been and remains truly integral to the plan has been a commitment to encourage mixed-income and mixed-use development based upon the belief that this strategy will result in stronger developments and more stable, durable, and healthier communities.
BB: These are all sites in metropolitan corridors. So, there are a number of characteristics that are incredibly important about these. First of all, obviously there is a substantial rate of foreclosure, well above the national average, in each of these regions and in the particular suburban locations that were chosen. All of them lie somewhere on or near—you remember high-speed rail? A once-projected vision of some kind of communal transport along corridors which might, in fact, rewrite some regional geographies. And, also, they all lay in metropolitan areas with substantial projected growth. So this is not an exercise in rust-belt downsizing or shrinking cities, but rather in places where to think about housing infrastructure-development actually made some sense even if they were invited to look at areas where there were large amounts of—and this is another important factor—large amounts of publicly held land that might be subject to development perhaps in a private-public partnership.
StephersRG
off topic maybe but question/comment...Does Suburbia necessarily mean rich or imply box like houses, green lawns? I'm sure that is the first thought of many but growing up in the south, I think of poverty levels and depressed neighborhoods as suburbia too. That is bad foreclosure
StephersRG
thanks for not ignoring the neglected areas!! We shouldn't only talk about the rich areas! My parent's first house was in the suburbs. But not the nice ones!!
Luke_Cloran
Suburbs are becoming more and more desolate, more young people are moving toward the urban home-lives.
JamesPowers
thats what is so brilliant about this...i think the old guard is going to get a real wake up about how america has changed. I dont want a damn yard i have to mowe haha I admit it im lazy
Press & Links (422)
03 Jan, 2011 - (@BrySarte)
Read about our work on the exhibit “Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream” for the New York City MOMA http://ow.ly/84APG ...
02 May, 2011 - (@KatieandWalter)
MoMA- Foreclosed “will enlist five interdisciplinary teams of architects to envision a rethinking of housing,” http://bit.ly/hgTBQz
03 May, 2011 - (@InTheKn0w)
RT @KatieandWalter MoMA- "Foreclosed " uses 5 interdisciplinary architect teams to envision rethinking of housing http://tinyurl.com/3hbt3ml
04 May, 2011 - (@IfUD)
Board Prez Michael Sorkin will participate in the symposium #Foreclosed: Re-housing the #AmericanDreamat MoMA this Sat.: http://ht.ly/4N5GN
06 May, 2011 - (@van_alen)
If you can't make it to Streetfest tomorrow, check in on the Foreclosed symposium at MoMA PS1 http://ow.ly/4OVup
09 May, 2011 - (@lerneratl)
Can art help fix our gridlocked suburban dysfunction? MOMA takes on sprawl w/"Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream" http://bit.ly/kzLr7b
24 May, 2011 - (@troytherrien)
Check out my first of many blog posts for Metropolis Magazine on the new #MoMA/ Buell Center project #Foreclosedhttp://bit.ly/kCEJcY
24 May, 2011 - (@MetropolisMag)
MoMA kicks off Foreclosed, bringing the architect, curator, and historian together. "Architect in the Middle" http://bit.ly/kCEJcY
24 May, 2011 - (@AIAFloridaSW)
RT @metropolismag: MoMA kicks off Foreclosed, bringing the #architect, curator, and historian together. http://bit.ly/kCEJcY #architecture
26 May, 2011 - (@IfUD)
@MetropolisMagreviews the kick-off of MoMA's Foreclosed, calling Board Prez Michael Sorkin's opener an "eloquent rant": http://ht.ly/53HSo
david@davidhwells.com
SEPTEMBER 1, 2011, 6:00 P.M.
I have been photographing in and around foreclosed houses across the country for over two years, starting in April 2009, in a project I call “Foreclosed Dreams.” You can see the work and read more about that at: http://www.davidhwells.com/docuForeclosedDreams/index.html#_self
I have been photographing in and around foreclosed houses across the country for over two years, starting in April 2009, in a project I call “Foreclosed Dreams.” You can see the work and read more about that at: http://www.davidhwells.com/docuForeclosedDreams/index.html#_self
09 Jun, 2011 - (@GalleryUntitled)
Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream: You can’t drive very far in most American cities before you see the ef... http://bit.ly/iUXzvU
09 Jun, 2011 - (@MuseumModernArt)
Barry Bergdoll, MoMA's Chief Curator of Architecture and Design, introduces "Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream." http://bit.ly/lzEPSn
09 Jun, 2011 - (@mindvend)
MoMA 4ur Mind from NY>> Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream http://tiny.ly/bNzC
09 Jun, 2011 - (@Culturenik)
MoMA: Barry Bergdoll, introduces "Foreclosed," the new project in the Issues in Contemporary Architecture series. http://bit.ly/lzEPSn
10 Jun, 2011 - (@MoMAlearning)
MoMA | Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream http://fb.me/ZmCbs088
10 Jun, 2011 - (@lisa_hoang)
Urban planners - go to this on 6/18 at PS1 RT @MoMAlearning: MoMA | Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream http://bit.ly/mMvChX
11 Jun, 2011 - (@IfUD)
#BytheCity/For the City juror and MoMA #architecturecurator Barry Bergdoll writes about the museum's Foreclosed project: http://ht.ly/5etlj
14 Jun, 2011 - (@SurfaceMag)
@studiogang, MOS, @Workac—what a group! RT @MoMAPS1: Meet the five interdisciplinary teams at MoMA PS1's "Foreclosed." http://bit.ly/ijH31m
14 Jun, 2011 - (@MoMAPS1)
Meet the teams of "Foreclosed" at @MoMAPS1. Learn about the project & interact with the architects on Sat, 6/18 4-6:30pm.http://t.co/wIZTrNh
14 Jun, 2011 - (@nothininvisible)
MoMA | Foreclosed Open Studios Meet the five interdisciplinary teams at the first opportunity for the public to... http://fb.me/ZWqhEcew
16 Jun, 2011 - (@artinfodotcom)
Saturday is the first public viewing of architect-in-residence studios @MoMAPS1for the MoMA Foreclosed project. moma.org/visit/calendar
16 Jun, 2011 - (@Culturenik)
MoMA: "Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream"; Learn about project, view progress + interact with architects: http://bit.ly/mwBanL
19 Jun, 2011 - (@Kongsgaarden)
Debrief. http://t.co/2IkZnDkhttp://t.co/joYhaWThttp://t.co/kRG2Lt9#Socrates#GlobalCity#AmericanDream
23 Jun, 2011 - (@brainpicker)
5 teams rethinking the rules by which housing ought to be designed, produced, and made available http://bit.ly/kARHd9 (via @MuseumModernArt)
23 Jun, 2011 - (@JaxHomeStore)
This is Very interesting...presentations are available for viewing online. Check it out. http://fb.me/17X8B51wh
23 Jun, 2011 - (@Hodgei)
“@MuseumModernArt: 5 teams rethinking the rules to design and produce housing in the US. http://bit.ly/kARHd9 ” My kinda fun #architecture
23 Jun, 2011 - (@redgeryon)
Check out Foreclosed: Rewriting the Script at MoMA http://bit.ly/jmfsix Thank you @museumofmodernart for posting this.
23 Jun, 2011 - (@gfriend)
MT @brainpicker: 5 teams rethinking rules for housing design, production, availability http://bit.ly/kARHd9 (via @MuseumModernArt)
23 Jun, 2011 - (@pinkpopsoda)
RT @brainpicker: 5 teams rethnkng rules re how housing have 2 b designed produced made available http://bit.ly/kARHd9 (via @MuseumModernArt)
24 Jun, 2011 - (@bemartine)
MoMA | Foreclosed: Rewriting the Script: http://bit.ly/jqhZnP via @addthis
24 Jun, 2011 - (@rtkersh)
Cool #MOMAcompetition on affordable-housing design/production, esp in developing world: http://bit.ly/kARHd9. #NYUWagnerMUPs, go get 'em!
24 Jun, 2011 - (@AIANational)
RT @brainpicker5 teams rethink rules by which housing is designed, produced and made available http://bit.ly/kARHd9 (via @MuseumModernArt)
24 Jun, 2011 - (@adeebraun)
@poundforpoundI literally read about this just hours before getting your email http://www.moma.org/explore/inside …. Sounds like an awesome project!
07 Jul, 2011 - (@GalleryUntitled)
Foreclosed : Narratives, Typologies, and Property: The five multidisciplinary teams working on projects for the ... http://bit.ly/qJ1qlp
07 Jul, 2011 - (@GalleryUntitled)
Foreclosed : Narratives, Typologies, and Property: The five multidisciplinary teams working on projects for the ... http://bit.ly/qJ1qlp
08 Jul, 2011 - (@elisestoll)
New MoMA project my sister is working on. Looks at architectural options for US cities in recent foreclosure crisis. http://bit.ly/oG0VSp
11 Jul, 2011 - (@RitaSaikali)
Food for thought; Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream @ MoMA/PS1 http://ping.fm/nIzb9 via http://urbanomnibus.net/2011/07/foreclosed-between-crisis-possibility-and-revision/
11 Jul, 2011 - (@RitaSaikali)
Food for thought; Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream @ MoMA/PS1 http://ping.fm/nIzb9 via http://ping.fm/B68Kz
18 Jul, 2011 - (@SalaDarkVintage)
Foreclosed: Title and Model Scenarios: The five multidisciplinary teams working on projects for the exhibition F... http://bit.ly/p7wMC5
18 Jul, 2011 - (@BlueberryHillTx)
MoMA | Foreclosed: Title and Model Scenarios http://fb.me/AHd10aVK
18 Jul, 2011 - (@wmacchia)
Interesting study of changing populations & housing needs RT @MuseumModernArtForeclosed: Rehousing the American Dream http://bit.ly/q2AodR
21 Jul, 2011 - (@SalaDarkVintage)
Foreclosed: The Halfway Mark: The five multidisciplinary teams working on projects for the exhibition Foreclosed... http://bit.ly/nKqgZ5
21 Jul, 2011 - (@jhuxhux)
"we believe to operate as avant-hyper-self-conscious architects." #MOShttp://www.moma.org/explore/inside …
25 Jul, 2011 - (@studiogang)
Halfway done w/ the workshop phase of @MuseumModernArt's Foreclosed exhibition! Find out what we've been up to: http://bit.ly/rbRMEI
27 Jul, 2011 - (@TejasArtesanas)
Foreclosed: Constructing an Exhibition Narrative: The five multidisciplinary teams working on projects for the e... http://bit.ly/nbJr5q
27 Jul, 2011 - (@mindvend)
MoMA 4ur Mind from NY>> Foreclosed: Constructing an Exhibition Narrative http://tiny.ly/aSwS
28 Jul, 2011 - (@Culturenik)
MoMA: "Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream" teams begin conceptualizing/constructing their exhibition displays: http://bit.ly/mXFByg
28 Jul, 2011 - (@think_taupo)
MoMA | Foreclosed: Constructing an Exhibition Narrative < deep http://fb.me/16zLT0xMM
04 Aug, 2011 - (@GalleryUntitled)
Foreclosed: Visualizing the Invisible: The five multidisciplinary teams working on projects for the exhibition F... http://bit.ly/rlJwMh
10 Aug, 2011 - (@GalleryUntitled)
Foreclosed: Five Weeks to Go: The multidisciplinary teams working on projects for the exhibition Foreclosed: Reh... http://bit.ly/pwrqBW
11 Aug, 2011 - (@designersbooks)
D&B commentator Barry Bergdoll curates "Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream" at the MoMA. http://ow.ly/60I1I
13 Aug, 2011 - (@Sonia_Melani)
Check out Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream at MoMA http://bit.ly/kKqGDJ
16 Aug, 2011 - (@Greg_Lindsay)
My MoMA "Foreclosed" teammate. RT @ccoletta@Ra_Joy: Fire Hose Art Brings Fame to Hot Urban Recycler Theaster Gates http://t.co/ur0
17 Aug, 2011 - (@TejasArtesanas)
Foreclosed: Prioritizing Project Elements: The multidisciplinary teams working on projects for the exhibition Fo... http://bit.ly/oKPjN3
17 Aug, 2011 - (@Culturenik)
MoMA: The five teams behind "Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream" close in on their final proposals: http://bit.ly/mRF4eV
17 Aug, 2011 - (@GalleryUntitled)
Foreclosed: Prioritizing Project Elements: The multidisciplinary teams working on projects for the exhibition Fo... http://bit.ly/oQrj6s
17 Aug, 2011 - (@JoshuaTomeoni)
I want to see it “@MuseumModernArt: "Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream" close in on their final proposals: http://bit.ly/o8AENj ”
31 Aug, 2011 - (@ArtspaceWare)
Counting down to PST.... One of the most intriguing large-scale exhibs... http://bit.ly/puo6uq
16 Sep, 2011 - (@PlacesJournal)
Sat 9/17 Foreclosed Open Studios by Barry Bergdoll and MoMA includes keynote by HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan @HUDNews. http://bit.ly/qcPjIv
16 Sep, 2011 - (@MuseumModernArt)
U.S. Sec. of Housing Shaun Donovan speaks at the last “Foreclosed” open house, Sat. @MoMAPS1. Info & livestream: http://bit.ly/n7sbwh
16 Sep, 2011 - (@PlacesJournal)
Sat 9/17 Foreclosed Open Studios by Barry Bergdoll and MoMA includes keynote by HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan @HUDNews. http://bit.ly/qcPjIv Sat 9/17 Foreclosed Open Studios by Barry Bergdoll and MoMA includes keynote by HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan @HUDNews. http://bit.ly/qcPjIv
16 Sep, 2011 - (@MuseumModernArt)
U.S. Sec. of Housing Shaun Donovan speaks at the last “Foreclosed” open house, Sat. @MoMAPS1. Info & livestream: http://bit.ly/n7sbwh
17 Sep, 2011 - (@JoseEsparza)
Shaun Donovan's #foreclosedkeynote address live at: http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar …. 4pm at @MoMAPS1#Buell
17 Sep, 2011 - (@rafaelaugustooo)
Secretário da Hab. e Desenvolvimento Urbano dos EUA no MoMA: os desafios da arquitetura americana em era dos foreclosed http://ow.ly/6xit5
17 Sep, 2011 - (@katzimmer0)
I am enjoying this @museummodernartlivestream of FORECLOSED keynote address: http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar …
Here’s an excerpt from Secretary Donovan’s speech, “From Crisis to Opportunity: Rebuilding Communities in the Wake of Foreclosure.” (You can also view a video of the entire keynote here and learn more about the project here.
22 Sep, 2011 - (@bamarquis)
US Sec HUD Shaun Donovan highilghts #ArtPlacein keynote at MoMA's Foreclosed event. http://bit.ly/n58jye
05 Oct, 2011 - (@MuseumModernArt)
U.S. Secretary of HUD Shaun Donovan delivers the "Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream" keynote address at MoMA PS1 http://bit.ly/pRir83
05 Oct, 2011 - (@mindvend)
MoMA 4ur Mind from NY>> Foreclosed: Close of the Workshop Phase http://goo.gl/D3wBJ
05 Oct, 2011 - (@GalleryUntitled)
Foreclosed: Close of the Workshop Phase: U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan delivers ... http://bit.ly/nCyddG
05 Oct, 2011 - (@workstationsrl)
MoMA | Foreclosed: Close of the Workshop Phase http://fb.me/12Vb1Gdoh
08 Oct, 2011 - (@artravelin)
Check out Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream at MoMA http://bit.ly/kKqGDJ
10 Oct, 2011 - (@tfas)
At the #CIWArchtalk, Jeanne Gang talked about her Studio's contribution to MoMA's Foreclosed exhibit - http://bit.ly/resqu7 #ciw11#cicero
11 Oct, 2011 - (@RubysChild)
Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream - definitely going to check this out. http://nymag.com/homedesign/urb …
14 Oct, 2011 - (@tfas)
To Jeanne Gang's Cicero project in that she envisions the buildings as multi-use "kits" that can be used in anywhere http://bit.ly/resqu7
Laetitia Wolff · Founder at ExpoTENtial
Finally a strong, well-written and critical voice about the phenomenon of institutionalized urban interventions, as the newest coolest curatorial activity (of which I'm guiltily part of), but again the question of where all these ideas and interventions are going is what I'm most interested in exploring. Please join us on Glasshouse about this very topic... (http://glasshouseconversations.org/how-do-we-encourage-design-action-do-tanks-vs-think-tanks-to-improve-our-cities/)
November 14, 2011 at 10:52pm
November 14, 2011 at 10:52pm
03 Nov, 2011 - (@GalleryUntitled)
Foreclosed: MoMA Takes on Suburbia: The severe effects of the current economic crisis on suburbs across America ... http://bit.ly/uq80l0
14 Nov, 2011 - (@mattpark99)
Foreclosed Open House: Studio Gang at http://MoMA.org http://bit.ly/ksDYQU #sckr
I am looking forward to the Foreclosed show at MoMA, even if some of the connections in this article seem a little forced. I am not sure Frampton / IAUS’s Low Rise High Density project was about suburbanization exactly, or just non-monolithic, mat building type design. I don’t think it addressed the links between capital and buildings, which are the root of the foreclosure crisis. I do have the documents from the CCA laying around here so I should read more closely. Either way, I am eager to see how the teams of designers re-imagine single family homes, hopefully taking the role of finance into consideration.
29 Nov, 2011 - (@Jimmy_Gio)
MOMA: Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream: February 15–July 30, 2012 http://bit.ly/vDB4xe
30 Nov, 2011 - (@MuseumModernArt)
Theaster Gates, Jr., shares his thoughts on MoMA's "Foreclosed" project vis-à-vis Cicero, Illinois. http://bit.ly/t6vakf
30 Nov, 2011 - (@mindvend)
MoMA 4ur Mind from NY>> Foreclosed: Thoughts on Cicero and Collaboration with Jeanne Gang http://goo.gl/4zvjU
30 Nov, 2011 - (@studiogang)
Important thoughts on telling the human story of blight from our @MuseumModernArtForeclosed team member Theaster Gates http://bit.ly/spoKHv
11 Dec, 2011 - (@lucegroupdesign)
Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream at MOMA: exploration of new possibilities in aftermath of foreclosure crisis http://bit.ly/tAUJ66
15 Dec, 2011 - (@GalleryUntitled)
Foreclosed: Reversed Engineering: MoMA and The Buell Center invited a series of team participants and observers w…bit.ly/rsHitl
19 Dec, 2011 - (@ArchitectureOmi)
RT @MargaretNYC: ...#MoMAenlisting arch. teams to find solutions in 5 U.S. regions. http://bit.ly/oez2hm
19 Dec, 2011 - (@MargaretNYC)
Heartbreaking story on foreclosed homes on #60Minutes. #MoMAenlisting arch. teams to find solutions in 5 U.S. regions. http://bit.ly/oez2hm
19 Dec, 2011 - (@MargaretNYC)
Heartbreaking story on foreclosed homes on #60Minutes. #MoMAenlisting arch. teams to find solutions in 5 U.S. regions. http://bit.ly/oez2hm
19 Dec, 2011 - (@ArchitectureOmi)
RT @MargaretNYC: ...#MoMAenlisting arch. teams to find solutions in 5 U.S. regions. http://bit.ly/oez2hm
21 Dec, 2011 - (@juliocanoa)
Foreclosed: The role of the team in the design process http://dlvr.it/11Zvzp#Moma
21 Dec, 2011 - (@GalleryUntitled)
Foreclosed: The Role of the Team in the Design Process: The Museum of Modern Art and The Buell Center invited a ... http://bit.ly/srzrPN
21 Dec, 2011 - (@mindvend)
MoMA 4ur Mind from NY>> Foreclosed: The Role of the Team in the Design Process http://goo.gl/ctVUv
21 Dec, 2011 - (@GalleryUntitled)
Foreclosed: The Role of the Team in the Design Process: The Museum of Modern Art and The Buell Center invited a ... http://bit.ly/srzrPN
21 Dec, 2011 - (@juliocanoa)
Foreclosed: The role of the team in the design process http://dlvr.it/11Zvzp#Moma
21 Dec, 2011 - (@mindvend)
MoMA 4ur Mind from NY>> Foreclosed: The Role of the Team in the Design Process http://goo.gl/ctVUv
29 Dec, 2011 - (@metroframes)
MoMA| Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream This foreclosure mess might be the catalyst for rethinking our cities. bit.ly/tAUJ66
03 Jan, 2012 - (@BrySarte)
Read about our work on the exhibit “Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream” for the New York City MOMA http://ow.ly/84APG ...
03 Jan, 2012 - (@neaarts)
Read about our work on the exhibit “Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream” for the New York City MOMA http://t.co/GOcIAhXf...
03 Jan, 2012 - (@hblackson)
Read about our work on the exhibit “Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream” for the New York City MOMA http://t.co/GOcIAhXf...
05 Jan, 2012 - (@CURE_RED_GSAPP)
Jesse M. Keenan (CURE) on RED Tech @ MoMA Foreclosed 2012 moma.org/explore/inside …
19 Jan, 2012 - (@MuseumModernArt)
Structural engineer Zak Kostura discusses his contribution to "Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream." http://bit.ly/wt5ecc
19 Jan, 2012 - (@Porter_Anderson)
RT @museummodernart: Structural engineer Zak Kostura discusses his part in "Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream." http://bit.ly/wt5ecc
20 Jan, 2012 - (@eonnaday)
“@MuseumModernArt: "Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream." http://bit.ly/wt5ecc ” /// important of process vs. product in isolation
28 Jan, 2012 - (@GuyHorton)
Monday, look for my new series on @archinect, called The Crit. Crit 001: thoughts on MoMA's Foreclosed workshop and exhibition.
30 Jan, 2012 - (@DesignerTweetz)
"Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Ma... http://bit.ly/wQrDCr
31 Jan, 2012 - (@archruminations)
only 2 weeks until the opening! The CRIT: Thoughts on MoMA's Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream http://archinect.com/features/artic …
31 Jan, 2012 - (@GuyHorton)
A future w/o foreclosures...sort of. The CRIT: Thoughts on MoMA's Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream http://archinect.com/features/artic …
01 Feb, 2012 - (@brian_phelps)
Watching tonight...MoMA's Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream [videos], http://ow.ly/8OV25 #landarch#suburbia
03 Feb, 2012 - (@EditorAtLarge)
MoMA rethinks architectural possibilities around foreclosures: Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream, a major... http://bit.ly/zyEVBW
Foreclosed: Rehousing the America Dream, is an exhibition that will be showcased at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA). The exhibit will explore architectural possibilities against the backdrop of the depressed housing market.
10 Feb, 2012 - (@wendyinfutures)
MoMA Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream http://bit.ly/zHc4Qn inventive #designsolutions, future of US #suburbs#architecture#4futr
12 Feb, 2012 - (@studiovert)
rethinking the American home and suburban zoning. See Studio Gang's project at PS1/MOMA's "Foreclosed" http://fb.me/1jwoIU5FR
13 Feb, 2012 - (@realestatechick)
exhibit "Foreclosed: rehousing the American Dream" Foreclosed Homes Breathe Inspiration into Architects http://awe.sm/5fJOe
13 Feb, 2012 - (@dinet)
At MoMA, curators and architects seek a way out of the cul-de-sac http://ow.ly/926hW #architecture
13 Feb, 2012 - (@briansholis)
Blair Kamin on Jeanne Gang's "blueprint" for a future Cicero, outside of Chicago. Part of new MoMA show "Foreclosed." http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct- …
13 Feb, 2012 - (@villahumana)
MoMA #Foreclosedexhibit calls on architects and designers to take on the suburb as their next great challenge. http://www.moma.org/explore/inside …
13 Feb, 2012 - (@JJmaddn)
@BrianBMaddenlet's go to NYC to see this @MoMAon urban #design. There is life after cul de sacs! http://nymag.com/arts/architect …
13 Feb, 2012 - (@futuresedge)
http://lnkd.in/h8K3iU moma Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream Feb 15–July 30 2012 @joshstackand more
13 Feb, 2012 - (@JMConstruction)
“Foreclosed” Opens at MoMA - Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream at the Museum of Modern Art proposes five solu... http://ow.ly/1hm7o0
13 Feb, 2012 - (@caldst)
“Foreclosed” to Open at MoMA - Feb 15 thru July 30; highlights disconnect in the American housing market #architecturehttp://ow.ly/92Rid
13 Feb, 2012 - (@acsarchitect)
Controversial + causing a lot of discussion: American housing exhibit “Foreclosed” Opens at MoMA : http://bit.ly/AAyLIF #architecture
14 Feb, 2012 - (@archiCULTURE)
Review of new MoMA exhibit 'Foreclosed' about designers n the suburbs. Will it have the impact of 'Rising Currents.' http://nymag.com/arts/architect …
14 Feb, 2012 - (@everydaytourist)
http://bit.ly/z1vn32 #MoMAlooks @ suburbs can they b saved, need more housing types/densities, innovation not imitation #urbanism#yycplan
14 Feb, 2012 - (@RealEstateBuzz)
The art of real estate at MoMA: “Foreclosed Rehousing the American Dream,” fb.me/1b801jTdm
14 Feb, 2012 - (@alexbozikovic)
Smart take on "Foreclosed", new MOMA architecture show, by Justin Davidson @nymaghttp://nymag.com/arts/architect …
14 Feb, 2012 - (@alexbozikovic)
and I'm skeptical about how mixed use and highrise translate into low-rise suburbs. See here: http://www.moma.org/explore/inside …
14 Feb, 2012 - (@emstar912)
really interesting article from nymag about an architecture/design exhibition at moma: http://bit.ly/whHkX2 #nyuisva
14 Feb, 2012 - (@kazys)
must read review of foreclosed by @guyhortonhttp://archinect.com/features/artic …
14 Feb, 2012 - (@Workac)
WORKac’s Nature-City will be unveiled today in the MoMA exhibition Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream. http://tinyurl.com/8x62xjp
15 Feb, 2012 - (@DomusWeb)
The new #MoMA#architectureexhibition #Foreclosedcontinues the museum's exploration of issues in contemporary living http://bit.ly/A5NXF6
15 Feb, 2012 - (@Richard_Florida)
The American Dream Revised - @buttermilk1on the new MOMA "Foreclosed" exhibit - http://bit.ly/xEE6Mm via @emilybadger
15 Feb, 2012 - (@gianluca_croce)
MoMA has addressed the financial crisis and possible ways for the regeneration of Am. suburbia http://nymag.com/arts/architect …http://www.archdaily.com/170180/update- …
15 Feb, 2012 - (@thomsonreuters)
The new MoMA exhibit, “Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream", shows a radical approach to home ownership: http://reut.rs/zVU8jU
15 Feb, 2012 - (@greenboxhomes)
At MoMA in NYC- what to become of foreclosed suburbs? The American Dream, Revised zite.to/ABSiJ7 via @zite
15 Feb, 2012 - (@NewsArch )
The new #MoMA#architectureexhibition #Foreclosedcontinues the museum's exploration of issues.. http://bit.ly/A5NXF6 @DomusWeb▄▀ví @cihru
15 Feb, 2012 - (@Alysia_Bennett)
#Architects+ economists = #foreclosed: change the dream...& you change the #cityhttp://ow.ly/1GvZS7 #citiesftw#MoMA#futrchat
15 Feb, 2012 - (@CourierMolseed)
#MoMAexhibit, "Foreclosed" shows gap between housing available in U.S. and housing Americans need http://bit.ly/zk1dJ2
15 Feb, 2012 - (@cristinabe)
The exhibit I've been waiting to see! “Foreclosed” at MoMA: http://bit.ly/yd1pZU
15 Feb, 2012 - (@orrshtuhl)
Urbanism museum combo! "Foreclosed" opens at MoMA, while "Greatest Grid" exhibit is up at MCNY. http://archrecord.construction.com/news/2012/02/F …(via @cristinabe)
Nam Henderson
Apr 26, 12 7:38 pm
Recently saw that ICON took the same general critical tone regarding the exhibition.
"This sort of vague, non-ideological collectivism hangs over the entire show. Designs by Visible Weather and, in particular, Zago Architecture, stress the blurring of the usual lines between public and private, renting and owning, residential and commercial sites. Such imprecise boundaries give these projects a Ballardian air: what use is changing the dream if you replace it with a nightmare?"
More http://www.iconeye.com/news/news/foreclosed-rehousing-the-american-dream
Recently saw that ICON took the same general critical tone regarding the exhibition.
"This sort of vague, non-ideological collectivism hangs over the entire show. Designs by Visible Weather and, in particular, Zago Architecture, stress the blurring of the usual lines between public and private, renting and owning, residential and commercial sites. Such imprecise boundaries give these projects a Ballardian air: what use is changing the dream if you replace it with a nightmare?"
More http://www.iconeye.com/news/news/foreclosed-rehousing-the-american-dream
Nam Henderson
Feb 15, 12 7:15 pm
Or to reference a line from Blair Kamin's review of Jeanne Gang studios contribution to the exhibit maybe what is needed is less concept more blueprint?
Or to reference a line from Blair Kamin's review of Jeanne Gang studios contribution to the exhibit maybe what is needed is less concept more blueprint?
Nam Henderson
Feb 15, 12 6:36 pm
I would be interested in hearing from any Nectors who have read the book/visited the exhibit/participated in the studios.
Particularly in light of Guy Horton's recent piece of criticism Thoughts on MoMA's Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream wherein he wrote "This is a shame because there are some valuable ideas. Ironically, most of those are contained in the boring data taken from economists and social scientists. Were the architects trying too diligently to spatialize the data?...As unsettling as the damage the financial crisis has wrought on the fabric of dwelling in America, the distance these proposals travel away from what caused these foreclosures is equally unsettling."
Or Justin Davidson who recently in NY Magazine wrote "Some ideas in the show sit on the border between bold and silly...As a whole, though, the show merges daydreams with pragmatism."
There he specifically critiqued Mr. Bell's vision as seeking to "herd newcomers to Temple Terrace, Florida, into a pair of high-tech megastructures lifted above vast urban plazas."
Finally, more substantively to me was his feeling that "For all its thoughtfulness and rigor, though, a whiff of colonialism blows through the project, with its corps of city-based experts venturing into suburbia with maps and modern technology and plans for reforming the indigenous culture. The visions they come up with have a familiar urban feel, and the show replaces old conventional wisdom with the only slightly fresher dogma of density". Is it inevitable that this sort of project/process will perhaps come across as disconnected from on the ground socio-politics and communities. I wonder how a more organic approach to the problem could be articulated, perhaps even as simple as something like OccupyourHomes but more architecturally or spatially focused....
Also, this item Housing and the 99 Percent recently posted to News feed seem apropos.
I would be interested in hearing from any Nectors who have read the book/visited the exhibit/participated in the studios.
Particularly in light of Guy Horton's recent piece of criticism Thoughts on MoMA's Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream wherein he wrote "This is a shame because there are some valuable ideas. Ironically, most of those are contained in the boring data taken from economists and social scientists. Were the architects trying too diligently to spatialize the data?...As unsettling as the damage the financial crisis has wrought on the fabric of dwelling in America, the distance these proposals travel away from what caused these foreclosures is equally unsettling."
Or Justin Davidson who recently in NY Magazine wrote "Some ideas in the show sit on the border between bold and silly...As a whole, though, the show merges daydreams with pragmatism."
There he specifically critiqued Mr. Bell's vision as seeking to "herd newcomers to Temple Terrace, Florida, into a pair of high-tech megastructures lifted above vast urban plazas."
Finally, more substantively to me was his feeling that "For all its thoughtfulness and rigor, though, a whiff of colonialism blows through the project, with its corps of city-based experts venturing into suburbia with maps and modern technology and plans for reforming the indigenous culture. The visions they come up with have a familiar urban feel, and the show replaces old conventional wisdom with the only slightly fresher dogma of density". Is it inevitable that this sort of project/process will perhaps come across as disconnected from on the ground socio-politics and communities. I wonder how a more organic approach to the problem could be articulated, perhaps even as simple as something like OccupyourHomes but more architecturally or spatially focused....
Also, this item Housing and the 99 Percent recently posted to News feed seem apropos.
Keith Carlson
Feb 15, 12 11:10 am
I thought I would post this interesting interview w/ Michael Bell. It seems we are always discussing ways to put architects back in the driver's seat of the building process. I thought he posed some interesting solutions to immediate, real problems.
I really liked his holistic approach of re-casting the financing business model and working with members of that community to create a new paradigm.
http://www.reuters.com/video/2012/02/14/reuters-tv-a-radical-approach-to-homeownership-feli?videoId=230166482&videoChannel=117757
I am hoping the show runs through June so I can see it in NY.
I thought I would post this interesting interview w/ Michael Bell. It seems we are always discussing ways to put architects back in the driver's seat of the building process. I thought he posed some interesting solutions to immediate, real problems.
I really liked his holistic approach of re-casting the financing business model and working with members of that community to create a new paradigm.
http://www.reuters.com/video/2012/02/14/reuters-tv-a-radical-approach-to-homeownership-feli?videoId=230166482&videoChannel=117757
I am hoping the show runs through June so I can see it in NY.
16 Feb, 2012 - (@IKeepMyHouse)
MoMA Misses by 99%: By Bryan Bell The newly opened show at the Museum of Modern Art, Foreclosed: Rehousing the A... http://bit.ly/ytqs3G
16 Feb, 2012 - (@aarieff)
MoMA Misses by 99% http://bit.ly/AaLr3L Great insights from Bryan Bell on "Foreclosed"; Droog's/DSR's Levittown show had same issues
16 Feb, 2012 - (@andremorand)
Good urban design is achieved through collaboration, not imposition. http://bit.ly/AaLr3L Insights from Bryan Bell on "Foreclosed" at MoMA
16 Feb, 2012 - (@AlJavieera)
MT @johncaryDesign Corps' Bryan Bell claims the new "Foreclosed" exhibition at the MoMA sets design back 10 years http://bit.ly/wNi18W
16 Feb, 2012 - (@KenTaisukki)
http://bit.ly/jzwmxC Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream at the MoMA: By Irina Vinnitskaya(click here for o... http://huff.to/y4m7ad
Further discussion of MoMa’s “Foreclosure” exhibit | Legally Sociable
June 26, 2012 at 4:35 PM
[...] few months ago, we wrote a couple of times about the “Foreclosed” exhibit at MoMa (see here and here). Here is an extended “roundtable debate” about the exhibit and a paragraph of [...]
[...] few months ago, we wrote a couple of times about the “Foreclosed” exhibit at MoMa (see here and here). Here is an extended “roundtable debate” about the exhibit and a paragraph of [...]
Questioning the value of an outsider’s perspective in MoMA’s “Foreclosed” | Legally Sociable
February 22, 2012 at 11:15 AM
[...] seems to be provoking a lot of strong reactions (see Brian’s previous commentary here). Diana Lind, editor in chief of Next American City, questions both the motives and the [...]
[...] seems to be provoking a lot of strong reactions (see Brian’s previous commentary here). Diana Lind, editor in chief of Next American City, questions both the motives and the [...]
17 Feb, 2012 - (@Greg_Lindsay)
Up now: Jeanne Gang, presenting our project, "The Garden in the Machine" and telling the story of Cicero,. http://bit.ly/uxXO4f #foreclosed
17 Feb, 2012 - (@Greg_Lindsay)
Up now: Jeanne Gang, presenting our project, "The Garden in the Machine" and telling the story of Cicero,. http://bit.ly/uxXO4f #foreclosed
Up now: Jeanne Gang, presenting our project, "The Garden in the Machine" and telling the story of Cicero,. http://bit.ly/uxXO4f #foreclosed
17 Feb, 2012 - (@Greg_Lindsay)
The topic of discussion: "nature," "town & country" and the suburb is neither. http://bit.ly/uxXO4f #foreclosed
17 Feb, 2012 - (@MuseumModernArt)
Streaming at noon: "Public Dreams & Private Needs." Teams share projects in "Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream." http://bit.ly/xhjScE
17 Feb, 2012 - (@urbanexus)
Justin Davidson on MoMA's Architectural Response to the Financial Crisis (in the suburbs) -- http://bit.ly/w6oWRJ #urbanplanning, #cities
17 Feb, 2012 - (@ronestudioarch )
RT @inhabitat: Architects re-imagine Amer suburb for MoMA's new exhibit, “Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream.” http://bit.ly/wNs5Wk
17 Feb, 2012 - (@inhabitat )
Five brilliant ideas to fix our nation's foreclosure crisis are now on display at MoMA: http://bit.ly/zE5axn
17 Feb, 2012 - (@MuseumModernArt)
Our exhibition site "Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream" (show open through July 30) has launched: http://bit.ly/yNOJZZ
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
17 Feb, 2012 - (@harknessa)
Get a glimpse of the future of #housingat "Foreclosed," new exhibit @MuseumModernArthttp://www.moma.org/interactives/e …
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
17 Feb, 2012 - (@edESTESdesign)
@Moma's take on walkable cities. View the various projects @OPinDC@DDOTDChttp://www.moma.org/interactives/e …
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
17 Feb, 2012 - (@OPinDC)
What do you think? RT @edestesdesign: @Moma's take on walkable cities. View the various projects @OPinDC@DDOTDChttp://www.moma.org/interactives/e …
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
“Like many areas throughout the country, Cicero, Illinois is blighted with a large percentage of foreclosed and rundown properties. As part of the MOMA exhibition Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream, Jeanne Gang has created a new vision for the area which could transform it into a thriving and healthy neighborhood. The Garden in the Machine is a proposal that uses nature and technology to improve the land, while combining housing and jobs within new, flexible live/work structures interwoven with a variety of public green spaces.”
18 Feb, 2012 - (@mappingmashups)
So, the “Foreclosed” show at MoMA is not really about foreclosures. Not is it any “good”. Give it a miss. #AAG2012 moma.org/visit/calendar…
19 Feb, 2012 - (@noahchestnut)
Great Cicero designs http://www.moma.org/interactives/e …MoMa's Foreclosed exhibit also re-imagines Kezier, Rialto, Temple Terrace & The Oranges.
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
20 Feb, 2012 - (@FictionWitch)
Rather Utopian approaches to reconfiguring US suburbs. http://www.moma.org/interactives/e …Not sure people would actually want to live in these...
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
20 Feb, 2012 - (@BLOKConference)
What do you think about a bit different neighborhood ? ... http://www.moma.org/interactives/e …
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
21 Feb, 2012 - (@WhittleseyDoyle)
MOMA #Foreclosedexhibit showcases suburrbs. Are suburbs dead? We think not! #realestateNext #AmericanCity: http://americancity.org/buzz/entry/337 …
21 Feb, 2012 - (@1100architect)
MoMA’s Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream is inspiring interesting discussions about the suburban/urban divide: http://goo.gl/MYJYy
21 Feb, 2012 - (@jsf)
On-target @dianalindindexreview of the suburban annihilation in MoMA's "less visionary than ignorant" Foreclosed show. http://americancity.org/buzz/entry/337 …
21 Feb, 2012 - (@amandakhurley)
As an unashamed suburbanite, I'm so happy to see this whip-smart review of MoMA's Foreclosed by @dianalindindexhttp://americancity.org/buzz/entry/337 …
21 Feb, 2012 - (@dianalindindex)
Wish I had more time to write this blog post, but nonetheless, thoughts on suburbia and MoMA's Foreclosed @nextamcityhttp://americancity.org/buzz/entry/337 …
Second look at suburbs: A new MoMA exhibit ties suburbs to the foreclosure crisis, but Diana Lind argues that we need to "stop demonizing the suburbs" and think about how to improve, not abolish, suburbia. (Next American City)
22 Feb, 2012 - (@dgobel)
Some thoughts about MoMA’s exhibit on the American Dream and the “Buell Hypothesis” What do you think Socrates… fb.me/1yZab8T3M
22 Feb, 2012 - (@hayleyscomment)
“Is it better to annihilate suburbia or perfect it?” bit.ly/xQy57s Check out this fantastic critique of MoMA’s “Foreclosed” exhibit.
22 Feb, 2012 - (@marcelolopezd)
When it rains it pours: Foreclose exhibition at MoMA http://www.metropolismag.com/pov/20120216/m …http://americancity.org/buzz/entry/337 …http://nymag.com/arts/architect …http://observersroom.designobserver.com/alexandralange …
22 Feb, 2012 - (@marcelolopezd)
When it rains it pours: Foreclose exhibition at MoMA http://www.metropolismag.com/pov/20120216/m …http://americancity.org/buzz/entry/337 …http://nymag.com/arts/architect …http://observersroom.designobserver.com/alexandralange …
22 Feb, 2012 - (@marcelolopezd)
When it rains it pours: Foreclose exhibition at MoMA http://www.metropolismag.com/pov/20120216/m …http://americancity.org/buzz/entry/337 …http://nymag.com/arts/architect …http://observersroom.designobserver.com/alexandralange …
22 Feb, 2012 - (@rbaplanner)
MOMA exhibit examining foreclosures in Orange and discussing the redesign of its housing and supporting infrastructure moma.org/interactives/e…
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
23 Feb, 2012 - (@Chi_Humanities)
Important new show @MuseumModernArt- "Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream" http://chf.to/vZ4OUN - architecture during crisis
23 Feb, 2012 - (@DetroitNation)
MoMA's new exhibit "springs from the belief that fewer and fewer Americans have or want the lives that suburbs... http://fb.me/1s7GTzCU8
23 Feb, 2012 - (@dtdesigntheory)
Rewriting the rules of urban repair, MOS imagines an unconventional solution: http://www.moma.org/interactives/e …
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
23 Feb, 2012 - (@siemprehasta)
hey @WiedenKennedydon't worry that you're taking money from polluters like chevrolet as long as you do hipster art http://bit.ly/zVOynk
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
23 Feb, 2012 - (@CityResearch)
Buell Hypothesis: examining cultural assumptions of the American Dream in the context of foreclosures & sprawl http://bit.ly/AnixCO #cplan
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/buell_hypothesis
24 Feb, 2012 - (@abergrenmiller)
Is MOMA's _Foreclosed_ too critical of the suburbs? http://americancity.org/buzz/entry/337 …
24 Feb, 2012 - (@LandOfMN )
Would love to live in Nature City. @Workachttp://ow.ly/9fP5p
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
24 Feb, 2012 - (@katherineloflin)
The Buell Hypothesis, at its most basic, argues as follows: Change the dream and you change the city http://ow.ly/9faRb #placemaking
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/buell_hypothesis
24 Feb, 2012 - (@chrislhayes)
This exhibit at the MOMA on re conceptualizing housing and suburbs in the wake of the foreclosure crisis is incredible http://www.moma.org/interactives/e …
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
24 Feb, 2012 - (@BurtonJM)
RT @JenniferRaitt: Rehousing proposals. Can zoning/ local policies support them? "Foreclosed" opens at MoMA http://bit.ly/ztBuCN
25 Feb, 2012 - (@distinctstudios )
Foreclosed at http://MoMA.org http://bit.ly/wQpxaR Imagining new housing models in wake of crisis. Seen on #UP#creativity#innovation
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
25 Feb, 2012 - (@iCONN)
MOMA maps new routes through the mortgage-foreclosure crisis http://bit.ly/xezq27
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
The Hypothesis has already affected the real world with MoMA’s Foreclosed exhibition, an art/architecture exhibition which takes Diotima’s PowerPoint case studies of a few suburbs around the United States and imagines alternate futures for five of them. Read Foreclosed's inspiration, The Buell Hypothesis, in its entirety at the Buell Center’s site.
Starting today, through July 30, New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) will be running an exhibit featuring the proposals of five interdisciplinary studios that were asked to re-think and re-invent the future of housing in the midst of the foreclosure crisis that remains a threat to many Americans and their homes. Over the Summer of 2011, WORKac, MOS Architects, Visible Weather, Zago Architecture and Studio Gang Architects selected five “megaregions” across the country on which to speculate the form that housing could take: physically, socially and economically. Late this summer, ArchDaily has provided coverage while the work was in progress. Opening today, the results of those speculative efforts will be presented at the MoMA as part of an exhibit called Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream. The Open Studios exercise was organized by Barry Bergdoll, MoMA’s Philip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture and Design, with Reinhold Martin, Director of Columbia University’s Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture.
26 Feb, 2012 - (@dotcitizen )
Yesterday @MuseumModernArtand visited #BuellHypothesis. Great analysis. Yet, what about the projects? http://www.moma.org/interactives/e …
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/buell_hypothesis
27 Feb, 2012 - (@MuseumModernArt)
@CNNhas a story today on "Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream," interviews curator & architects from exhibition: http://cnnmon.ie/yrwAmr
27 Feb, 2012 - (@TheWolfeCNN)
“New MoMA exhibit rethinks foreclosure, housing & the American Dream via @PoppyHarlowCNN & @JulianCummings) http://cnnmon.ie/y7gGzB"
27 Feb, 2012 - (@PoppyHarlowCNN)
Building a "new america" after the foreclosure crisis: http://cnnmon.ie/zpertA #CNNMoney
27 Feb, 2012 - (@DesignObserver)
"Foreclosed" at the MOMA asks what people really like about suburban living - from @langealexandra: http://dogroup.co/zCQPPb
27 Feb, 2012 - (@CNNMoney)
RT @jsanchezcnn: Supercool story by @PoppyHarlowCNNon how great design could help cities w/foreclosures http://cnnmon.ie/znnAvJ
27 Feb, 2012 - (@nboccia)
"But 'Foreclosed' seethes with disdain for the suburbs..." - @NextAmCity's Diana Lind on MoMA's new exhibit. http://americancity.org/buzz/entry/337 …
27 Feb, 2012 - (@REBNY)
"Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream" @MOMA- Architects re-imagine foreclosed cities http://ow.ly/9k5rO
27 Feb, 2012 - (@ExpertMortgage)
Very cool: Architects re-imagine foreclosed cities http://money.cnn.com/video/news/201 …
27 Feb, 2012 - (@CNNMoney)
How do you fix America's foreclosure crisis? Architects at MoMA think they have the answer. Watch: http://cnnmon.ie/ArchForeclosed …
27 Feb, 2012 - (@TravisWallerCRS)
Architects re-imagine #foreclosedcities - Video - Business News - http://goo.gl/8p7WA #realestate#fb
27 Feb, 2012 - (@GuyHorton)
Thoughts on MoMA's <i>Foreclosed</i>: Rehousing the American Dream http://www.huffingtonpost.com/guy-horton/mom …via @huffingtonpost
28 Feb, 2012 - (@AboutDCI)
Buildings in the streets? Check out a video on how "Architects re-imagine foreclosed cities" http://ow.ly/9l3J5
28 Feb, 2012 - (@KatieMcCaskey)
MoMA's Architectural Response to the Financial Crisis -- Suburbs, reimagined http://bit.ly/yUY2mc
28 Feb, 2012 - (@GuyHorton)
A future w/o foreclosures...sort of. The CRIT: Thoughts on MoMA's Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream http://archinect.com/features/artic …
28 Feb, 2012 - (@aigact)
@MuseumModernArt"Foreclosed" exhibition challenged designers to reexamine the American Dream. See what changed. http://bit.ly/wqFcxE
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
28 Feb, 2012 - (@NotOnly)
Not a lot of love for Moma's "Foreclosed", just check out the @ArchRecordreader comments! http://archrecord.construction.com/news/2012/02/F …
29 Feb, 2012 - (@rkeil )
Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream | If you are visiting New York, you should see this great exhibit at the MoMA: http://www.moma.org/interactives/e …
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/about
29 Feb, 2012 - (@gracenjohnson)
I'm now saving for a trip to NYC | Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream at http://MoMA.org http://bit.ly/wOPHGE
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/about/
29 Feb, 2012 - (@zakmdavis )
Can I live here? Keizer, ORE. at http://MoMA.org http://bit.ly/xaQ3Tu
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
01 Mar, 2012 - (@fredbartels)
http://www.moma.org/interactives/e …Watch the video to understand the concept. #yestermorrow
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
02 Mar, 2012 - (@Workac)
Check out the Dwell article on 'Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream' in http://tinyurl.com/7hl5853 - praise for Nature-City
02 Mar, 2012 - (@e6urblab)
@MOMAtoday for Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream...suburban retrofitting after the crisis http://tinyurl.com/8x62xjp pic.twitter.com/MaUTyQ7G
03 Mar, 2012 - (@murielskaf)
can't wait to check this out next week: Foreclosed at http://MoMA.org http://bit.ly/wQpxaR
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
03 Mar, 2012 - (@PlanetGBS )
One truly impressive effort @ MOMA's #Foreclosed. Studio Gang's design. http://bit.ly/yUcYVp East test: would I live there? Yep.
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/cicero/
03 Mar, 2012 - (@jonbasebl5)
Architects, planners, ecologists, engineers, and landscape designers rethink suburbia at the moma.. looks cool. http://www.moma.org/interactives/e …
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
04 Mar, 2012 - (@Planumnet)
Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream is an exploration of new architectural possibilities for cities and... http://fb.me/TJVkk02D
04 Mar, 2012 - (@dmhdesign)
"Death" of the suburban auto? Architects re-imagine foreclosed cities http://money.cnn.com/video/news/201 …via @CNNMoney
04 Mar, 2012 - (@PlanetGBS )
Note to MOMA's Foreclosed Exhibition Architects (and viewers). Suburban redesign that works. http://bit.ly/AxFFsp #greendesign
04 Mar, 2012 - (@BLAH_CITY )
Suburban design: Pomp and paternalism | The Economist reviews MoMA "Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream" http://econ.st/wK2PHU
04 Mar, 2012 - (@iRajatKumar)
“Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream” Architects come up w/ eccentric ideas ina new exhibit at #MoMA. #art#designhttp://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero …
04 Mar, 2012 - (@AlaTown)
The Economist calls bullshit on the MOMA's Foreclosed exhibit. It does look like a good opportunity missed. http://ow.ly/9rSzA
05 Mar, 2012 - (@CirculolecRoma)
Karen Kubey: Look at Your Neighborhood: Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream recently opened at the Museum o... http://huff.to/vYXagl
05 Mar, 2012 - (@We_Live_Green)
Nature-City: Suburban housing for agrarians at heart: Essentially, it's the kind of set-up where bot... http://bitly.com/xDINZl #composting
05 Mar, 2012 - (@deborah_donovan)
@We_Live_GreenHere's the Cicero, Il. plan. Fascinating. not sure i understand it all. http://www.moma.org/interactives/e …
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/cicero/
06 Mar, 2012 - (@ForumFUD)
MOS interrupted the street network with housing to make Orange a pedestrian paradise http://ow.ly/9ncre #ShiftingSuburbia
06 Mar, 2012 - (@ForumFUD)
@studiogangproposed multi-family housing and rewriting the zoning code for Cicero IL http://ow.ly/9ncB4 #ShiftingSuburbia
06 Mar, 2012 - (@byetman)
checking out the inspiring work at Foreclosed - @MuseumModernArtloved the nature-city from @WORKac#GeoDesignhttp://bit.ly/xP50qb
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
jeremysiegel
8th Mar
Mortgage Refinance
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Mortgage Refinance
While interest rates have never been more attractive, the number of people taking advantage of the historically low rates and refinancing their mortgages has dropped substantially, most of them dont even aware of the rates, i recommend 123 Refinance for refinance
07 Mar, 2012 - (@lerneratl)
Is there a different kind of suburb in our future? Can you see it at MoMA's exhibition "Foreclosed"? My review is here http://bit.ly/x3tOvi
07 Mar, 2012 - (@lubar)
"Foreclosed" (at MOMA): Art museums can do serious political/economic/technology shows - why can't history museums?? http://j.mp/A8afgQ
08 Mar, 2012 - (@SPUR_Urbanist )
Alexandra Lange: Reassembling the American Dream, a review of MOMA's "Foreclosed" http://bit.ly/yc8wCw
08 Mar, 2012 - (@litradesign )
Open Access study: The Buell Hypothesis responds to the ongoing mortgage foreclosure crisis, not with narrow .. http://www.moma.org/interactives/e …
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/buell_hypothesis/
11 Mar, 2012 - (@gabavenue)
'Change the dream & you change the city' - food for thought at 'Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream' exhibit, MoMA http://bit.ly/wqFcxE
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
12 Mar, 2012 - (@adainvest)
Foreclosed Homeowners Inspire Museum's Architects Show: James S. Russell: The MoMA show “Foreclosed: Rehousing t... http://bit.ly/z3Hr7D
13 Mar, 2012 - (@amandakhurley)
"There's something almost colonialist about this exhibition:" Felix Salmon on MoMA's Foreclosed, http://www.architectmagazine.com/exhibitions/dr …
13 Mar, 2012 - (@JamesSRussellny)
Architects float ideas for underwater homeowners at MoMA: http://bloom.bg/ACDs4Q #architecture#urban
13 Mar, 2012 - (@archpaper)
Review> Hissing about suburban lawns at MoMA's Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream: http://bit.ly/y4W2dT
13 Mar, 2012 - (@labanyaa)
New show at MoMA! "Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream." Ecologists, landscape designers reimagine suburbia http://bit.ly/wICVTt
13 Mar, 2012 - (@landpolicy)
Like the forum we co-sponsored on MoMA's Foreclosed exhibit, Bloomberg's James Russell http://bloom.bg/xojIY2 likes the whimsy/provocation
13 Mar, 2012 - (@cavim)
Dream Deferred; Felix Salmon on MoMA's "Foreclosed": one driving idea of the show holds firm, Bergdoll’s binder ... http://bit.ly/xax0BP
13 Mar, 2012 - (@DesignerTweetz)
one driving idea of the show holds firm, Bergdoll’s binder notwithstanding: Suburbs are generally an architect-f... http://bit.ly/xax0BP
13 Mar, 2012 - (@archinect)
Dream Deferred; Felix Salmon on MoMA's "Foreclosed" http://bit.ly/yen7pV
13 Mar, 2012 - (@UrbanOmnibus)
What is Foreclosed? Caitlin Blanchfield reports from a Columbia Univ forum marking the opening of the MoMA/Buell exh. http://j.mp/zqbKIY
BrooksScarpa
MAR 14, 2012 1:45 PM EDT
Over 20 years ago Angela Brooks was looking at this condition in a proposal in Southern California. The proposal was titled “Post Suburbia” and won a PA Award in 1992. Her proposal looks at how to add density to the tracts of single family homes by allowing new zoning and modest expansion of Single family homes to allow more dwelling units. You can see more of the proposal just posted on the Brooks + Scarpa Facebook page at:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Brooks-Sc arpa-Architects/131136066935667
Over 20 years ago Angela Brooks was looking at this condition in a proposal in Southern California. The proposal was titled “Post Suburbia” and won a PA Award in 1992. Her proposal looks at how to add density to the tracts of single family homes by allowing new zoning and modest expansion of Single family homes to allow more dwelling units. You can see more of the proposal just posted on the Brooks + Scarpa Facebook page at:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Brooks-Sc arpa-Architects/131136066935667
14 Mar, 2012 - (@Lynn_Teo)
The Buell Hypothesis: "Change the dream and you change the city." Food for thought #architecture#changehttp://www.moma.org/interactives/e …
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/buell_hypothesis/
15 Mar, 2012 - (@lmeisterlin)
Some thoughts on work done and work left to do: http://bit.ly/wUvKwv #Foreclosed#MoMA#MetropolisMag
16 Mar, 2012 - (@hereisafantasy )
RT @kristoncapps: Bloomberg Businessweek on "Foreclosed" at @MoMA. http://buswk.co/zrVbx7 This is not a show beloved by biz writers.
16 Mar, 2012 - (@cmtysolutions )
Check out this post from our own Nadine Maleh re:@MuseumModernArtexhibit, "Foreclosed, Rehousing The American Dream" http://www.moma.org/explore/inside …
16 Mar, 2012 - (@DesignerTweetz)
Though the panelists agreed that the foreclosure crisis will lead to major changes in suburban development, they... http://bit.ly/H6nSeG
18 Mar, 2012 - (@hcokim)
If you get a chance, visit the awesome Foreclosed exhibit at MoMA NY. Reimaginations of housing models in suburbs. http://www.moma.org/interactives/e …
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
19 Mar, 2012 - (@greystudio)
bloomberg, has a succinct if appropriate review of the MoMA 'foreclosed' show: http://bloom.bg/ySERJf
19 Mar, 2012 - (@CurbedLA )
Zago Architecture's proposal for fixing recession-ravaged Rialto, CA, showing now as part of MoMA's FORECLOSED http://curbed.cc/xTQhjk
20 Mar, 2012 - (@JJakobDesign)
“Shifting Suburbia” brings visionary thinking down to earth. Not top-down, give people the design tools they need. http://www.moma.org/interactives/e …
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
21 Mar, 2012 - (@cubiclegirl)
Re-imagined areas devastated by housing crisis for MOMA http://bit.ly/yr57AO << Brilliant use of a digital narrative
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
22 Mar, 2012 - (@Boidus )
Fascinated by Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream @MuseumModernArthttp://bit.ly/tO5FUi Great work emerging on critical subject
24 Mar, 2012 - (@alexulam )
My review in #TheNation of #MoMA#ForeclosedShow that questions American Dream of homeownership and suburbia http://bit.ly/GLs7Z6 .
24 Mar, 2012 - (@pedrichards)
http://www.moma.org/interactives/e …Cool exhibit with work by architects, and planners, in NYC...
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
26 Mar, 2012 - (@archinect )
Reality Check: Developers React to MoMA’s Show, “Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream” http://bit.ly/H6rXzm
26 Mar, 2012 - (@aarieff)
Really thoughtful piece on MOMA's "Foreclosed" at polis http://www.thepolisblog.org/2012/03/new-yo …(HT@pdsmith)
27 Mar, 2012 - (@hvanbiber )
I can't stop looking at the models. http://www.moma.org/interactives/e …(Read about it here: http://www.thepolisblog.org/2012/03/new-yo …) #LIFEINTHEFUTURE???
27 Mar, 2012 - (@AlJavieera)
Much's been written about MoMA's Foreclosed exhibit, but when Alex Schafran writes, you should read: http://www.thepolisblog.org/2012/03/new-yo …short & sweet.
27 Mar, 2012 - (@hvanbiber)
Nature buildings?? http://www.moma.org/interactives/e …
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
27 Mar, 2012 - (@AdeleWeder)
Foreclosed is MoMA's exhibition of proposed ideas to address the American housing problem http://www.moma.org/interactives/e …
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
28 Mar, 2012 - (@gosner)
Shifting #Suburbia, Developers React to MoMA's “Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream” |@ ArchRecord http://archrecord.construction.com/news/2012/03/S …
28 Mar, 2012 - (@landpolicy)
How to rehouse the American dream: The Nation's Alex Ulam on MoMA's "Foreclosed" http://bit.ly/GWfP3Q
29 Mar, 2012 - (@juliaccooke)
Somehow the 'nature' in Nature City proposal for "Foreclosed" @momafeels not so relaxing. Nice models, though. pic.twitter.com/QlYmNtqx
Somehow the 'nature' in Nature City proposal for "Foreclosed" @momafeels not so relaxing. Nice models, though. pic.twitter.com/QlYmNtqx
30 Mar, 2012 - (@katdov)
SO COOL. I want to go! Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream at the MoMA | ArchDaily http://www.archdaily.com/199094/foreclo …via @archdaily
01 Apr, 2012 - (@juliocanoa )
April 2, 2012, 1:30 p.m. - Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream http://dlvr.it/1NnPtB
01 Apr, 2012 - (@RockyII2 )
April 2, 2012, 1:30 p.m. - Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream: Lectures & Gallery Talks ... http://bit.ly/HDXXJj @aplusk@theonion
01 Apr, 2012 - (@davidbarrie)
gr8 project by @studiogang: Closed factory dismantled & parts used to build combinable living spaces > http://bit.ly/H88gIn #MoMAForeclosed
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/cicero/
02 Apr, 2012 - (@mollysalzpj)
Art + Policy , makes me giddy! Foreclosed at http://MoMA.org http://bit.ly/wQpxaR
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
03 Apr, 2012 - (@archidose)
Just Received: "Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream," the companion to the MoMA exhibition of the same name: http://amzn.to/HedrTe
04 Apr, 2012 - (@negingm)
5 fantastic US housing research and urban/suburban design proposals http://www.moma.org/interactives/e …
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
04 Apr, 2012 - (@paperliacu)
Change the dream and you change the city. MoMA | Foreclosed | The Buell Hypothesis | via @SpaceSyntaxGirl- http://bit.ly/HWtGGY
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/buell_hypothesis/
06 Apr, 2012 - (@Publicyte)
Smart cities: MoMA art exhibit rethinks suburban America - http://bit.ly/IgbWBr
06 Apr, 2012 - (@EverythingMS )
Foreclosed: MoMA Exhibition Re-Thinks Suburban American Life http://bit.ly/I7TuQK
06 Apr, 2012 - (@DataCenterBlogs )
Foreclosed: MoMA Exhibition Re-Thinks Suburban American Life: The recent foreclosure crisis has taken a heavy t... http://bit.ly/HYOD3V
09 Apr, 2012 - (@alexulam)
#FoxBusiness News interviewed me about my Nation article on #MoMA's exhibit Foreclosed: Rehousing The American Dream http://bit.ly/Iw8Vk4
09 Apr, 2012 - (@Greg_Lindsay)
Fox Business gets everything wrong about "Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream," including the museum. http://bit.ly/Ibm8A5 #MoMA
10 Apr, 2012 - (@iconeye)
Siza's winery, a review of Foreclosed at MoMA, April diary and Founded's rethink of the Dulux paint tin: all on http://iconeye.com now
14 Apr, 2012 - (@RoslynBernstein )
.@baruch,@huffpostny,A Must See: Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream, MoMA,http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar …
14 Apr, 2012 - (@juliocanoa )
April 15, 2012, 11:30 a.m. - Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream http://dlvr.it/1RRn7L
14 Apr, 2012 - (@getawaystyle)
Have you stopped by this exhibit at the MOMA? Definitely worth your time! http://fb.me/TKfqUuhj
15 Apr, 2012 - (@RoslynBernstein )
.@MoMA,@baruch,@huffpostny,Solutions to the Housing Crisis: Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream, MoMA,http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar …
15 Apr, 2012 - (@SensibleStreets)
Moma's #Foreclosedexhibitors fail to ground proposals in reality or pragmatism. http://nyti.ms/HMyoX5
18 Apr, 2012 - (@fadishayya )
Amazing work by @Workac& others at Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream at http://MoMA.org http://bit.ly/tO5FUi
22 Apr, 2012 - (@andyypark)
Foreclosed exhibit @ MoMA - Museum of Modern Art http://instagr.am/p/JvMhFViGXk/
24 Apr, 2012 - (@akjkim)
An exhibit I saw at MoMA. Very interesting and impressive architectural project. :) Foreclosed at http://MoMA.org http://bit.ly/wQpxaR
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
25 Apr, 2012 - (@AFHTO)
The CRIT: Thoughts on MoMA's Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream | Features | Archinect http://fb.me/1mBUJqjDR
25 Apr, 2012 - (@kiaraworth)
innovative approaches to re-designing suburbs sustainably - exhibition at MOMA http://www.moma.org/interactives/e …@MGCY_UNCSD#sustainability
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
26 Apr, 2012 - (@namhenderson)
@namhendersonre : @iconeyereview of #MoMAForeclosed forgot, link here http://www.iconeye.com/news/news/fore …
26 Apr, 2012 - (@m_shelor)
RT @namhenderson: on #MoMAForeclosed Rehousing the American Dream "This sort of vague, non-ideological collectivism" http://www.iconeye.com/news/news/fore …
01 May, 2012 - (@Bernd_Fesel )
A MUST: #MoMAExhibition "Half of America live in suburbs - treated as inhospitable wilderness" - http://bit.ly/whHkX2 /@NYMAG
01 May, 2012 - (@Bernd_Fesel )
Policy: Can #Architecture#Innovationsave Suburbs? MoMA for new alliance of planning & building #cities. http://bit.ly/whHkX2
01 May, 2012 - (@LABKULTUR )
[POLICY] Can Architecture Innovation save Suburbs? #MoMAfor new alliance of planning #citieshttp://bit.ly/whHkX2 /RT @Bernd_Fesel
06 May, 2012 - (@brownwilliamart )
MOMA Exhibition. Foreclosed. Rehousing the American Dream. MOS’s Thoughts on a Walking City pr http://pinterest.com/pin/2426314986 …
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
07 May, 2012 - (@addam)
foreclosed: rehousing the american dream @ Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) http://instagr.am/p/KVh-tVFBxw/
14 May, 2012 - (@AnchalProject)
Discover what we love about MOMA's latest architecture exhibition in todays blog post http://anchalproject.wordpress.com/2012/05/14/mom …
MOMA's "Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream" Exhibition
15 May, 2012 - (@namhenderson)
@metropolismagon MoMA: Foreclosed "struck me as yet another poster child for The MoMA Problem" http://bit.ly/L4Ikby #REITs
17 May, 2012 - (@gabrielwiner )
Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream at http://MoMA.org http://bit.ly/tO5FUi
17 May, 2012 - (@HabitatSSKC)
A look at visions for the future of housing - Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream at the MoMA http://huff.to/wa93fX via @HuffPostCulture
18 May, 2012 - (@laurenglasscock)
Checking out: "Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream" (@ Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) w/ 24 others) [pic]: http://4sq.com/JSUVkm
22 May, 2012 - (@theoncominghope )
Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream, in which I ramble on about MoMa and architecture: http://theoncominghope.blogspot.com/2012/05/art-as …#architecture#moma
Jan Robin
JUNE 2, 2012 • 10:39 AM
Hehe, nice text!
The German architectural magazine “Bauwelt” wrote about the exhibit too and – if i remember correctly – fancied the artsiest “solution” the most… anyway, it’s very refreshing, that BUILD has both feet on the ground :)
Hehe, nice text!
The German architectural magazine “Bauwelt” wrote about the exhibit too and – if i remember correctly – fancied the artsiest “solution” the most… anyway, it’s very refreshing, that BUILD has both feet on the ground :)
kraut
JUNE 7, 2012 · 7:57 AM
The Bauwelt review mentioned above is actually predominantly critical of the MoMA exhibition. Just some quick snippets: Susanne Schindler, Princton, writes that her first impression was along the line “seen it all before”. And that the mix and application of those styles/solutions was not always justified (Temple Town, FL). Most teams had given only cursory answers to the obvious and essential question of ownership. What’s more, with the exception of Gang Studio those answers did not seem to have influenced the proposals. Schindler also finds it strange that only Gang Studio has actually used the forclosed, now empty spaces in the solution of the problem they are part of. She laudes MOS Architects, NYC, for playing to the museum setting.
http://www.bauwelt.de/cms/artikel.html?id=5504855#.T9DDM5ig9ac
The Bauwelt review mentioned above is actually predominantly critical of the MoMA exhibition. Just some quick snippets: Susanne Schindler, Princton, writes that her first impression was along the line “seen it all before”. And that the mix and application of those styles/solutions was not always justified (Temple Town, FL). Most teams had given only cursory answers to the obvious and essential question of ownership. What’s more, with the exception of Gang Studio those answers did not seem to have influenced the proposals. Schindler also finds it strange that only Gang Studio has actually used the forclosed, now empty spaces in the solution of the problem they are part of. She laudes MOS Architects, NYC, for playing to the museum setting.
http://www.bauwelt.de/cms/artikel.html?id=5504855#.T9DDM5ig9ac
29 May, 2012 - (@roopaonline)
Aft'noon @Foreclosed, v. thoughtful show on alternative suburban living by @columbiaunivarchitect Prof. Martin @MOMApic.twitter.com/3Ugp1A25
29 May, 2012 - (@RLNelsonArt )
Modern Art: : Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream: Febru... http://bit.ly/K994x0 - Robert Lyn Nelson
29 May, 2012 - (@ArchiDame)
Foreclosed:#Housing the #American Dream – mixing urbanism, debt & #architecture archinect.com/features/artic…
29 May, 2012 - (@MrCotain)
Thoughts on MoMA`s Foreclosed:... http://tinyurl.com/6u6ypzx #adaptablere-use #affordable#architecture#design#green#sustainable
29 May, 2012 - (@maryhillmuseum )
#Keizer#Oregonfeatured in amazing @MuseumModernArt#sustainable#housingexhibit featuring @WiedenKennedyhttp://ow.ly/bdkCI
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
30 May, 2012 - (@archidose)
Build Blog » MOMA widens the gap … again. http://blog.buildllc.com/2012/05/moma-w …via @DiigoThe folks at BUILD LLC aren't too happy with "Foreclosed".
30 May, 2012 - (@martijndewaal)
Redesigning suburbia in exhibition Foreclosed at http://MoMA.org http://www.moma.org/interactives/e …#d#suburbia#urbanculture
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
31 May, 2012 - (@chorbazaar)
"Pretty Little Pictures" Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream http://www.metropolismag.com/story/20120511 …#MOMAouch!
01 Jun, 2012 - (@ULGlobalCities)
Archive: Foreclosed: Reverse #engineering| Jesse Keenan #housing#infrastructurehttp://www.moma.org/explore/inside …
02 Jun, 2012 - (@KVNSLNG)
Amazing exhibit on redefining our suburbias but changing the 'America Dream'. Worth seeing if you're able http://www.moma.org/interactives/e …#MOMA
02 Jun, 2012 - (@KVNSLNG)
My favorite was Garden City. public pool is warmed by the heat radiated from the methane composting site underneath it! http://www.moma.org/interactives/e …
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/keizer/
04 Jun, 2012 - (@alexprince76)
@EC1Nnope! This was on though, really excellent, might interest you http://www.moma.org/explore/inside …
04 Jun, 2012 - (@alexprince76)
Of all the art & sculpture at #MOMAthis was the standout- really interesting ideas http://www.moma.org/explore/inside …
04 Jun, 2012 - (@PolicyMatters12 )
Nature City: city-living in nature. Impossible? http://www.moma.org/interactives/e …#innovation#greenliving#citylife
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/keizer/
04 Jun, 2012 - (@MichaelTG09)
Love that this vision of a future city is basically a remix of classic townhouse design. Lets focus on reuse/repurpose. http://www.moma.org/interactives/e …
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/keizer/
06 Jun, 2012 - (@ando_sierra)
Rethink the designs of our suburban landscapes. http://www.moma.org/explore/inside …
06 Jun, 2012 - (@ando_sierra)
MoMa's blog on ‘Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream’. Sustainable urbanism http://www.moma.org/explore/inside …
06 Jun, 2012 - (@ando_sierra)
Super interesting exposition at MoMa. Forclosed: Rehousing the American Dream. Revitalizing suburbia in the US http://www.moma.org/interactives/e …
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/keizer/
06 Jun, 2012 - (@ando_sierra)
Amale Andraos and Dan Wood of WORKac asked, "What if we could live sustainably and close to nature?">>> Nature-City. http://www.moma.org/interactives/e …
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/keizer/
07 Jun, 2012 - (@NYWritesItself)
New blog posting, Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream at MoMa - http://tinyurl.com/c4jxwfs
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
08 Jun, 2012 - (@YaleEnviro)
MoMA | Foreclosed: The Role of the Team in the Design Process http://fb.me/21P5zUi5D
08 Jun, 2012 - (@YaleEnviro)
MoMA | Foreclosed: The Role of the Team in the Design Process http://fb.me/21P5zUi5D
11 Jun, 2012 - (@_kate_joyce)
"In the summer of 2011, New York's Museum of Modern Art invited five teams of architects, planners, ecologists,... http://fb.me/24gFxCald
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
12 Jun, 2012 - (@SODICRealEstate)
The beauty of architecture and creative problem solving - MoMa's solutions to the Housing Crisis in the USA http://archidose.org/wp/2012/06/11/ …
13 Jun, 2012 - (@chrispbarley)
Closing down Foreclosed #Suburbstake on MoMA #architecture(@ Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) w/ 7 others) [pic]: http://4sq.com/LEBVqR
Closing down Foreclosed #Suburbstake on MoMA #architecture(@ Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) w/ 7 others) [pic]: http://4sq.com/LEBVqR
14 Jun, 2012 - (@katymatic)
The "Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream" exhibit at @MuseumModernArtis worth checking out. http://moma.org/foreclosed
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
18 Jun, 2012 - (@rkeil)
Interesting for me to read that Rodney King apparently lived & died in Rialto, CA. http://www.moma.org/interactives/e …Has anyone picked up on that story?
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/rialto/
19 Jun, 2012 - (@NewEconomyWG)
Check out MoMa's "Foreclosed" project! Five teams of architects, ecologists, city planners put together visions... http://fb.me/1tStIYQAk
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
19 Jun, 2012 - (@amfelds)
note to self: http://www.moma.org/interactives/e …#urbanplanning
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
19 Jun, 2012 - (@molwise)
@schuschnyTHE BUELL HYPOTHESIS, Rehousing the american Dream http://www.moma.org/interactives/e …#vivirencomunidad
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/buell_hypothesis/
20 Jun, 2012 - (@ProdigyNetwork )
Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream at http://MoMA.org http://bit.ly/tO5FUi
20 Jun, 2012 - (@bruce_katz)
Brilliant: Go see Foreclosed exhibit @MuseumModernArtCan US remake suburbs post-crash? Architects tackle 5 communities http://www.moma.org/interactives/e …
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
21 Jun, 2012 - (@donscalos)
MrCotain: Thoughts on MoMA`s Foreclosed:... http://tinyurl.com/6u6ypzx #adaptablere-use #affordable#architecture#design#green#sustainableI...
24 Jun, 2012 - (@jolee10)
http://www.moma.org/interactives/e …Saw this exhibit on Friday...just wow. This will change the world.
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/keizer/
25 Jun, 2012 - (@SPUR_Urbanist )
Great roundtable debate on @designobserveraround MOMA's Foreclosed exhibition: http://places.designobserver.com/feature/forecl …
25 Jun, 2012 - (@ourcity )
Here is debate about the MOMa exhibit where RTTC Alliance and organizations are mentioned as being at the... http://fb.me/28jBzUIxN
25 Jun, 2012 - (@ccgsapp)
In Places, a virtual roundtable about Foreclosed (on view through August 13), a collaboration between MoMA and th... http://gsapp.org/l2p
25 Jun, 2012 - (@lightninglandon)
Totally going to see this exhibit at @museummodernartwhen I am in NYC: Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar …
25 Jun, 2012 - (@pete_aquino)
On Places, a debate inspired by the MoMA exhibition Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream, organized by the B... http://bit.ly/OkzuhV
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
25 Jun, 2012 - (@ourcity)
Have folks seen the foreclosure exhibit at the MOMA-Rehousing the American Dream? Please check it out.... http://fb.me/1IoHNJPhM
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
25 Jun, 2012 - (@Bristol21)
RT @ourcityforeclosure exhibit at the MOMA-Rehousing the American Dream Please check it out http://fb.me/1IoHNJPhM << wish I cld see this ...
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
26 Jun, 2012 - (@LangeAlexandra )
Appreciate Tom Angotti's remarks in @PlacesJournalroundtable on MoMA's Foreclosed: design is not primary http://bit.ly/NxrSm1
28 Jun, 2012 - (@libbybrittain)
@jaredhechtDid you see the Foreclosed exhibit at MOMA? Really cool stuff related to that shift. http://www.moma.org/foreclosed/
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
29 Jun, 2012 - (@larabeesays)
Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream @ Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) http://instagr.am/p/Md4MjBvx5N/
06 Jul, 2012 - (@UnderForeclosur )
#foreclosedhomes | Art (not) imitating life: MoMA hosts foreclosure-themed exhibit http://bit.ly/OM6Z6s | http://ow.ly/c1a1A
09 Jul, 2012 - (@RockyII2 )
Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream: Lectures & Gallery Talks ... http://bit.ly/ONxpJn @aplusk@theonion
10 Jul, 2012 - (@jfdiotte)
Rehousing the American Dream - #Foreclosed, fantastic book featuring @jfl184James Lima working with #WORKac~ http://www.archdaily.com/199094/foreclosed-rehousing-the-american-dream-at-the-moma/ …
10 Jul, 2012 - (@jfdiotte)
Rehousing the American Dream - #Foreclosed, fantastic book featuring @jfl184James Lima working with #WORKac~ http://www.archdaily.com/199094/foreclosed-rehousing-the-american-dream-at-the-moma/ …
11 Jul, 2012 - (@ScottBerka )
One of the most interesting museum exhibits I've ever seen: Foreclosed at http://MoMA.org http://bit.ly/wQpxaR @MuseumModernArt
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
14 Jul, 2012 - (@AMusingCanadian)
@VisionVancouver@greenestcityMaking silk purses out of sows' ears? MOMA, "Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream" http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/exhibitions/1230 …
19 Jul, 2012 - (@jamojo)
MoMA Foreclosed - http://bit.ly/Q7OpwH - great exhibit! - #cplan#design#architecture#housing#sustainability
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
19 Jul, 2012 - (@emilyjlow)
I attended this exhibition - some innovative ideas for delivering infrastructure and financing housing projects....... http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/ …
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
23 Jul, 2012 - (@DirkBuursma )
Portie Kunst Foreclosed: An Urbanist Reflects on Nature-City http://ow.ly/1lA3xV
23 Jul, 2012 - (@GalleryUntitled)
Foreclosed: An Urbanist Reflects on Nature-City: The Museum of Modern Art and The Buell Center invited a series ... http://bit.ly/PLWZeC
23 Jul, 2012 - (@jfdiotte )
Foreclosed: An Urbanist Reflects on Nature City moma.org/explore/inside…by @jfl184 #Architecture #urbanDesign #foreclosed
23 Jul, 2012 - (@UnderForeclosur )
#foreclosedhomes | MoMA | Foreclosed: An Urbanist Reflects on Nature-City http://bit.ly/NQIF4x | http://ow.ly/c1a1A
4eva, .-.. --- ...- . --..-- / -. --- - / .... .- - ., 2995 Fans
12:30 AM on 07/23/2012
A talk with Galina Tachieva, author of 'The Sprawl Repair Manual'
http://grist.org/article/2010-12-15-a-talk-with-galina-tachieva-author-of-the-sprawl-repair-manual/
Sprawl Repair Manual
http://www.amazon.com/Sprawl-Repair-Manual-Galina-Tachieva/dp/1597267325
A talk with Galina Tachieva, author of 'The Sprawl Repair Manual'
http://grist.org/article/2010-12-15-a-talk-with-galina-tachieva-author-of-the-sprawl-repair-manual/
Sprawl Repair Manual
http://www.amazon.com/Sprawl-Repair-Manual-Galina-Tachieva/dp/1597267325
23 Jul, 2012 - (@AFuDa)
Check Out Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream at MoMA http://bit.ly/tO5FUi
23 Jul, 2012 - (@HardTimesLOLI)
Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream at MoMA ow.ly/cqHOf
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
26 Jul, 2012 - (@jmvolland)
MOMA's Foreclosed, a thematic exhibition on new models of housing in response to mortgage crisis, closes soon: http://bit.ly/wQpxaR
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
27 Jul, 2012 - (@spa_at_asu)
MoMA | Foreclosed http://fb.me/1Xurkl94V
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
28 Jul, 2012 - (@draw_the)
Need a break from the Olympics? Only 2 days left to see @MuseumModernArt's Foreclosed exhibit. http://ow.ly/cz2lo
28 Jul, 2012 - (@jta_osuna)
Foreclosed at http://MoMA.org http://bit.ly/wQpxaR
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
02 Aug, 2012 - (@columbiamag)
Here's some great coverage from Reuters and @MacroScopeon the Buell Center's work with @MoMAon "Foreclosed" http://ow.ly/cH5cF
02 Aug, 2012 - (@OPlaw)
From the Museum of Modern Art in New York's exhibition on Foreclosure...http://t.co/huK8wTwk http://fb.me/19v8pOS4v
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
03 Aug, 2012 - (@ProdigyNetwork)
Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream February 15–August 13, 2012:... http://fb.me/1kOFY0oEW
04 Aug, 2012 - (@MistressCabesh)
@rachelsloerts Thinking of you at the #MoMAexhibit, http://MoMA.org/foreclosed http://instagr.am/p/N6jZShS_Ts/
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
07 Aug, 2012 - (@AnnMarieRJensen)
'Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream' explores new architectural possibilities for cities and suburbs #MOMAhttp://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/ …
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
08 Aug, 2012 - (@DirkBuursma)
Portie Kunst Foreclosed: Re-examining Possibilities - As we prepare for the closing and de-installation of Foreclose... http://ow.ly/1lSQg5
08 Aug, 2012 - (@GalleryUntitled)
Foreclosed: Re-examining Possibilities: As we prepare for the closing and de-installation of Foreclosed: Rehousi... http://bit.ly/MvNpLG
09 Aug, 2012 - (@GrahamFound)
'Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream' featuring #GrahamGrantee#AndrewZagocloses 8/13. Go now! @MuseumModernArthttp://bit.ly/wqFcxE
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
10 Aug, 2012 - (@BrooklynFCY)
closing this Monday at MoMA: "Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream" (FREE w/ valid CUNY ID!) http://ow.ly/cRfaY
11 Aug, 2012 - (@VinayakHanchate )
The CRIT: Thoughts on MoMA's Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream http://lnkd.in/dbBX_M
11 Aug, 2012 - (@walkplace)
A #NYCmust see…“@MuseumModernArt: Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream: http://bit.ly/MoD8pf || Exhibition site: http://bit.ly/NuiBvI ”
11 Aug, 2012 - (@MuseumModernArt)
Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream closes Monday, 8/13! More info: http://bit.ly/MoD8pf || Exhibition site: http://bit.ly/NuiBvI
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
11 Aug, 2012 - (@joellemctigue)
MT @MuseumModernArtForeclosed: Rehousing the American Dream closes Monday, 8/13! Exhibition site: http://bit.ly/NuiBvI
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
11 Aug, 2012 - (@walkplace)
A #NYCmust see…“@MuseumModernArt: Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream: http://bit.ly/MoD8pf || Exhibition site: http://bit.ly/NuiBvI ”
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
12 Aug, 2012 - (@MuseumModernArt)
A quick note that we'll be open tomorrow (we're usually closed on Tuesdays) & every Tuesday through September 25! http://bit.ly/MUaCpI
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
13 Aug, 2012 - (@RockyII2)
Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream: Lectures & Gallery Tal... http://bit.ly/MRonwO @aplusk@theonion
15 Aug, 2012 - (@mikekujawski)
Next on my reading list: The Buell Hypothesis: http://ow.ly/cZmOQ #endofsuburbia
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
16 Aug, 2012 - (@Littof)
Really bummed I missed the MOMA exhibit "Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream"Did you get to see it? http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/exhibitions/1230 …Impressions?
outpost19
Tune into Outpost19's Stephanie Walker on HuffPoLive today: http://t.co/y1zQ4bEL #foreclosure #huffpostlive
Littof
Watch me on @HuffPostLIve at 4.30pm PST, talking about Thanks For Foreclsoure http://t.co/Zmp8hPNH #foreclosure #huffpostlive
Professional Practice (97)
James
3. We’ve been trying to put ourselves in the center of the debate for how many years now? Ever seen “He’s Just Not That Into You”?Get over it, girl.
May 25, 2011, @ 9:27 am
May 25, 2011, @ 9:27 am
Christophe
1. Nice to see architects throwing down for their cause.
May 24, 2011, @ 6:13 pm
May 24, 2011, @ 6:13 pm
Architect Harry Cobb, of Pei Cobb Freed and Partners, briefly introduced a discussion with the architects. In asking, in his words, an “innocent question”, Cobb gave form to the latent idea in the room, “putting the architect back in the center”. This simple idea formalized and infected the discussion over the remainder of the afternoon. The idea immediately took purchase with the architects in the room, who spend much of their professional and academic lives arguing for a place at the table, let alone the poll position. Recognizing its infectiousness, Martin reminded the audience in his subsequent address, that there is “no such thing as an innocent question from Harry Cobb.” I can only speculate on Martin’s remarks, but a promising point of entry is that Cobb’s challenge begs a further question: the center of what?
The crucial question facing the arts community, the panel seemed to agree, is: what actions can artists or arts organizations take to resist the consequences of foreclosure and fight the momentum of their underlying causes by empowering marginalized populations and interrogating systems of power? “It is easier to see the consequences than the causes of foreclosure,” Marcuse observed.
21 Jul, 2011 - (@jhuxhux)
"we believe to operate as avant-hyper-self-conscious architects." #MOShttp://www.moma.org/explore/inside …
archedes
10:37 AM on 08/10/2011
Arianna - You always write timely, intelligent and articulate posts. Among the most important salient points in your article today is your noting that 'we have a surplus of untapped energy and creativity and talent'. Being a creative professional myself, I do not have the words to describe the devastation myself and my colleagues have suffered during this recession - financially, emotionally and even physically. Brilliant, highly educated and experienced graphic designers, interior designers, architects, painters, artists, musicians, dancers, etc. who have made our country a better place by improving the quality of everything we see, hear, touch, taste and feel have been tossed aside. Many were self-employed and are not able to obtain any unemployment insurance or other types of assistance. Others have been forced to do work where their skills, intellect and ability are demeaned by ridiculously low pay, poor treatment and complete disregard for their talent and the positive aspects it provides. At least during the last depression , the WPA and similar programs existed to tap into these talents and provide recognition, work and intellectual relief to this forgotten segment of our society. Disregarding these talented, creative individuals is proving to be one of the greatest downfalls of our society. It's tragic, sad and truly un-American.
Arianna - You always write timely, intelligent and articulate posts. Among the most important salient points in your article today is your noting that 'we have a surplus of untapped energy and creativity and talent'. Being a creative professional myself, I do not have the words to describe the devastation myself and my colleagues have suffered during this recession - financially, emotionally and even physically. Brilliant, highly educated and experienced graphic designers, interior designers, architects, painters, artists, musicians, dancers, etc. who have made our country a better place by improving the quality of everything we see, hear, touch, taste and feel have been tossed aside. Many were self-employed and are not able to obtain any unemployment insurance or other types of assistance. Others have been forced to do work where their skills, intellect and ability are demeaned by ridiculously low pay, poor treatment and complete disregard for their talent and the positive aspects it provides. At least during the last depression , the WPA and similar programs existed to tap into these talents and provide recognition, work and intellectual relief to this forgotten segment of our society. Disregarding these talented, creative individuals is proving to be one of the greatest downfalls of our society. It's tragic, sad and truly un-American.
Mayra Guerra
JANUARY 19, 2012, 7:42 P.M.
It is our Post-Modern condition. We have focused so much in ‘consuming’ that it has made us forget about the true meaning of ‘design’. Designers have forgotten about their social purpose, and have focused on the consumer driving tools to fulfill people’s desires. However, not everything is lost. I feel that modernism is coming back strong once again because is becoming a necessity of our future societies.
It is our Post-Modern condition. We have focused so much in ‘consuming’ that it has made us forget about the true meaning of ‘design’. Designers have forgotten about their social purpose, and have focused on the consumer driving tools to fulfill people’s desires. However, not everything is lost. I feel that modernism is coming back strong once again because is becoming a necessity of our future societies.
Carol Gregor
AUGUST 17, 2011, 4:01 P.M.
I am afraid design has lost touch with the sacred. Solutions that do not revere our connection and dependence on nature are Band-Aids. Foreclosure is the result of a capitalist business model on two fronts. First, homes are built on inexpensive land that require infrastructure. Less expensive than infill, the market is sold a bigger is better value, demeaning the essence of design itself. Inexpensive, huge homes have destroyed millions of acres of farmland and aquifers and are ready to do so again after the recession is over regardless of what you do at MoMA. These homes are expensive and are deteriorating rapidly. Second, a failed industry at the core is not in a position to repair itself without a new revolutionary system approach only slightly identified in LEED and the Green Building initiative.
There must be a return to the building practices from the past that had one core leader in the design and delivery process. Trained as an engineer, these master builders were schooled in a natural, sacred geometric methodology that was philosophical and practical. The difference between this and our existing 3 tiered architect, engineer and builder approach is innate conflict.
A building is a sacred thing, manifest from nature and in accordance with her underlying principles. Until we regain this relationship, any attempts to solve our nightmare of expensive, cheap, environmentally dysfunctional buildings will be superficial. A much deeper view of the problem is the challenge and the work is philosophical,spiritual,professional and health related.
I am afraid design has lost touch with the sacred. Solutions that do not revere our connection and dependence on nature are Band-Aids. Foreclosure is the result of a capitalist business model on two fronts. First, homes are built on inexpensive land that require infrastructure. Less expensive than infill, the market is sold a bigger is better value, demeaning the essence of design itself. Inexpensive, huge homes have destroyed millions of acres of farmland and aquifers and are ready to do so again after the recession is over regardless of what you do at MoMA. These homes are expensive and are deteriorating rapidly. Second, a failed industry at the core is not in a position to repair itself without a new revolutionary system approach only slightly identified in LEED and the Green Building initiative.
There must be a return to the building practices from the past that had one core leader in the design and delivery process. Trained as an engineer, these master builders were schooled in a natural, sacred geometric methodology that was philosophical and practical. The difference between this and our existing 3 tiered architect, engineer and builder approach is innate conflict.
A building is a sacred thing, manifest from nature and in accordance with her underlying principles. Until we regain this relationship, any attempts to solve our nightmare of expensive, cheap, environmentally dysfunctional buildings will be superficial. A much deeper view of the problem is the challenge and the work is philosophical,spiritual,professional and health related.
Since 2007, when I ventured out of the academy to take the reins of the Department of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art, we have traversed an unexpected set of economic, social and environmental challenges in which the centrality of the design professions has become manifestly clear, even as larger forces — in which designers are too often complicit — act to marginalize the disciplines of architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning, design and the fine arts. Having worked side-by-side with diverse professionals, I am more than ever convinced that a cooperative, multidisciplinary approach is fundamental to the future vitality of the field — and essential if designers are to contribute to solving the enormous problems of our day. At MoMA we have been trying to discover meaningful positions and prospects even as practitioners have been jolted into discussion of just where the moral compass should be set.
The End of the Starchitect
In 2007, the overlapping worlds of architecture and design, much like the worlds of politics and finance and thus of building and spatial development more generally, were very much persuaded that the old laws of cycles and periods had definitively yielded to new models of uninterrupted growth and limitless possibilities — and perhaps even the transcendence of the cyclical and sometimes violent swings of economic growth and building demand. That mood now seems hard to recapture. The neologism "starchitect" has lost much of its luster; indeed, it seems increasingly clear that the term did little service even to the handful of design talents whose works were thus lauded according to some superficial criteria of relevance largely to affluent citizens of the G20 countries. In any case, it is no longer a viable role model for future designers, given that the subprime mortgage crisis and economic crash have been accompanied by an equally impressive crash of new commissions for expensive private houses and showy museum additions, the building types that sustained the starchitect portfolio.
In 2007, the overlapping worlds of architecture and design, much like the worlds of politics and finance and thus of building and spatial development more generally, were very much persuaded that the old laws of cycles and periods had definitively yielded to new models of uninterrupted growth and limitless possibilities — and perhaps even the transcendence of the cyclical and sometimes violent swings of economic growth and building demand. That mood now seems hard to recapture. The neologism "starchitect" has lost much of its luster; indeed, it seems increasingly clear that the term did little service even to the handful of design talents whose works were thus lauded according to some superficial criteria of relevance largely to affluent citizens of the G20 countries. In any case, it is no longer a viable role model for future designers, given that the subprime mortgage crisis and economic crash have been accompanied by an equally impressive crash of new commissions for expensive private houses and showy museum additions, the building types that sustained the starchitect portfolio.
I am not among those who believe that we are currently experiencing a temporary downturn; nor that we need simply to wait it out. I am no economist, political scientist or financial analyst. But it is now abundantly clear — to any who follow the information revealed by each new excavation of our assumptions brought on by the global financial crisis — that there were ample signs that the old euphoria was untethered to reality long before the band ceased to play, that many of the causes are structural rather than ephemeral. We are living through a paradigm shift as fundamental as that launched in the early 1980s, when the Reagan and Thatcher revolutions in the English-speaking world set in motion the dual doctrines of the unregulated market and the winnowing of government’s role in large-scale planning for the public good (even as the public sector has continued to grow); and with the accelerated march of globalization that followed the thawing of the Cold War, these privatizing doctrines have become international. What is certain is that we need to be thinking of new ways of intervening in the world rather than waiting for things to return to a "normalcy" that has receded into history — and this is nowhere truer than in architecture and design.
In these exhibitions museum visitors were shown a profile of the architect who functions not simply as an artist who can give brilliant form to briefs written by others but more broadly as an interdisciplinary artistic and intellectual entrepreneur. In avoiding monographic displays, we are determined to promote not individual architects, but rather architecture, landscape, and design as such. We also aim to foreground the full gravitas of the central role of designers in creating and maintaining our public realm — which is more crucial than ever in a period in which the public posting of private wish lists on social media sites often passes as a form of public discourse.
Pauline S
09.17.11 at 01:50
Thank you, Barry, for helping us learn from architecture's past and enabling us to benefit from great minds working to solve the new problems we face today. Your thought-provoking exhibitions are a serve to all who are grappling with the environmental, social, financial and other issues that keep us awake at night. Thanks for providing us with forum for discussion to discover a range of solutions.
Thank you, Barry, for helping us learn from architecture's past and enabling us to benefit from great minds working to solve the new problems we face today. Your thought-provoking exhibitions are a serve to all who are grappling with the environmental, social, financial and other issues that keep us awake at night. Thanks for providing us with forum for discussion to discover a range of solutions.
“We know that we are not experts,” says Gaspar, “but we work closely with the advocacy groups that are.” In contrast, curators and architects are expected to be authorities. “We have no idea what we are doing!” joked MOS Architects partner MichaelMeredith, who is tackling the redesign of the “Oranges” townships in New Jersey for MoMA’s “Foreclosed”. The pressure of being an outside expert stems, in part, from having to assimilate all known data for a region in order to, presumably, improve it.
Because the goal of the exhibition is not to critique but to fundamentally reimagine suburbia, its stakes for architecture are doubly high. First, in seeking to address the underlying social and economic systems behind suburbia, the show tests architecture's capabilities and boundaries as a discipline, along with its continuing relevance as a guiding voice in the development of America's spatial and social geography. Simultaneously, because any treatment of suburbia has to address the problem of housing, the show must confront the house itself: that remarkable reminder of architecture's abilityto put something as ineffable as the American dream into specific material terms. So the show will also test architecture's capacity to symbolize, the ways in which it structures and embodies meaning.
On the other hand, to reinvent, rather than critique, as he seeks to do with the California Method, seems to be a uniquely architectural capability. Matta-Clark once referred to Splitting as a "theatrical gesture." Theatricality has its place, but today we need more from our architects.
jimmy-jo barrows
MAY 3, 2012, 10:19 A.M.
photo piece of the plight of Detroit along with a possible solution involving GIVING homes and commercial property or free rent to folks outside the city; photos of recipients revamping them and buisinesses starting up to support the new arrivals.
theme; how creativity along with left brain thinking can be used to solve vitsl cultural problems!
or pass on to “New Yorker” magazine for One City’s Museum of TOTAL Creativity Helps Save the Culture of Another
photo piece of the plight of Detroit along with a possible solution involving GIVING homes and commercial property or free rent to folks outside the city; photos of recipients revamping them and buisinesses starting up to support the new arrivals.
theme; how creativity along with left brain thinking can be used to solve vitsl cultural problems!
or pass on to “New Yorker” magazine for One City’s Museum of TOTAL Creativity Helps Save the Culture of Another
KPMCO
Actually...the Levitt model isn't bad. People complaining about it assume that everyone who buys one wants to work in the city. The suburbs have developed their own economies, business structures, schools and shopping, and other amenities. It allows smaller towns to grow and develop into more urbanized communities.
As far as pre-fab construction. there is nothing wrong with it, so long as it abides by building codes. My home in Florida requires cinderblock framing for the ground floor...for hurricane resistance. Even though we're more than 50 miles from the coast, it's just the way it is here. Many people assume that something different is always bad. That's not the case. The house is gorgeous, with a nice stucco exterior, and nice finishes inside. It was still relatively affordable for a brand new house...and would have been less had I not had a porch, lanai, or extra room added.
I agree that a LOT of new constructions are wasteful, and people worry more about getting granite counter tops, high end appliances, upgraded fixtures, etc....instead of getting something more functional and workable. That's what many people want, but they shouldn't be complaining when their mortgage is much higher than mine or can't afford their "dream house". Cookie cutter houses are fine if that is what is in your budget. I won't complain about them. :)
December 20, 2011 at 3:01 pm
As far as pre-fab construction. there is nothing wrong with it, so long as it abides by building codes. My home in Florida requires cinderblock framing for the ground floor...for hurricane resistance. Even though we're more than 50 miles from the coast, it's just the way it is here. Many people assume that something different is always bad. That's not the case. The house is gorgeous, with a nice stucco exterior, and nice finishes inside. It was still relatively affordable for a brand new house...and would have been less had I not had a porch, lanai, or extra room added.
I agree that a LOT of new constructions are wasteful, and people worry more about getting granite counter tops, high end appliances, upgraded fixtures, etc....instead of getting something more functional and workable. That's what many people want, but they shouldn't be complaining when their mortgage is much higher than mine or can't afford their "dream house". Cookie cutter houses are fine if that is what is in your budget. I won't complain about them. :)
December 20, 2011 at 3:01 pm
Prefab_expert
While there may be some duplicated designs, the Levitt model is a good model that would lower construction of house by over 20%. A house can be built in 30 days with much less wasted raw material is always a cost-saving and good environment advancement. The US construction is too lazy to learn more from the Levitt model.
December 20, 2011 at 12:36 pm
December 20, 2011 at 12:36 pm
Keith Bowers
DECEMBER 27, 2011, 10:35 A.M.
Thank you for critiquing the collaboration process. As President of the Board of Directors for The Wildlands Network, we applaud your efforts in attempting to include ‘rewilding’ into this concept. And while it is encouraging that the design team included an ecologist, it is most unfortunate that the execution did not respect your input. We see this time and again, where some sort of abstract design aesthetic is forced onto the landscape, marginalizing or worse yet, ignoring the basic tenants of ecology, and then championed in the name of ‘sustainability’. Once again, it goes to show that many architects (and landscape architects) talk a good talk about ecological issues but rarely understand the science and almost certainly don’t know how to fully integrate sound ecological principles into their work. The two are not mutually exclusive.
Thank you for critiquing the collaboration process. As President of the Board of Directors for The Wildlands Network, we applaud your efforts in attempting to include ‘rewilding’ into this concept. And while it is encouraging that the design team included an ecologist, it is most unfortunate that the execution did not respect your input. We see this time and again, where some sort of abstract design aesthetic is forced onto the landscape, marginalizing or worse yet, ignoring the basic tenants of ecology, and then championed in the name of ‘sustainability’. Once again, it goes to show that many architects (and landscape architects) talk a good talk about ecological issues but rarely understand the science and almost certainly don’t know how to fully integrate sound ecological principles into their work. The two are not mutually exclusive.
In the design process, the architect is the principal actor in the processing of concepts into the form and aesthetic of a proposal. The impact of the concepts will therefore depend largely on the extent to which the architect determines their conformity with the overall design concept. Collaboration in this context occurs merely on the periphery of the design process and is thus constrained. At the outset of the process, the architect embraced the proposed ecological design strategies. However, in the course of the translation of these strategies into a design aesthetic, a sustained process for facilitating input from the ecologist was never fully developed or attempted, with mixed results in the extent to which the architect was able to effectively capture the ecological concepts. Consequently, while the final proposal of misregistration provides a compelling aesthetic, its actual ecological functionality remains open to question.
I am hopeful that the work done by these five teams will demonstrate the true value of introducing and seriously considering the needs of intrinsic building characteristics such as structure, infrastructure, and the mechanics of an optimized internal environment.
20 Jan, 2012 - (@eonnaday)
“@MuseumModernArt: "Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream." http://bit.ly/wt5ecc ” /// important of process vs. product in isolation
Of course, there are expectations for drama that come with anything associated with MoMA. These are proposals designed to stir audiences. What comes across in some of the videos, however, is a mixture of boredom and malaise. The bored might be the archi-geeks who have already seen such things in countless presentations. Those appearing baffled are probably members of the lay public wondering why architects are making such radical, disconnected proposals and why they have never seen anything like this out in the real world. To them, this is further evidence of the irrelevance of what architects have to offer in terms of solving real problems. Not good for marketing, that.
Here’s where design comes in. Most of Cicero’s housing is detached, single-family homes. But these are too expensive for many immigrants, so five or six families often squeeze into one of Cicero’s brick bungalows. This creates unstable financial situations, neighborhood tensions and falling real estate values.
Cicero is representative of a suburban transformation that went little noticed during the housing bubble and bust: suburbs have replaced inner cities as the destination of choice for new immigrants.
Too often during the bubble, banks and builders shunned thoughtful architecture and urban design in favor of cookie-cutter houses that could be easily repackaged as derivatives to be flipped, while architects snubbed housing to pursue more prestigious projects.
A few years ago, an architect with a global reputation was walking me through his busy studio, boasting of his exhaustive experience. I asked if he had ever designed in the suburbs; he looked at me as if I were out of my mind. Architects tend to treat the zones where half of all Americans live as a backward, inhospitable wilderness. The suspicion is mutual: Who needs a fancy designer when builders all over the country know how to construct a peaked-roof single-family house?
Anonymous
With the exception of Jean Gang who has an established practice, the other firms are young, recently formed and have little or no built work, and even less experience with urbanism. The absence of that training is evident in the superficial, image-driven approach to their ill-informed fantasies. Promoting amateurs as though they are experts is a bad move particularly when the naivety of their ideas reflects poorly on the whole profession.
2/17/2012 11:23 AM CST
2/17/2012 11:23 AM CST
Anonymous
This exhibit (and the state of the profession) is the result of architects' having been taught that they should strive to be artists. As such they value novelty, polemics, and individual expression above all else, and are ill-equipped to offer useful solutions to real problems. Instead, they should think of themselves as professional craftspersons whose products offer lasting value based on their usefulness.
2/17/2012 9:58 AM CST
2/17/2012 9:58 AM CST
Anonymous
How do things like this keep getting published? It seriously degrades the integrity of the profession of architecture when the public sees projects like this and assumes that since these firms are well known, this is what every architect is striving towards. No wonder we are becoming increasingly marginalized.
2/16/2012 11:43 AM CST
2/16/2012 11:43 AM CST
Anonymous
- MOS' propose to starve the city of circulation by building in the streets.
- The focus of WALKac's urbanism is a giant compost heap anchoring their plan.
- Studio Gang envisions a world where residences look like scaleless shipping containers.
- Andrew Zago thinks the future rests in a childish vision of LegoLand with skewed walls.
I’m surprised Barry Bergdoll let his name be associated with such obvious rot. No doubt pretentious architects will buy into this. It fulfills their idea of themselves as intellectuals even as it highlights the degree to which they have not fully developed as sentient human beings.
2/16/2012 10:56 AM CST
- The focus of WALKac's urbanism is a giant compost heap anchoring their plan.
- Studio Gang envisions a world where residences look like scaleless shipping containers.
- Andrew Zago thinks the future rests in a childish vision of LegoLand with skewed walls.
I’m surprised Barry Bergdoll let his name be associated with such obvious rot. No doubt pretentious architects will buy into this. It fulfills their idea of themselves as intellectuals even as it highlights the degree to which they have not fully developed as sentient human beings.
2/16/2012 10:56 AM CST
Anonymous
To the poster below: - The education received by an architect in the Beaux Arts era is very different from the course of study that passes for an architectural education today. I don't think anyone can find too much fault with the work produced in that earlier period. Not so with the work of most architects in the last 50 years where a relatively small number of architectural works are really appreciated by the public. (Daniel Libeskind's Crystal' ... anyone?) - So is it fair to say that today's architects are really educated enough to lead the rest of society? A better question would be to ask outselves why the public dislikes so much of what our profession creates today. Therein lies the way forward. Ignoring your audience is not the solution to anything.
2/14/2012 3:23 PM CST
2/14/2012 3:23 PM CST
Anonymous
In response to the commenter who responded to my earlier post about people being stupid, good one. You can disagree with me all you like and call my intelligence into question, but the simple fact remains that most people don't have a clue about architecture, how can they?The education we go through (in school and the professional world) is some of the toughest. It is up to the architect to educate. I don't know what happened in this country to make people so resentful of others. The kind of discourse people have with architecture resembles that of monkeys and their habitual poo throwing...
2/14/2012 3:14 PM CST
2/14/2012 3:14 PM CST
jameswhadley wrote
What are we all doing? None of these projects would be accepted by the public who would have to live in them. (Some are better than others at being contextual and/or livable, but where do you walk the dog.) A discussion that begins to sell the public on the need for re-thinking the American lifestyle has to come before the design studies. Otherwise it's just "posturing." And probably scary for the average home-buyer or apartment seeker.
Problem no. 1 for architects today is entering and starting to lead that discussion. Otherwise we will be ignored... vigorously. And probably planners are more important in the discussion than architects.
James W. Hadley AIA (aka anonymous)
2/13/2012 2:54 PM CST
Problem no. 1 for architects today is entering and starting to lead that discussion. Otherwise we will be ignored... vigorously. And probably planners are more important in the discussion than architects.
James W. Hadley AIA (aka anonymous)
2/13/2012 2:54 PM CST
Anonymous
and this is suppose to help make us all feel relevant as the profession continues to crumble...
2/23/2012 5:05 PM CST
2/23/2012 5:05 PM CST
Anonymous
What are the public to make of MOS' artery-choking planning, or of Andrew Zago's utterly pretentious drawings. Mounting exhibitions of preposterous work does the whole profession a disservice.
2/23/2012 6:01 PM CST
2/23/2012 6:01 PM CST
Anonymous
The New Urbanists have already addressed this issue and produced workable, walkable models that achieved popular and professional respect. So why does MoMA see fit to waste time and money "investigating" pretentious schemes like these? Ill-concieved, wrong-headed abstractions are the problem, not the solution. Let's move on from this self-indulgent posturing by people with little real work experience.
2/25/2012 2:22 PM CST
2/25/2012 2:22 PM CST
Anonymous
And we as a profession continue to ask ourselves why the general public doesn´t appreciate our expertise.... Small wonder.
3/2/2012 2:07 AM CST
3/2/2012 2:07 AM CST
Another contributor, a man wearing glasses and black sweatshirt and standing beneath a beamed ceiling, holds up a text neatly printed in architect's block caps on a large pad of gridded paper:
I am 62 years old.
I have worked honestly & hard my whole life (since I was 14) because that is how you "realize the American Dream."
I was a home builder & designer.
In 1980, the "Savings & Loan Crisis" forced me out of work & out of business. (The gov’t helped the banks survive ...)
In 2007, the "Sub-prime Mortgage Crisis" crushed me again. I lost my home, my wife & my belief in that "American Dream." (The gov’t saved the banks again ...)
I am 62 years old.
I have worked honestly & hard my whole life (since I was 14) because that is how you "realize the American Dream."
I was a home builder & designer.
In 1980, the "Savings & Loan Crisis" forced me out of work & out of business. (The gov’t helped the banks survive ...)
In 2007, the "Sub-prime Mortgage Crisis" crushed me again. I lost my home, my wife & my belief in that "American Dream." (The gov’t saved the banks again ...)
What happens next is the continuation of the dialogue that began at MoMA PS1 (where the architects began the initial stages of research and design) and has transferred into the Architecture and Design galleries in the Museum. In order to establish solutions to current problems, such as the emergency housing crisis in America, we must propose ideas (as the aforementioned teams have done) through careful research and study before proceeding with rebuilding and redevelopment efforts. What Bergdoll demonstrates throughout Foreclosed and in this exhibition series is the importance of involving architects and design practitioners in the early stages of development of larger problems and social issues, such as the housing crisis and the global warming crisis, respectively, on both a local and global scale. Thanks to these efforts, the architecture and design community can now offer a more substantial role in the redevelopment of cities and, more importantly, ways of thinking about how we live in the expanded spatial environment.
Keith Carlson
Feb 15, 12 11:10 am
I thought I would post this interesting interview w/ Michael Bell. It seems we are always discussing ways to put architects back in the driver's seat of the building process. I thought he posed some interesting solutions to immediate, real problems.
I really liked his holistic approach of re-casting the financing business model and working with members of that community to create a new paradigm.
http://www.reuters.com/video/2012/02/14/reuters-tv-a-radical-approach-to-homeownership-feli?videoId=230166482&videoChannel=117757
I am hoping the show runs through June so I can see it in NY.
I thought I would post this interesting interview w/ Michael Bell. It seems we are always discussing ways to put architects back in the driver's seat of the building process. I thought he posed some interesting solutions to immediate, real problems.
I really liked his holistic approach of re-casting the financing business model and working with members of that community to create a new paradigm.
http://www.reuters.com/video/2012/02/14/reuters-tv-a-radical-approach-to-homeownership-feli?videoId=230166482&videoChannel=117757
I am hoping the show runs through June so I can see it in NY.
I thought I would post this interesting interview w/ Michael Bell. It seems we are always discussing ways to put architects back in the driver's seat of the building process. I thought he posed some interesting solutions to immediate, real problems.
I really liked his holistic approach of re-casting the financing business model and working with members of that community to create a new paradigm.
I really liked his holistic approach of re-casting the financing business model and working with members of that community to create a new paradigm.
In the end, it is not a curator or the designer who will determine if design projects are successful or not. It is the public who will be the final judge, based on what the design achieves.
For architecture to reach its full potential the public must be involved, inviting designers to be a part of their conversations and solutions in addressing social needs. But before this happens, the public must first understand the newly-emerging role of design. And it is here that this show wastes so much possibility and a timely opportunity.
For architecture to reach its full potential the public must be involved, inviting designers to be a part of their conversations and solutions in addressing social needs. But before this happens, the public must first understand the newly-emerging role of design. And it is here that this show wastes so much possibility and a timely opportunity.
Rather than just serving the top 1%, design could be as meaningful as public health and public interest law in serving the people. In fact, the architectural profession now sees an opportunity for a needed rebirth. Faced with the highest unemployment of any college degree, (January 5, 2011, The New York Times, “Want a Job? Go to College, and Don’t Major in Architecture”), many architects are seeking nontraditional uses of their talents.
In December, I was at Design Miami/Art Basel and had a great time connecting with so many old friends, clients, press contacts, etc. At some point during the week, I sent a text message to a friend to recount some of the new work I'd seen, the run-ins, the parties, the tote-bags...
Her response was: "So, how is life with the 1%?" After a career in design, I certainly didn't feel like a member of the 1%, but from my view of the champagne bar in the VIP lounge it was clear that I was in close proximity. Then, I began to wonder:
Has "design" become an activity of, by, and for the 1%?
Her response was: "So, how is life with the 1%?" After a career in design, I certainly didn't feel like a member of the 1%, but from my view of the champagne bar in the VIP lounge it was clear that I was in close proximity. Then, I began to wonder:
Has "design" become an activity of, by, and for the 1%?
In a difficult but arresting new exhibit, “Foreclosure: Rehousing the American Dream,” MoMA is suggesting that architecture and design can help reconfigure how/where we live, and how we own homes (or don’t).
Jeannie Kim
Reaction to (and, at times, shrill critique) of) the recently opened exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, “Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream,” might suggest that – yes – perhaps designers are better off sticking to the 1% that they know well, given architecture’s repeated historic failures to address complex urban (and suburban) challenges. After all, as Steven Holl apparently said in a 2010 interview, “It’s always about the clients. Without good clients you can’t have good architecture,” (quoted in Nicolai Ouroussoff, “By the Architects, for the People: A Trend for 2010s,” The New York Times, May 3, 2010) and the 99% is a notoriously difficult client. Yet the most innovative architects have and, thankfully, will continue to engage these questions, whether speculatively or with actual “blueprints” rather than just “visions”. OWS and the 99% have been galvanized by mortgage foreclosures, setting up camp at the same time the MoMA teams were first presenting their proposals (nee “visions”) last fall. Any design activity that engages these questions needs to be linked to radical changes in fiscal policy and transit infrastructure as well, however. The announcement that the Obama administration will be unveiling new standards this week for now banks treat the millions of people facing foreclosure may help, therefore, but it’s just a step toward addressing a vast problem that architects and designers alone cannot solve.
Wednesday, February 22 at 6:05pm
Wednesday, February 22 at 6:05pm
Ries
03.02.12 at 03:31
One of the answers to "what is it that you really need?" is, probably, NOT architects.
Since well over 90% of the building in America is done without the aid of an architect, it seems that, particularly in the foreclosed suburbs, an architect is a luxury, a status symbol, and one of the first things to be cut.
Certainly architects can bring value to a project- but, in most cases, its not monetary value, and, in fact, it usually adds quite a bit of cost to any project, well beyond the fee, to bring an architect in.
This is a recession based on financial shenanigans, not one caused by a lack of good design.
I fail to see how, in most exurbs, good design will have any affect on the financial aspects that caused this - the lack of jobs, the predatory lending practices, the upside down real estate market, and the inability of many to sell their homes without going bankrupt.
The reason there is a chasm between urban architects and suburban "architecture" is because the stuff they build in the suburbs is driven by an entirely different set of desires, fashions, fantasies, and, most importantly, price points.
One of the answers to "what is it that you really need?" is, probably, NOT architects.
Since well over 90% of the building in America is done without the aid of an architect, it seems that, particularly in the foreclosed suburbs, an architect is a luxury, a status symbol, and one of the first things to be cut.
Certainly architects can bring value to a project- but, in most cases, its not monetary value, and, in fact, it usually adds quite a bit of cost to any project, well beyond the fee, to bring an architect in.
This is a recession based on financial shenanigans, not one caused by a lack of good design.
I fail to see how, in most exurbs, good design will have any affect on the financial aspects that caused this - the lack of jobs, the predatory lending practices, the upside down real estate market, and the inability of many to sell their homes without going bankrupt.
The reason there is a chasm between urban architects and suburban "architecture" is because the stuff they build in the suburbs is driven by an entirely different set of desires, fashions, fantasies, and, most importantly, price points.
Fishman said that perhaps developers should have paid more attention to work coming out of architecture schools. “The economics didn’t take into consideration that the demographic movement was going back to the core,” he said. He added that the subdivisions promoted sprawl, and while they may have been cheap to build, developers never factored in eventual transportation costs. Quite often when developers do consider design a factor it’s not always top notch. He cited advertising for Toll Brothers that trumpet “award winning design” but never tell you what award they won.
CH: What does that mean? I think we sort of have a sense of the automobile, the sort of oil-fueled world of post-World War II America and suburban sprawl as these kinds of the things that have conspired to build the great sprawling American suburban landscape. What does rethinking that involve from a design perspective? From a policy perspective?
MB: […] In the 1990s you had a booming economy, you had a kind ofpush to alter, if not end, the welfare state. By the 2000s, you have a real estate bubble. And today you have a foreclosure crisis. But in all of these situations, there are a couple things that have been consistent. The amount of money people spend on housing and transportation is immense. They can’t afford it. You don’t want to tell people they can’t afford something and say that’s the reason to change. You want to be more positive than that. But there are many, many factors about affordability, about energy consumption, and frankly about the role of design in any of it. The American single-family house is a commodity product that has virtually no research and development, no design. Architects, in a spec house in Houston in the late 1990s—their fee was about twelve dollars per house. These are mass-produced commodities. There is no professional engagement. […] I think most of the people in this exhibition are quite
positive and excited about the suburbs. We know it’s a deeply, deeply important part of the American ethos, if not just everyday life of course. But, they’re not inevitable. And the financial underpinnings of them have really dramatically shifted in the last five, ten, fifteen years—not just the last two.
CH: Talk about that R&D thing. You made a point in the video in the exhibition that blew my mind about the comparison between how much money in R&D goes into your iPhone or anti-lock brakes versus an American home.
MB: I did mention anti-lock brakes. For many commodities, before they hit the market, there are billions of dollars that might precede it, whether it’s Clorox or whether it’s an iPhone or a Honda Civic which is quite an ingenious product. Housing as we know it has kind of ironed all of that
out of it, and it did it a long time ago. […] They are paying Mercedes Benz prices for a twenty-year-old used car. The single-family house market atomizes out all of the financial processes, and you still are spending large sums of money, but you’re not getting the sophisticated product. It’s not that it’s not a nice product or something people love, but it could be much, much better in energy and everything else.
MB: […] In the 1990s you had a booming economy, you had a kind ofpush to alter, if not end, the welfare state. By the 2000s, you have a real estate bubble. And today you have a foreclosure crisis. But in all of these situations, there are a couple things that have been consistent. The amount of money people spend on housing and transportation is immense. They can’t afford it. You don’t want to tell people they can’t afford something and say that’s the reason to change. You want to be more positive than that. But there are many, many factors about affordability, about energy consumption, and frankly about the role of design in any of it. The American single-family house is a commodity product that has virtually no research and development, no design. Architects, in a spec house in Houston in the late 1990s—their fee was about twelve dollars per house. These are mass-produced commodities. There is no professional engagement. […] I think most of the people in this exhibition are quite
positive and excited about the suburbs. We know it’s a deeply, deeply important part of the American ethos, if not just everyday life of course. But, they’re not inevitable. And the financial underpinnings of them have really dramatically shifted in the last five, ten, fifteen years—not just the last two.
CH: Talk about that R&D thing. You made a point in the video in the exhibition that blew my mind about the comparison between how much money in R&D goes into your iPhone or anti-lock brakes versus an American home.
MB: I did mention anti-lock brakes. For many commodities, before they hit the market, there are billions of dollars that might precede it, whether it’s Clorox or whether it’s an iPhone or a Honda Civic which is quite an ingenious product. Housing as we know it has kind of ironed all of that
out of it, and it did it a long time ago. […] They are paying Mercedes Benz prices for a twenty-year-old used car. The single-family house market atomizes out all of the financial processes, and you still are spending large sums of money, but you’re not getting the sophisticated product. It’s not that it’s not a nice product or something people love, but it could be much, much better in energy and everything else.
27 Feb, 2012 - (@CNNMoney)
RT @jsanchezcnn: Supercool story by @PoppyHarlowCNNon how great design could help cities w/foreclosures http://cnnmon.ie/znnAvJ
The economic and demographic factors at hand may seem emense but I am not sure that a revised American Dream could not have an equally great influence. Guy Horton of author on Archinect comments that he does not believe architects have the power to dictate a solution to the crisis, ” To them, this is further evidence of the irrelevance of what architects have to offer in terms of solving real problems. “ I am afraid to say that manny others feel the same that architects are along for the ride as much as anyone else, architects are not problem solvers. Really? Of anyone who has been trained day in and day out to make something out of nothing. To merge the gap between reality and imaginary we are the innovators those with visions of a different future. Yes we may not be able to single handedly solve major issues but we are in a great position to express our thoughts on a global scale. I think we are selling ourselves short over humbling our potential to make an impact on the future. ” In architecture we have become inured to the special effects of formal bigness and dramatic constructs. “ but isnt this not a perception stemming form those ideas burried in the American dream. This maybe exactly where we need to start initiating a shift, why BIG, why More? In the end the architects apart of the workshop are just adding to something already dead. This unsustainable template has been passed down as a ritual and we are blind to its presence.
Robert
133 days ago
Here we go again - architects attempting to be the deciders on who lives in a cooked up utopian paradise. I agree with Dee - didn't we go through this before - actually several times before - go back to Lutyens and others pre-Victorian UK for other references. This argument is as old as time in architecture circles and frankly something I believe in my bones architects need to stay way far away from.
The problems associated with the current debacle in housing goes way beyond just cooking up alternatives to a model that for decades had worked pretty well until the restraints of the banking system and the policy makers in DEE CEE were unshackled. Thank you Barney Frank, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Sarbanes / Oxley, CRA, Derivatives, MBS, CDO's, Wall Street, Glass Steagle (no more), FHA, HMA, Phil Gramm, Rudman, Fannie, Freddie, National Assoc. of Realtors, Mortgage Banking Association, TARP, QE whatever, Helicopter Ben, HARP, HAMP, Obama and the porkulus - the list of imposters posing as statesmen and policy wonks and their attendant fixes goes on and on. To just read this article on the surface and agree would be in my humble opinion horribly misguided and naive.
Wake up architects - putting the design blinders on only will not serve you nor your clients well. A much broader and active view is needed - bone up on economics, finance, politics, local government, proper spheres of authority, the scriptures - you name it. Without a broader and DEEPER view of the market the profession will continue to wallow in the ditch it finds itself in, unable to provide any added value to projects and their sponsoring clients. Clients want value - not just ideas!!! And one final thing......
I LIKE LIVING IN THE SUBURBS!!!
Here we go again - architects attempting to be the deciders on who lives in a cooked up utopian paradise. I agree with Dee - didn't we go through this before - actually several times before - go back to Lutyens and others pre-Victorian UK for other references. This argument is as old as time in architecture circles and frankly something I believe in my bones architects need to stay way far away from.
The problems associated with the current debacle in housing goes way beyond just cooking up alternatives to a model that for decades had worked pretty well until the restraints of the banking system and the policy makers in DEE CEE were unshackled. Thank you Barney Frank, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Sarbanes / Oxley, CRA, Derivatives, MBS, CDO's, Wall Street, Glass Steagle (no more), FHA, HMA, Phil Gramm, Rudman, Fannie, Freddie, National Assoc. of Realtors, Mortgage Banking Association, TARP, QE whatever, Helicopter Ben, HARP, HAMP, Obama and the porkulus - the list of imposters posing as statesmen and policy wonks and their attendant fixes goes on and on. To just read this article on the surface and agree would be in my humble opinion horribly misguided and naive.
Wake up architects - putting the design blinders on only will not serve you nor your clients well. A much broader and active view is needed - bone up on economics, finance, politics, local government, proper spheres of authority, the scriptures - you name it. Without a broader and DEEPER view of the market the profession will continue to wallow in the ditch it finds itself in, unable to provide any added value to projects and their sponsoring clients. Clients want value - not just ideas!!! And one final thing......
I LIKE LIVING IN THE SUBURBS!!!
It is thus extremely important that this exhibition and its accompanying research are taking place during an ongoing crisis. This has created the necessary sense of urgency which has been transmitted into the ideas themselves. As we are still suffering from the effects of the crisis, these projects put themselves forward as possible post-crisis realities, but also as ways of overcoming the crisis itself.
At the same time, however, these projects also suffer from this sense of urgency. They do not, in fact, discuss one key question, which is central to contemporary architectural debate and is concerned with the instruments which are available to architectural practitioners. The open question is this: why should the solution to all problems always be the same one: the building of new architecture? Nobody here has really moved towards other and more radical solutions, which move beyond the very idea of an architectural project.
At the same time, however, these projects also suffer from this sense of urgency. They do not, in fact, discuss one key question, which is central to contemporary architectural debate and is concerned with the instruments which are available to architectural practitioners. The open question is this: why should the solution to all problems always be the same one: the building of new architecture? Nobody here has really moved towards other and more radical solutions, which move beyond the very idea of an architectural project.
The work of the Estudio Teddy Cruz, McMansion Retrofitted (2008),which is referred to in this exhibition, is linked to this very question: if a resident could buy a house, would they buy a typical McMansion? The market, in recent years, has developed its image in order to look like the built form of a dream which is then sold as an aspiration. In this sense the MoMA exhibition carries out an important function: it puts these questions back in the hands of the architects and asks them to come up with new and original ideas.And this is done in an intelligent way, as each team has been asked to come up with architectural and planning proposals, but these teams have also been supported in this enterprise by other experts (each project looks at economic questions, and proposed alternatives to traditional concepts of property ownership, resource use and so on). In this way the various answers proposed are not aimed at simply creating a new typology or a new urban form, but also try and understand how the economic, legal and administrative system needs to be changed in order to support these new models.
The Buell Hypothesis also highlights another central fact: the need for architects to return to research on these non urban areas. Until now, the suburbs have been analyzed by a specific group of architects linked to the New Urbanism movement. Usually the argument has been that a mixture of nostalgia and contemporary priorities (sustainability, green space, pedestrian zones and so on) has been the idea which has inspired the form of these areas, in most cases. And thus prevailing opinion has often linked the reading of suburbs more to that of a village than a city. The Hypothesis attempts to provide another way of understanding these areas,
Anonymous
Jacob,
As Deb Gans made clear in her interview on this website, it's critical that architects in 2012 address both formalism and green issues. It's not enough to be either/or. Either/or is only doing half an architect's job, and that's not enough. Everyone deserves access to progressive contemporary design, rich people, poor people, Americans, Africans, everyone. It's about equality and respect and not patronizing people.
3/23/2012 1:46 PM CDT
As Deb Gans made clear in her interview on this website, it's critical that architects in 2012 address both formalism and green issues. It's not enough to be either/or. Either/or is only doing half an architect's job, and that's not enough. Everyone deserves access to progressive contemporary design, rich people, poor people, Americans, Africans, everyone. It's about equality and respect and not patronizing people.
3/23/2012 1:46 PM CDT
The message of “Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream,” a new exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, is that it didn’t need to be this way—and that economic crises can have architectural solutions. But from the start, MoMA pulls its punches: Barry Bergdoll, chief curator of architecture and design for MoMA and the show’s curator, concedes in his catalog introduction that “architects, urban and landscape designers, and infrastructure engineers can do little directly about the problem of foreclosed mortgages and households ‘under water’ (that being a crisis of the financial architecture of America).”
Chris, London
4/3/2012 16:45
Of course it's rubbish and will never get built. I have an American friend who is an architect and he tells me that due to the economic situation unemployment amongst architects is exceptionally high maybe 50%. This is probably just a marketing ploy by the company to get their name in the headlines by being controversial, similar ploys are used by artists to get their names around and create a level of recognition in the so called liberal elite who always know what is best for everyone else.
Of course it's rubbish and will never get built. I have an American friend who is an architect and he tells me that due to the economic situation unemployment amongst architects is exceptionally high maybe 50%. This is probably just a marketing ploy by the company to get their name in the headlines by being controversial, similar ploys are used by artists to get their names around and create a level of recognition in the so called liberal elite who always know what is best for everyone else.
"The architects had community and its surrounding environment in mind over economics and money and all that other business stuff when they thought of these makeovers," 20-year-old student Amandine Borreman said about the exhibit.
Andrew Zago, the Los Angeles architect, who came up with a plan for redesigning a partially built suburban housing development in Rialto, Calif. that the developer had to stop construction on when the financial crisis hit, said the criticism of the exhibit misses the point.
He said architecture can't fix the foreclosure crisis or solve all the many economic problems facing communities but it can come up with ideas for making those towns less prone to economic calamity.
He said architecture can't fix the foreclosure crisis or solve all the many economic problems facing communities but it can come up with ideas for making those towns less prone to economic calamity.
Clearly, from the proposals on view in “Foreclosed,” patterns and trends are emerging in terms of possible design solutions to suburban woes. And architects might be the appropriate group to suggest radical new ideas for non-urban communities, given their industry’s creative freedom and their practical awareness of zoning, engineering, and other issues. But with design-thinking often hyped as a trendy innovation buzzword in the business press, is there a risk that the exhibition might be seen as somewhat slick and gimmicky by politicians and suburban dwellers themselves?
Foreclosed's great achievement is the strong signal it sends to the culture-consuming public: in two of our most important architectural institutions, there’s an ambition for architecture to take on a more socially and financially relevant role. This is exciting. It will be even more so if Foreclosed helps to create structures of legitimation and appreciation for much more ambitious attempts to take on these questions in practice.
Such an ambitious show is bound to have weaknesses. The most glaring for me is that the exhibition is not really about the foreclosure crisis; instead, the crisis acts as an opportunity for architects to reclaim disciplinary territory ceded to other professions.
But a latent theme of the project, made clear in a video rife with doubts about architecture’s claims to power, seemed to be the challenge of using architectural techniques to resolve larger and more complex behavioral and biological problems. Could architecture really achieve all that was asked of it by the show? MOS’s skepticism provided an important counterpoint to enthusiasm of the other projects.
The show also asked architects to engage with community activists, economists, urban planners, ecologists, and experts from other fields, suggesting that architecture does best when it can manage complex input from a wide variety of professionals. To complicate things further, the design process itself beame public through a series of charettes, presentations, conferences, and blog posts, all of which are archived-and worth looking through-on the Foreclosed web site.
Bergdoll has defined his curatorship as restoring architecture to its proper place at the center of national concerns. He recognizes that its best practitioners never separate aesthetics from problem solving; they seamlessly interweave both.
I say keep trying.
I say keep trying.
13 Mar, 2012 - (@amandakhurley)
"There's something almost colonialist about this exhibition:" Felix Salmon on MoMA's Foreclosed, http://www.architectmagazine.com/exhibitions/dr …
Nullcorp
MAR 16, 2012 11:47 AM EDT
There’s the publishing world of architecture – propagated by academics and starchitects – and then there’s the people with offices in almost every town doing the best they can. The former develop illustrious careers, building reputations instead of structures. The latter do the best they can, which is rarely enough.
Some architects (including me) want to be artists, and you don’t get into a show at MoMA by proposing moderate, affordable, pragmatic solutions to housing problems. And despite prevailing sterotypes, architects don’t really have that much control over the final outcome. It takes good taste and good money to create good buildings, and since the first two are in short supply these days, so is the third.
There’s the publishing world of architecture – propagated by academics and starchitects – and then there’s the people with offices in almost every town doing the best they can. The former develop illustrious careers, building reputations instead of structures. The latter do the best they can, which is rarely enough.
Some architects (including me) want to be artists, and you don’t get into a show at MoMA by proposing moderate, affordable, pragmatic solutions to housing problems. And despite prevailing sterotypes, architects don’t really have that much control over the final outcome. It takes good taste and good money to create good buildings, and since the first two are in short supply these days, so is the third.
Michael Bell, in the video above, makes the very good point that architecture and architects are largely absent from the suburbs. But I guess that I was really looking for something much lower-cost than the mega projects that the teams in the MoMA show came up with. Certainly lower in up-front cost, anyway. The foreclosure crisis was caused by people borrowing enormous sums of money and then finding themselves unable to pay it back. The last thing we want to do is risk repeating that all over again.
The reality is that few houses in the United States are designed by architects; I remember seeing a statistic a few years ago that suggested it was roughly 5-10%. There are plenty of other people who think they can design them, such as builders or engineers or Menards. A couple of issues could be present here. Adding an architect to the homebuilding process includes another person that needs to be paid. If you are a builder who is hoping to Some designs might be considered “too modern” for many suburban neighborhoods that tend to celebrate bland or known styles. This is the reason you can get stucco houses across the country – people know these but are more skeptical of modernist homes.
Overall, I was surprised and amused by the similarities between our (student) proposals and these (professional) proposals; many of the ideas and intentions were the same, leading me to wonder if these ideas are architectural "fads" that circulate almost subconsciously here in the city.
Anonymous
03/20/12 03:34 PM
I wonder how little this office pays... if at all
I wonder how little this office pays... if at all
Unfortunately, most of these ideas get lost in the pretty models and large-scale renderings, buried under architectural gloss and the dominance of design. I have the utmost respect for the goals of the Buell Hypothesis, and I would argue that most of us at Polis are attempting to engage in a new public conversation on urbanism. However, I question the degree to which the exhibit pushes this conversation forward. Perhaps it is my own distrust of high architecture, or of architecture and architects as the primary drivers of this conversation. Much is made in the Buell text of the history of modernism and public housing, a history that made many non-designers like myself inherently distrustful of a conversation about changing cities that seems to foreground physical models.
Yake
Thu Apr 12, 03:14:00 PM EDT
I didn't see the exhibit in person like you did, Alex, but I did read about it. The part that really got under my skin was when I read that the participants, to prepare for this exhibition, had spent some time "in residence" at PS 1 in Long Island City.
Would it really have killed them to spend some time in -- gasp -- actual suburbs? I guess that was just a bridge too far.
It confirmed my pre-existing notion, which I think you echo, that architecture, generally speaking, is not a discipline that has much that's meaningful to contribute towards these issues of redefining the American Dream. To critique it and to change it, it's helpful to have even a smidgen of understanding of why it's powerful and widespread among so many people.
I didn't see the exhibit in person like you did, Alex, but I did read about it. The part that really got under my skin was when I read that the participants, to prepare for this exhibition, had spent some time "in residence" at PS 1 in Long Island City.
Would it really have killed them to spend some time in -- gasp -- actual suburbs? I guess that was just a bridge too far.
It confirmed my pre-existing notion, which I think you echo, that architecture, generally speaking, is not a discipline that has much that's meaningful to contribute towards these issues of redefining the American Dream. To critique it and to change it, it's helpful to have even a smidgen of understanding of why it's powerful and widespread among so many people.
All these communities had received stimulus money in 2009, and the designers were often approaching the sites after the money had already been spent. Though this makes the exhibit seem like a critique of irreversible and shortsighted choices in spending, it is hopeful in offering new solutions to the American Dream. Michael Bell, who worked on the Temple Terrace project near Tampa, compared the hundreds of millions of dollars of research that has gone into Honda Accords and iPhones to the tiny amount of money ("probably about $5000") that has gone into the research of single family housing. Moma's exhibit doesn't offer itself up as a solution to the lack of research, either; the design ideas in "Foreclosed" are often both practical and applicable, but they are ultimately more speculative and visionary. GetawayStyle also aspires to this new dream -- that housing can suit our everchanging lives while also having an awareness of the greater world outside our walls.
The following excerpt from the Foreclosed videos on the MOMA website is from the presentation by Michael Bell of Visible Weather. He challenges some of our most basic and entrenched beliefs about the built environment, most significantly that the free market has not served us properly in how it has built our housing and developed our neighborhoods. He’s right, look around: the free market has built crap for over half a century, and we still unquestioningly stand by it. He says the American house is a lousy commodity, that we need to use channels that work to improve it including the involvement of government.
The exhibition transports the idea that architecture as a medium effectively contemplates possible futures for cities.
Architecture projects are a highly effective medium through which to contemplate possible futures for cities. There are many ways to imagine housing different than it is now – from the way it is financed to how it is designed to how it is combined with or separated from other spaces in which other activities occur. These possibilities all imply systemic change at urban, regional, national, or international levels. Changing the cultural narratives behind the private house leads to changing the house itself, which inevitably changes the city (and the suburbs).
We tried to use structural engineering to extend space. We tried to use environmental engineering to make space not only more comfortable but also to greatly diminish the cost of living there. Our housing units are about 30% of the energy cost of an existing house.
These models are examples of the type of communities we should be demanding! Furthermore the designers, and capable minds like them, should be in positions to make decisions in regards to planning. With great talent and intelligence SHOULD come great responsibility.
shtrum
JUNE 1, 2012 • 10:09 AM
shtrum said…
At the risk of playing devil’s advocate, MOMA is only doing what MOMA does. But blaming them for popular culture is like blaming Lady Gaga for bologna sandwiches.
If architects want to know why only 2% of housing is designed by architects, they only need look in a mirror. A $200+/sf mirror.
Did i mention i was playing devil’s advocate? :)
shtrum said…
At the risk of playing devil’s advocate, MOMA is only doing what MOMA does. But blaming them for popular culture is like blaming Lady Gaga for bologna sandwiches.
If architects want to know why only 2% of housing is designed by architects, they only need look in a mirror. A $200+/sf mirror.
Did i mention i was playing devil’s advocate? :)
If a design exhibit based on something as banal as the American suburbs cannot be understood and digested by other architects, it doesn’t stand a chance at speaking to the cross-section of the American public—you know, the people who are actually living in the suburbs. Worse yet, exhibits like this are misleading people to believe that solutions like this are what architects do. It’s giving every-day, hard-working, house-purchasing people the false impression that architects don’t have both feet on the ground. Is it any wonder homeowners would rather just go to The Home Depot to accomplish that remodel than hire an architect?
While rewriting zoning laws and mortgage requirements falls outside the architect's traditional role, these extra-architectural ideas bring a fresh sense of reality to the designs. The need for designers to work hand-in-hand with financial experts and developers to effect deep change to suburbs—or anywhere else—might be the most important takeaway from the show.
12 Jun, 2012 - (@SODICRealEstate)
The beauty of architecture and creative problem solving - MoMa's solutions to the Housing Crisis in the USA http://archidose.org/wp/2012/06/11/ …
These are just a few examples of thinking big/starting small. Central to all is the belief that design matters. For decades now, we have waged a battle between Architecture (high design) and architecture (social design). But as with public and private, this is a false debate. Ultimately good design must be aesthetically engaging, economically viable, environmentally responsive and socially just. There is no either/or. If we are to meet the goal of housing for all, good design must be part of the process. This is why Foreclosed is compelling; regardless of the criticism they've inspired, all of the projects grappled with the power of good design to reshape housing. And yet they all neglected one final quality of good design: the ability to be actionable. Let's pair them with more agile, smaller-scale innovative processes, as a first step in realizing their big-scale visions.
Foreclosed is provocative and filled with many good ideas — alternatives to sprawl and auto dependency, and the mindless proliferation of detached single-family homes — but it has fallen into the trap of physical determinism — the occupational hazard of the design and planning professions. The problem is that we can’t design our way out of the foreclosure crisis, or suburban sprawl, or global climate change, or the deep class and racial divides that all these at once underscore and perpetuate. We need to stop looking for the next technological or spatial fix, because it will inevitably reflect and reproduce the entrenched economic and social inequalities that have led us to our current crisis. Design and planning must be part of the solution, but to find durable solutions we need to organize around strategies that get to the root of the problems.
Architects and planners who want to act effectively — to get to the heart of the matter — will have to stop changing the subject and moving the discussion into the familiar territory — the design studio — that they can control.
Finally, we need an open, democratic approach to long-range planning. I don’t believe it when planners and designers talk about “smart growth,” “retrofitting the suburbs,” and “transit-oriented development.” These seem to me the new mantras for professions that lack the courage to confront the real problems and challenge the dictatorship of developers. The urban planning profession fully endorsed and helped create suburban sprawl when it chose to collaborate with the homebuilding industry and accommodate itself to the highway system. It is now obediently following the market trend towards denser development without critically engaging with and supporting the widespread movements that place quality of life over growth.
KSlaught
As a non-design professional, for whom I would assume the exhibit and Mr. Martin's statement might be aimed at, I find the discussion interesting, but somewhat baffling. Mr. Martin's use of language and terminology is inherently exclusionary to those who are not of the academic/professional of which he is a part. The other essays here are more readily understandable to a layperson.
The disappointment expressed by Mr. Martin, that none of the teams used a public process to inform their entry is legitimate. Based upon lectures at the Alaska Design Forum, it appears that many designers have little interaction with the end users, whether it is housing stock or another product. The most apparently successful designers are those who engage the end users, whether it is residents of Medellin, Colombia, Aboriginal Australians, or buyers at Sacks 5th Avenue.
Mr. Agnotti accurately summarized the problem, that we cannot design ourselves out of a problem, whether it is sprawl, foreclosures, or racial divides. The faith in design to solve problems is similar to the faith in technology to solve our problems. Perhaps it would be useful to step out of the the world view that seems to inhabit these conversations and look for a different one. Take as an example that of social work, where they ideally look for and base their work on the clients' strengths and desires. Lecturing or telling society to change, without asking why it should or what currently drives the actions, will just result in frustration and a smaller and smaller audience.
07.05.12 at 02:52
The disappointment expressed by Mr. Martin, that none of the teams used a public process to inform their entry is legitimate. Based upon lectures at the Alaska Design Forum, it appears that many designers have little interaction with the end users, whether it is housing stock or another product. The most apparently successful designers are those who engage the end users, whether it is residents of Medellin, Colombia, Aboriginal Australians, or buyers at Sacks 5th Avenue.
Mr. Agnotti accurately summarized the problem, that we cannot design ourselves out of a problem, whether it is sprawl, foreclosures, or racial divides. The faith in design to solve problems is similar to the faith in technology to solve our problems. Perhaps it would be useful to step out of the the world view that seems to inhabit these conversations and look for a different one. Take as an example that of social work, where they ideally look for and base their work on the clients' strengths and desires. Lecturing or telling society to change, without asking why it should or what currently drives the actions, will just result in frustration and a smaller and smaller audience.
07.05.12 at 02:52
26 Jun, 2012 - (@LangeAlexandra )
Appreciate Tom Angotti's remarks in @PlacesJournalroundtable on MoMA's Foreclosed: design is not primary http://bit.ly/NxrSm1
BL [in response to an audience question]: In a lot of ways I think the community engagement process can be grossly misused, and it has been misused. […] And it’s unfair because nine times out ten you’re working with a community that doesn’t have your background. They don’t have your vocabulary. They certainly don’t have your resources. In a way, what we try to do is unstack the deck when we start.
BL: From the outset, I think it was clear that the public was welcome to come in and be part of the conversation, but hoping that MoMA continues to move forward and have other activities and exhibitions that focus on housing, I would hope that the next iteration of this conversation is actually brought out to the public as opposed to asking the public to come in. […] There are three necessary components to a productive dialectic: the abstract, the negative, and the concrete. Similarly, though not immediately corollary, there are three necessary participants in a healthy discussion on housing: the architects, the policymakers, and the public. So, speaking on behalf of the policymakers and in the hopes that we both endeavor to include the public early and often, I say, “Welcome Back.”
BL: The five teams, although each one of them in their own way tried to saddle up to the issue of public housing, no one really took it dead-on. No one really looked at it square in the eyes and ran at it, because it is so controversial, or that would be my guess from being on one of the teams and watching the other four teams work closely. It still has such a stigma to it. There is still such reluctance by the architectural community to reengage this issue of public housing that everyone kind of walked up to the edge and then shied back from it.
Brian Loughlin (BL): I want to thank the Museum for reengaging the issue of housing after what has been a long and notable absence. I think we can argue that also absent, from this never-ending conversation about the public’s role in the provision of housing to its citizens—as it continues in media and budget hearings and courtrooms and in community meetings— have been the contributions of academic institutions like the Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture. In fact, I would go so far as to say that in large part, Architecture (with a big A) has pulled back from the discourse on social housing in this country since the proclaimed death of modern architecture with the fall of Yamasaki’s buildings in ’72. Even the Congress for New Urbanism, coauthors of this fine document here, through their involvement with HOPE VI, have inserted themselves into the void where traditional public housing and modern architecture reportedly failed, by quietly steering its supposed cure. But, they’ve sought to do so without the appearance of Architecture (again, big A) or authorship, relying instead on the stylistics of nostalgia and the will of the public as apparently expressed in community charrettes.
Marc Jahr (MJ): I think it’s also important to note that I’m neither an architect nor a city planner. My background is as a community and tenant organizer and as an affordable housing finance practitioner. And clearly those are the lenses I look at the world through because I’ve come to realize that if you can’t finance it, you can’t build it. And if it doesn’t resonate with neighborhood residents, if they’re not involved in some way in the planning and implementation of the initiative, then the odds of it being durable are going to be slim. I suppose that’s why I took mild umbrage at Andrew Zago’s comment—Andrew, where are you?—as part of Foreclosed, his team focused upon Rialto, California, that the pedagogical lesson is that with all the value other disciplines bring to urbanism, new urban projects should be not only architect-led but architecture-led. I think that approach can lead to playful, intriguing, but problematic architectural plans.
Quality of Life (65)
archedes
10:37 AM on 08/10/2011
Arianna - You always write timely, intelligent and articulate posts. Among the most important salient points in your article today is your noting that 'we have a surplus of untapped energy and creativity and talent'. Being a creative professional myself, I do not have the words to describe the devastation myself and my colleagues have suffered during this recession - financially, emotionally and even physically. Brilliant, highly educated and experienced graphic designers, interior designers, architects, painters, artists, musicians, dancers, etc. who have made our country a better place by improving the quality of everything we see, hear, touch, taste and feel have been tossed aside. Many were self-employed and are not able to obtain any unemployment insurance or other types of assistance. Others have been forced to do work where their skills, intellect and ability are demeaned by ridiculously low pay, poor treatment and complete disregard for their talent and the positive aspects it provides. At least during the last depression , the WPA and similar programs existed to tap into these talents and provide recognition, work and intellectual relief to this forgotten segment of our society. Disregarding these talented, creative individuals is proving to be one of the greatest downfalls of our society. It's tragic, sad and truly un-American.
Arianna - You always write timely, intelligent and articulate posts. Among the most important salient points in your article today is your noting that 'we have a surplus of untapped energy and creativity and talent'. Being a creative professional myself, I do not have the words to describe the devastation myself and my colleagues have suffered during this recession - financially, emotionally and even physically. Brilliant, highly educated and experienced graphic designers, interior designers, architects, painters, artists, musicians, dancers, etc. who have made our country a better place by improving the quality of everything we see, hear, touch, taste and feel have been tossed aside. Many were self-employed and are not able to obtain any unemployment insurance or other types of assistance. Others have been forced to do work where their skills, intellect and ability are demeaned by ridiculously low pay, poor treatment and complete disregard for their talent and the positive aspects it provides. At least during the last depression , the WPA and similar programs existed to tap into these talents and provide recognition, work and intellectual relief to this forgotten segment of our society. Disregarding these talented, creative individuals is proving to be one of the greatest downfalls of our society. It's tragic, sad and truly un-American.
carolgregor, 104 Fans
04:39 PM on 08/10/2011
The challenge now is not in our ability to solve problems but in our core values as fellow human beings. The American Dream is gone as we knew it. Homes have become unhealthy physically, spiritually and soulfully. Our families are broken, medications are excessive and stress has filled our lives. Homes used to be our sacred space but today it is the cause of of distress.
How did this happen?
After a career in home design and building I became acutely aware of the pressure to have bigger and bigger homes. At the same time we have lost millions of acres of land to sprawl and the reports are in that sprawl causes heart attack and stroke because people are not moving enough. On top of this, our water is disappearing and our air is heavy because corporate builders are profit driven and have no concern for the health of the homeowner. Joined with unethical bankers, the US homeowner has poorly built expensive homes. 1/4 of homes are under water financially as poorly built ones depreciate faster than people can afford to maintain.
There are a couple of solutions that can recapture our dream. By taking personal responsibility in what we purchase we can regain control. In home design and building, choose smaller, better built homes. Buy on an existing grid and use local builders and materials. Smaller, infill homes will immediately change the quality of life we experience and we recapture the sacred core of our homesteads.
The challenge now is not in our ability to solve problems but in our core values as fellow human beings. The American Dream is gone as we knew it. Homes have become unhealthy physically, spiritually and soulfully. Our families are broken, medications are excessive and stress has filled our lives. Homes used to be our sacred space but today it is the cause of of distress.
How did this happen?
After a career in home design and building I became acutely aware of the pressure to have bigger and bigger homes. At the same time we have lost millions of acres of land to sprawl and the reports are in that sprawl causes heart attack and stroke because people are not moving enough. On top of this, our water is disappearing and our air is heavy because corporate builders are profit driven and have no concern for the health of the homeowner. Joined with unethical bankers, the US homeowner has poorly built expensive homes. 1/4 of homes are under water financially as poorly built ones depreciate faster than people can afford to maintain.
There are a couple of solutions that can recapture our dream. By taking personal responsibility in what we purchase we can regain control. In home design and building, choose smaller, better built homes. Buy on an existing grid and use local builders and materials. Smaller, infill homes will immediately change the quality of life we experience and we recapture the sacred core of our homesteads.
“The way we think about land is skewed, we think of value in terms of size and there’s a quality of land that goes way beyond what is traditionally taken into account,” Dufaux said. “And everyone we’ve talked to chooses to live here because of the natural beauty. So, when we started the project, we decided we wanted to have the city at the front door and the country at the back door.”
Keizer's Joe
August 13, 2011 at 5:18 PM
I like this design a lot better than our current Keizer Station layout. I almost dread going to Keizer Station because I always take the long way to get to where I am going. I just can’t figure out the roads. It’s confusing.
A tourist from Georgia once confronted me in the Lowes parking lot and asked me how to get to Target because he had seen it from the freeway. He seemed intelligent enough. I laughed because I told him that I live in Keizer and still can’t figure it out. I gave him the best directions I could and wished him luck. He said “Thank you for the directions and hope I can find my way back to the freeway”. I wished him good luck yet again.
I am dependent on my automobile to go from one store to the next. I love going to Bridgeport Village. Parking is a problem but once you park, it’s a pleasure to walk from store to store. And there is such variety. I can even take in a movie after shopping. It’s just an attractive place to visit. It’s inviting. The footprint of Bridgeport is so small compared to Keizer Station. It’s just a total waste of land. Too bad we can’t just start over.
I just can’t wait for the Mayor’s, Chamber of Commerce’s and the council’s Walmart to be built. Doubt that Walmart was envisioned initially but we have to please Chuck Sides. Hey, doesn’t he owe the city back taxes? Oh, he is immune to paying taxes. Too bad, the city could use the money.
I like this design a lot better than our current Keizer Station layout. I almost dread going to Keizer Station because I always take the long way to get to where I am going. I just can’t figure out the roads. It’s confusing.
A tourist from Georgia once confronted me in the Lowes parking lot and asked me how to get to Target because he had seen it from the freeway. He seemed intelligent enough. I laughed because I told him that I live in Keizer and still can’t figure it out. I gave him the best directions I could and wished him luck. He said “Thank you for the directions and hope I can find my way back to the freeway”. I wished him good luck yet again.
I am dependent on my automobile to go from one store to the next. I love going to Bridgeport Village. Parking is a problem but once you park, it’s a pleasure to walk from store to store. And there is such variety. I can even take in a movie after shopping. It’s just an attractive place to visit. It’s inviting. The footprint of Bridgeport is so small compared to Keizer Station. It’s just a total waste of land. Too bad we can’t just start over.
I just can’t wait for the Mayor’s, Chamber of Commerce’s and the council’s Walmart to be built. Doubt that Walmart was envisioned initially but we have to please Chuck Sides. Hey, doesn’t he owe the city back taxes? Oh, he is immune to paying taxes. Too bad, the city could use the money.
Almost from the beginning, MoMA architects have focused on car-driven, low-density housing as both the appeal and the curse of the suburbs. Providing services — sewage, power, garbage collection and on and on — is far more costly amid low-density settlements than it is in cities, for obvious reasons. But people crave air and light, and room to move and play sports.
FairfieldFox
September 18, 2011 at 3:40PM
Truth is, the Great Migration destroyed the great cities of Detroit, Cleveland, Chicago (Orly the Daley’s could hold this wondrously toddlin’ town together; Rahm’s clueless), Newark, L.A., Philadelphia and NYC. They aren’t coming back. Neither are places like Orange and Irvington, the former Camptown. Parasites will use our tax dollars in a quixotic attempt to recapture history, while pocketing some easy Money. Then, a thesis can be griten, a PhD for someone’s daughter in Urban Planning? Sure, why not? Then, a fellowship on the tazxpayers’ cuff. The rip-off.
It seems like only yesterday, that I could hop on the bus, for a dime, with friends and go “downtown”, to catch a ballgame, a movie or just mingle with the delightful crowds. Then, around 1958, that became dangerous for kids under 15….then under 20….then EVERYONE. The jostling started. The Huggins, the 5 vs. 2 shakedowns. The stabbings and the shootings and the rapes. A cannonball, they said, could be fired down every “Main Street”, without injuring a soul…because everyone had fled. What a helluva migration, as we look back over what was, and can never be again. Only yesterday.
Truth is, the Great Migration destroyed the great cities of Detroit, Cleveland, Chicago (Orly the Daley’s could hold this wondrously toddlin’ town together; Rahm’s clueless), Newark, L.A., Philadelphia and NYC. They aren’t coming back. Neither are places like Orange and Irvington, the former Camptown. Parasites will use our tax dollars in a quixotic attempt to recapture history, while pocketing some easy Money. Then, a thesis can be griten, a PhD for someone’s daughter in Urban Planning? Sure, why not? Then, a fellowship on the tazxpayers’ cuff. The rip-off.
It seems like only yesterday, that I could hop on the bus, for a dime, with friends and go “downtown”, to catch a ballgame, a movie or just mingle with the delightful crowds. Then, around 1958, that became dangerous for kids under 15….then under 20….then EVERYONE. The jostling started. The Huggins, the 5 vs. 2 shakedowns. The stabbings and the shootings and the rapes. A cannonball, they said, could be fired down every “Main Street”, without injuring a soul…because everyone had fled. What a helluva migration, as we look back over what was, and can never be again. Only yesterday.
The project focused on developing 2.2 miles of boulevard in Temple Terrace with housing, government offices and retail spaces. An interesting thing to note is that Temple Terrace is expected to have a 40% population gain within the next ten years, and the suburb has been trying to stop growth. Taking a radically different approach, Bell has developed a plan that can serve as an economic model to sustain growth and allow the suburb to enjoy prosperity. Plus, the model will help the region transition from a 4.5 people/acre site into a functioning 40 people/acre. The planned complex has attributes of a city and will be quite energy efficient as a way to provide an alternative solution to attract people. We loved how the architecture is designed for experiences to overlap as a person within his courtyard has a certain amount of privacy, yet can open the doors to view people in their offices lower in the complex or communicate with their other neighbors flanking their residence.
These efforts make a broader point about the quality of place. In cities across the country, from New York to New Orleans, we’ve seen when artists move in, others follow—from families looking to raise their children in dynamic, diverse neighborhoods to young creative professionals with skills that are essential to the 21st-century global economy.
Bradley
September 23, 2011 at 8:35 am
I think nurturing an arts community is also about creating community. In an increasily mobile society being alienated, or not feeling part of a community is a very real and common thing. The arts help bring back the community!
I think nurturing an arts community is also about creating community. In an increasily mobile society being alienated, or not feeling part of a community is a very real and common thing. The arts help bring back the community!
It was the stories that really made this project important for me. We asked simple questions, like, How’d you end up here? What kind of home did you come from? How would you like to live? People’s responses were candid and clear. Their thoughts indicate that not only was there a housing problem but a lack of advocacy for the needs of migrant and immigrant communities and the poor.
Barb
My parents owned 3 Levitt houses in the 50s. In the 90s I bought a Levitt cape around the block from where my parents' houses were (they'd sold and moved back closer to NYC).
To respond to the way the blocks are designed, Levittown blocks are a bit of a labyrinth, which makes it difficult for criminals seeking to rob homes to navigate. If any home is robbed, it's usually an inside job. Levittown is surrounded by low-crime neighborhoods demographically, so there's no "spillage" of crime over its borders, and as someone pointed out, has no direct connection to the LIRR, so yes, it's insular, and this is why there is a very low crime rate. This is a reason why I bought in Levittown.
Why else did I buy in Levittown? THE SCHOOL DISTRICT. Levittown's teachers' union had a landmark case in the U.S. Supreme Court, and as a result, their teachers are paid at the top of the Long Island pay scale, on par with districts like Great Neck. In education you get what you pay for!
My daughter, a Levittown graduate, attends Harvard and seminars at MIT. Levittown schools worked with me to groom her and remediate a learning disability she had. So whomever said nobody from Levittown becomes a professional is WRONG. I'm surprised the writer of this article missed mentioning the excellent schools.
As for the Village Greens, it was also missed by the writer and in comments that libraries are often found at the Village Greens. And each family got a pool pass so they could swim FOR FREE all summer long. The Greens still have concerts during the summer, and have little shops. Levittown has some very nice perks.
I left after my family was raised, and after Nassau County re-assessed my property taxes and TRIPLED them over a period of three years. But dollar for dollar, Levittown served its purpose for me. My child got an excellent education in a non-violent, quiet, fairly unspoiled and unpretentious community. Oh, and for the record, the "white trash" element hasn't been able to afford to live in Levittown since the 80s.
December 21, 2011 at 8:51 pm
To respond to the way the blocks are designed, Levittown blocks are a bit of a labyrinth, which makes it difficult for criminals seeking to rob homes to navigate. If any home is robbed, it's usually an inside job. Levittown is surrounded by low-crime neighborhoods demographically, so there's no "spillage" of crime over its borders, and as someone pointed out, has no direct connection to the LIRR, so yes, it's insular, and this is why there is a very low crime rate. This is a reason why I bought in Levittown.
Why else did I buy in Levittown? THE SCHOOL DISTRICT. Levittown's teachers' union had a landmark case in the U.S. Supreme Court, and as a result, their teachers are paid at the top of the Long Island pay scale, on par with districts like Great Neck. In education you get what you pay for!
My daughter, a Levittown graduate, attends Harvard and seminars at MIT. Levittown schools worked with me to groom her and remediate a learning disability she had. So whomever said nobody from Levittown becomes a professional is WRONG. I'm surprised the writer of this article missed mentioning the excellent schools.
As for the Village Greens, it was also missed by the writer and in comments that libraries are often found at the Village Greens. And each family got a pool pass so they could swim FOR FREE all summer long. The Greens still have concerts during the summer, and have little shops. Levittown has some very nice perks.
I left after my family was raised, and after Nassau County re-assessed my property taxes and TRIPLED them over a period of three years. But dollar for dollar, Levittown served its purpose for me. My child got an excellent education in a non-violent, quiet, fairly unspoiled and unpretentious community. Oh, and for the record, the "white trash" element hasn't been able to afford to live in Levittown since the 80s.
December 21, 2011 at 8:51 pm
macphile
I live in the sprawlingest (yes, it's a word) city there is, let me tell you, and there has to come a point where we stop. People already have 1-hour commutes or more, all so they can have their perfect (cheaply built) house in good school districts. If they go much further, they'll be in the district of the next city over. Quality of life isn't just about keeping your kids away from the minorities and "teh gayz." It should also be about how much of your life you're spending in traffic jams and whether there's any nature left for your kids to see because you've bulldozed it all (just so you can complain when the neighborhood is "invaded" by wild animals). And those lawns...and those deed restrictions. It's all a blight. A blight, I say.
December 20, 2011 at 5:44 pm
December 20, 2011 at 5:44 pm
Ziggy Stardust
Houston is a dump with the worst weather on the planet next to the miserable jungle in Vietnam. They also appear to have no zoning there, you often see a body shop or dry cleaners next to a home in what appears to be a residential neighborhood. What hicks in the rest of the country don't seem to understand about living in the Northeast is the opportunity to make big money here. I worked in Venture Capital for 15 years in NYC, made a boatload of money, had a big house in CT, cars, the dream. Then it all came crashing down in 2008. I sold everything I could and moved to Wyoming where I now work as a tile setter (my dad tought me the trade when I was a kid) I couldn't be happier. I miss all the toys, but life is good. Wyoming is breathtakingly beautiful Houston is just breathtaking (FROM THE STENCH)
December 20, 2011 at 2:26 pm
December 20, 2011 at 2:26 pm
KPMCO
I think you're very sadly mistaken. My mother had a high school diploma, was divorced, and still saved to purchase her own home in Houston. I moved to Florida, and after 10 years of saving, and waiting for the right opportunity, I have also purchased my own home. I have a bachelor's degree in English...and have worked in call centers among other places, to earn a living. Stop thinking that you have to be extremely wealthy to own a nice home. I saved a lot...up to 20% of my income...didn't buy a lot of electronics or fancy clothes, new cars, or ate out as much as my friends do. I still socialize, but in simpler ways..a video, card games, pot luck social dinners. All things are possible, but you need to prioritize and make choices to achieve your goals.
December 20, 2011 at 1:15 pm
December 20, 2011 at 1:15 pm
Her son-in-law and two of her grandchildren are out of work because of the Wall Street crash a few years ago. Right now, amazingly, all of her 15 grandchildren and 27 great-grandchildren live within a 10-minute drive of her home. But she fears that will change.
The suburban dream isn't the same for them, she said.
"It'll never happen again," she said of the suburban boom.
And that's too bad: "It was a much nicer way of living."
The suburban dream isn't the same for them, she said.
"It'll never happen again," she said of the suburban boom.
And that's too bad: "It was a much nicer way of living."
Zak Klemmer
APRIL 9, 2012, 3:14 P.M.
Is this Art or propaganda? I left apartment living for the suburbs and have no intention of moving back to high density.
Is this Art or propaganda? I left apartment living for the suburbs and have no intention of moving back to high density.
A wide range of ecological functions make a city infrastructure that promotes sustainable living as a shared individual and communal undertaking, and also generates new living experiences and new kinds of public spaces from its various components.
“Foreclosed” does a fine job of analyzing these changes and of offering tentative, provocative solutions. For all its thoughtfulness and rigor, though, a whiff of colonialism blows through the project, with its corps of city-based experts venturing into suburbia with maps and modern technology and plans for reforming the indigenous culture. The visions they come up with have a familiar urban feel, and the show replaces old conventional wisdom with the only slightly fresher dogma of density, a word that irritates millions. Packing people close together has virtues that don’t need to be spelled out to most readers of this magazine, and dispersing the population as wantonly and deliberately as we have in the last 70 years has been a colossal environmental blunder. We need more variety of settlement types. But suburbanites like the suburbs. To dismiss the deeply ingrained desire for a buffer zone between one household and another is to turn potential allies into a hostile cul-de-sac army. You can’t wish the ’burbs away, and you can’t turn them into imitation cities.
KAZOOGUY
Justin's closing remarks have it right. After living in an urban core with flocks of pigeons and 20-something bar hoppers, we were ready for the green grass and birds of suburbia. Now we're looking again - for an aging-in-place suburban homestead that will support a 2- or 3- workstation home business office and a live-in housekeeper. Complicated? Yes. Impossible? Not at all. Add a neighborhood shuttle, a rec center, a boutique grocery, a coffee shop, and walking/bicycling trail connectivity and you'll have a community for those of us lucky enough to not have to commute downtown each day, which is a rapidly growing portion of the workforce.
6 Months Ago
6 Months Ago
Anonymous
wtf -- I want to know what mindbending chemicals these people are on to design this utter crap and expect people to joyfully live in it.
2/15/2012 1:56 PM CST
2/15/2012 1:56 PM CST
Anonymous
This is a terrific question for the design community but “Academics” are not equipped to address it because by definition they are insulated from the market forces that drive these questions.
Their design responses always seem to find answers in central planning socialism (or communism) where the lord in charge decrees how the little people shall live. In the context of the greatest economy on earth, these solutions always vary from amusing and trendy to useless. Ironically and predictably, the housing solutions generated by real world socialists and communists are among the worst on the planet!
Two years ago I outlined a grant project to design and build "the next American Home" using an award winning, very expensive, AE design and development team that no market rate home owner could ever afford. My local region's weather, utility rates, standard of living, aesthetic sensibilities and real estate market would all form the basis for this project. Once constructed, it would be leased and its overall performance measured over years – including elements like comfort, pride of ownership and livability in addition to the boring engineering stuff like energy performance.
The goal would be to offer a platform for the next generation of America’s homebuilders to reference when that industry recovers. I will not give away all the beans because I may resurrect it someday but needless to say, even in this economy I became too busy to fuss around with it.
2/13/2012 4:12 PM CST
Their design responses always seem to find answers in central planning socialism (or communism) where the lord in charge decrees how the little people shall live. In the context of the greatest economy on earth, these solutions always vary from amusing and trendy to useless. Ironically and predictably, the housing solutions generated by real world socialists and communists are among the worst on the planet!
Two years ago I outlined a grant project to design and build "the next American Home" using an award winning, very expensive, AE design and development team that no market rate home owner could ever afford. My local region's weather, utility rates, standard of living, aesthetic sensibilities and real estate market would all form the basis for this project. Once constructed, it would be leased and its overall performance measured over years – including elements like comfort, pride of ownership and livability in addition to the boring engineering stuff like energy performance.
The goal would be to offer a platform for the next generation of America’s homebuilders to reference when that industry recovers. I will not give away all the beans because I may resurrect it someday but needless to say, even in this economy I became too busy to fuss around with it.
2/13/2012 4:12 PM CST
Barry Bergdoll, the museum’s chief curator of architecture and design, describes the proposals as portents of a “more sustainable, more equitable future, filled with optimism for places where that is often in short supply."
jla-x
Feb 23, 12 12:07 pm
Sub-urban and suburban are also two very different things. I would argue that sub-urban is not bad. A good example of this is in some parts of Brooklyn, Queens, and Nassau county NY. The density is greater than the typical suburban environment, and there is a small business walkable street scape that flanks a mix of multi and single family housing in many of these neighborhoods. There is also access to public transit in and out of the city. There is a mix of home owners and renters, and the opportunity to own a house and rent out the top floor. There is a sense of community and a feeling of being in a small town within a city. The film "Do the Right Thing" by Spike Lee so clearly expresses this. Another issue is density. More density is not the solution alone. We need to find an appropriate balance of density, production, and economy so that development can be in some sort of sustainable balance. I think that sub-urban form has the greatest potential for a sustainable development because there is enough space to support a mix of agriculture, industry,small business, housing, park space, etc...as well as enough density to support local businesses with regard to employees and consumers. Cities like manhattan will never be able to become hybrid typologies because things like urban agriculture and production will be far too expensive due to crazy high land prices. The only problem with the sub-urban typology is that it sometimes becomes gentrified over time as we see in brooklyn or the opposite happens where it becomes a ghetto due to the home values going down as density goes up like in Jamaica Queens (balance is always a thin line). On the other hand, suburban development lends itself to exploitation by corporate interests as James R. clearly articulates. The American dream of owning a single family home is not going away. It is a part of the American culture that dates back hundreds of years. We need to find a solution to the problem without ignoring the cultural mentality that led to it. This is why ideas like the ones in the MoMA exhibit never work. I believe that we need to study examples that already work like Astoria, and go from there.
Sub-urban and suburban are also two very different things. I would argue that sub-urban is not bad. A good example of this is in some parts of Brooklyn, Queens, and Nassau county NY. The density is greater than the typical suburban environment, and there is a small business walkable street scape that flanks a mix of multi and single family housing in many of these neighborhoods. There is also access to public transit in and out of the city. There is a mix of home owners and renters, and the opportunity to own a house and rent out the top floor. There is a sense of community and a feeling of being in a small town within a city. The film "Do the Right Thing" by Spike Lee so clearly expresses this. Another issue is density. More density is not the solution alone. We need to find an appropriate balance of density, production, and economy so that development can be in some sort of sustainable balance. I think that sub-urban form has the greatest potential for a sustainable development because there is enough space to support a mix of agriculture, industry,small business, housing, park space, etc...as well as enough density to support local businesses with regard to employees and consumers. Cities like manhattan will never be able to become hybrid typologies because things like urban agriculture and production will be far too expensive due to crazy high land prices. The only problem with the sub-urban typology is that it sometimes becomes gentrified over time as we see in brooklyn or the opposite happens where it becomes a ghetto due to the home values going down as density goes up like in Jamaica Queens (balance is always a thin line). On the other hand, suburban development lends itself to exploitation by corporate interests as James R. clearly articulates. The American dream of owning a single family home is not going away. It is a part of the American culture that dates back hundreds of years. We need to find a solution to the problem without ignoring the cultural mentality that led to it. This is why ideas like the ones in the MoMA exhibit never work. I believe that we need to study examples that already work like Astoria, and go from there.
20 Feb, 2012 - (@BLOKConference)
What do you think about a bit different neighborhood ? ... http://www.moma.org/interactives/e …
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
Diana Lind wrote a fairly heated denunciation of the exhibition at Next American City; I didn’t feel the architects involved “demonized” the suburbs, but I also didn’t see a natural bridge between the visions and blueprints. I wonder if the show might have been stronger if it had stopped short of asking the architects to build new towns, which end up looking and sounding a lot like new Brooklyns. Three stories, home offices, granny flats, walkable. That's my life, but many of my friends don't want it.
What is it that you really need? the architects ask. And How long will you need it? Their responses are flexible spaces and flexible financial instruments, a clever response to the frustration one feels over homeless here and empty houses there, people with too much space and those with too little. These are necessary questions, and there is no doubt architects need to be involved from the beginning with finding answers. The fact that every team felt the need to redesign the ownership structure of the suburbs, as well as the suburban home, indicates a willingness to go beyond the aesthetic that is one of the best reveals of this MoMA series.
For me, the most interesting shared idea in "Foreclosed" came in the form of lists. The task embedded in “Simultaneous City,” the project led by architects Michael Bell and Eunjeong Seong of Visible Weather is the identification of what people really like about suburban living and the question, Can they do that with less? Their list includes outdoor space, privacy, and room to move. Their solution involved a higher-density, energy-efficient mixed use development, owned in common by the citizens via a public REIT.
CH: What does that mean? I think we sort of have a sense of the automobile, the sort of oil-fueled world of post-World War II America and suburban sprawl as these kinds of the things that have conspired to build the great sprawling American suburban landscape. What does rethinking that involve from a design perspective? From a policy perspective?
MB: […] In the 1990s you had a booming economy, you had a kind ofpush to alter, if not end, the welfare state. By the 2000s, you have a real estate bubble. And today you have a foreclosure crisis. But in all of these situations, there are a couple things that have been consistent. The amount of money people spend on housing and transportation is immense. They can’t afford it. You don’t want to tell people they can’t afford something and say that’s the reason to change. You want to be more positive than that. But there are many, many factors about affordability, about energy consumption, and frankly about the role of design in any of it. The American single-family house is a commodity product that has virtually no research and development, no design. Architects, in a spec house in Houston in the late 1990s—their fee was about twelve dollars per house. These are mass-produced commodities. There is no professional engagement. […] I think most of the people in this exhibition are quite
positive and excited about the suburbs. We know it’s a deeply, deeply important part of the American ethos, if not just everyday life of course. But, they’re not inevitable. And the financial underpinnings of them have really dramatically shifted in the last five, ten, fifteen years—not just the last two.
CH: Talk about that R&D thing. You made a point in the video in the exhibition that blew my mind about the comparison between how much money in R&D goes into your iPhone or anti-lock brakes versus an American home.
MB: I did mention anti-lock brakes. For many commodities, before they hit the market, there are billions of dollars that might precede it, whether it’s Clorox or whether it’s an iPhone or a Honda Civic which is quite an ingenious product. Housing as we know it has kind of ironed all of that
out of it, and it did it a long time ago. […] They are paying Mercedes Benz prices for a twenty-year-old used car. The single-family house market atomizes out all of the financial processes, and you still are spending large sums of money, but you’re not getting the sophisticated product. It’s not that it’s not a nice product or something people love, but it could be much, much better in energy and everything else.
MB: […] In the 1990s you had a booming economy, you had a kind ofpush to alter, if not end, the welfare state. By the 2000s, you have a real estate bubble. And today you have a foreclosure crisis. But in all of these situations, there are a couple things that have been consistent. The amount of money people spend on housing and transportation is immense. They can’t afford it. You don’t want to tell people they can’t afford something and say that’s the reason to change. You want to be more positive than that. But there are many, many factors about affordability, about energy consumption, and frankly about the role of design in any of it. The American single-family house is a commodity product that has virtually no research and development, no design. Architects, in a spec house in Houston in the late 1990s—their fee was about twelve dollars per house. These are mass-produced commodities. There is no professional engagement. […] I think most of the people in this exhibition are quite
positive and excited about the suburbs. We know it’s a deeply, deeply important part of the American ethos, if not just everyday life of course. But, they’re not inevitable. And the financial underpinnings of them have really dramatically shifted in the last five, ten, fifteen years—not just the last two.
CH: Talk about that R&D thing. You made a point in the video in the exhibition that blew my mind about the comparison between how much money in R&D goes into your iPhone or anti-lock brakes versus an American home.
MB: I did mention anti-lock brakes. For many commodities, before they hit the market, there are billions of dollars that might precede it, whether it’s Clorox or whether it’s an iPhone or a Honda Civic which is quite an ingenious product. Housing as we know it has kind of ironed all of that
out of it, and it did it a long time ago. […] They are paying Mercedes Benz prices for a twenty-year-old used car. The single-family house market atomizes out all of the financial processes, and you still are spending large sums of money, but you’re not getting the sophisticated product. It’s not that it’s not a nice product or something people love, but it could be much, much better in energy and everything else.
After this, however, Nature-City has some clever tricks up its sleeves. A water tower housed at the top of an apartment block cascades down as an indoors waterfall. Buildings are equipped with cut-outs and internal parks to encourage animal migration. The strangest structure might be an enormous dome that uses methane from the city’s waste to heat public swimming pools. As an update on Ebenezer Howard’s Garden City, it’s playful, utopian, and probably a nice place to live.
DAVID N, WEST SPRINGFIELD, MA, USA
4/3/2012 3:59
THIS IS THE UGLIEST STUPIDITY I'VE EVER SEEN, BRING IN AN ARTIST TO PAINT YOU CANVAS I THINK A SMALL CHILD WITH CRAYONS COULD HAVE DONE A BETTER JOB. WHAT IS NEEDED IS TO ALLOW THE MASSES TO BE EXPOSED TO BEAUTY THAT THE ELITE CLASS ENJOY TODAY, WHAT YOUR TRYING TO DO IS HELL
THIS IS THE UGLIEST STUPIDITY I'VE EVER SEEN, BRING IN AN ARTIST TO PAINT YOU CANVAS I THINK A SMALL CHILD WITH CRAYONS COULD HAVE DONE A BETTER JOB. WHAT IS NEEDED IS TO ALLOW THE MASSES TO BE EXPOSED TO BEAUTY THAT THE ELITE CLASS ENJOY TODAY, WHAT YOUR TRYING TO DO IS HELL
Tony, Bristol, UK
3/3/2012 15:12
People aspire to live in their own homes - not apartment blocks, not condos. They want a house, with a garden for their kids. Stop with the unrealistic idea that you can force people into these sorts of housing projects.
People aspire to live in their own homes - not apartment blocks, not condos. They want a house, with a garden for their kids. Stop with the unrealistic idea that you can force people into these sorts of housing projects.
-CJW, Tracy, CA, USA
3/3/2012 12:55
Urban planners will never understand 50%+ of the population DON'T WANT to live in multi-unit dwellings in their beloved cities, but they keep trying anyway. Like Jon from Cheyenne said, many prefer and like our own S-P-A-C-E away from all of the traffic, crime, and supposed "enlightenment" that city life purports to offer. They can have it and LEAVE US ALONE!
Urban planners will never understand 50%+ of the population DON'T WANT to live in multi-unit dwellings in their beloved cities, but they keep trying anyway. Like Jon from Cheyenne said, many prefer and like our own S-P-A-C-E away from all of the traffic, crime, and supposed "enlightenment" that city life purports to offer. They can have it and LEAVE US ALONE!
03 Mar, 2012 - (@PlanetGBS )
One truly impressive effort @ MOMA's #Foreclosed. Studio Gang's design. http://bit.ly/yUcYVp East test: would I live there? Yep.
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/cicero/
Timothy
07/07/2012 07:58 AM
The exhibit on Nature City in particular was so good/real my children (honor roll twins headed into 7th grade) asked about the possibility of moving there and I am disappointed to find it was all a dream...what a wonderful reality this would be.
The exhibit on Nature City in particular was so good/real my children (honor roll twins headed into 7th grade) asked about the possibility of moving there and I am disappointed to find it was all a dream...what a wonderful reality this would be.
Alanis
03/07/2012 10:54 AM
aweful. Close to nature? pffff
aweful. Close to nature? pffff
Gang suggests that people who can’t afford suburban single-family houses might instead occupy adaptively reused factories on remediated brownfields. It’s one thing for artists to choose to occupy potentially noxious former factories, as they did in SoHo in the ’70s, but another to imagine that Cicero’s poorer residents trade health for square footage.
I took these images at the MoMA exhibit, ‘Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream”. They had these tabletop displays of re-imagined urban living spaces where everything was more communal, economical and efficient. What struck me about the mock ups was not their architectural design, though impressive, but the little snapshots of life within them. It gave me an almost Laforet-esque feeling on the microcosm of how we live amongst the urban sprawl. It was a great exhibit, I highly I recommend if your able to go
Anonymous
05/30/12 01:18 AM
We went to check the community out a few days ago. Best way to know how livable a neighborhood is... Ask those who live there. We spoke to three people who have homes there and they enjoy it there. That's what we will look for. We don't care what outsiders say... Lol
We went to check the community out a few days ago. Best way to know how livable a neighborhood is... Ask those who live there. We spoke to three people who have homes there and they enjoy it there. That's what we will look for. We don't care what outsiders say... Lol
Anonymous
I think the market is determining that suburbs are unsustainable and more dense living is the way to go. In suburbs around Chicago, like Arlington Heights, downtowns were designed, developed and built so people can have that downtown feel. People want places to have dinner, then walk to the show, and then have ice cream afterwards. All within walking distance. For those of you who haven't tried it, treat yourself to the experience.
3/22/2012 12:33 AM CDT
3/22/2012 12:33 AM CDT
29 Mar, 2012 - (@juliaccooke)
Somehow the 'nature' in Nature City proposal for "Foreclosed" @momafeels not so relaxing. Nice models, though. pic.twitter.com/QlYmNtqx
Somehow the 'nature' in Nature City proposal for "Foreclosed" @momafeels not so relaxing. Nice models, though. pic.twitter.com/QlYmNtqx
“We agree with the themes of mixed use,” said Valerie Jackson, Orange’s director of planning and development, “and we think it’s very important to include wellness in the form of an exercise center that is open to tenants and the public. What we don’t agree with is putting structures up that close off the streets.”
The typical image of an American suburb, as we can see in movies and TV, is nothing else but boring, monochrome, seething world with cheap fast-food restaurants, old gas stations, and a mix of problems, such as poverty, drugs, and racial squabbles.
However, the original idea of designing neighborhoods was to escape all of these city life hardships and to live in a quiet, green and neat place with a family. Suburbs have long been the sites of a key component of American dream – personal ownership of a single-family home, an investment that once guaranteed stability and legacy for next generations.
However, the original idea of designing neighborhoods was to escape all of these city life hardships and to live in a quiet, green and neat place with a family. Suburbs have long been the sites of a key component of American dream – personal ownership of a single-family home, an investment that once guaranteed stability and legacy for next generations.
There is a very long, complex promenade that is a little like the promenade of the suburbs. It is still to some extent the same choreography but greatly compressed and you are walking for far more of it. This world is constituted with one type of privacy and this world has a very different sense of privacy which is actually very open but two are highly aware of each other. And in our logic the privacy is not completely walling yourself off from the world but privacy is a sense of realizing who is where and what they are doing. And that allows you to be calm in your own space. In the end we are making about 40 units an acre.
Does a design exhibit ominously called Foreclosed have a fighting chance to shape a new, hopeful vision for the American suburb, traditionally a no man’s land for architecture? All five of these accomplished schemes have been imagined by architects based in large cities who offer formal solutions to the suburban housing crisis, rather than aspirational ones devised by suburban residents themselves. Obviously, many Americans value the light, space, quiet, and autonomy that suburban living affords, but this lifestyle calculus is slowly changing as prospective homebuyers realize that energy and fuel will only become scarcer and more expensive as traditional suburb-to-city commutes become longer and more perilous.
Each of the five projects on display confounds common assumptions about what a suburb looks like and what it's like to live in one. Many designs set out to provide integrated live/work spaces, active pedestrian life, increased architectural variety, greater social integration, and generous green spaces. Yet none offer an architectural vision that feels truly suburban. Instead, most projects propose dense, urban schemes.
And as designed, suburbs may no longer be how most of us want to live or work. Many of us want to be less reliant on our cars, especially with rising gas prices. We want to have communal public spaces for living and working, to be closer to stores, social services, and to build wealth for our families in diverse ways, not only through traditional homeownership.
And so it seems that we can have it all: urbanity, diversity of choices, a high quality of life that does not revolve around the automobile, and a healthy and economically sustainable community. And the chance to be “roommates with nature.” I particularly love how Nature-City dares to give kids of every age a landscape of opportunity for discovery and joy.
HUFFPOST SUPER USER, blackranger, 602 Fans
01:19 PM on 07/23/2012
you would be a lot safer if you actually met those neighbors, for many reasons
you would be a lot safer if you actually met those neighbors, for many reasons
HUFFPOST SUPER USER, bryan broome, All your money won't another minute buy, 584 Fans
08:42 AM on 07/23/2012
Some of us don't like living shoulder to shoulder with strangers.
Some of us don't like living shoulder to shoulder with strangers.
mcmutter, A Groover has to expect a few setbacks ....., 3052 Fans
06:10 AM on 07/23/2012
those 55+ housing developments are 20x worse .... nobody even walks the streets or goes outside .....
those 55+ housing developments are 20x worse .... nobody even walks the streets or goes outside .....
HUFFPOST SUPER USER, RetiredUSAF05, A 1%'er voting Obama 2012, 152 Fans
02:57 AM on 07/23/2012
"Arresting angles and curves" DO NOT equate to usable space! Higher density yes, walkable neighborhoods yes. As a degree in civil engineering, design practical floor plans in various sizes for a diverse market. Forget wasted spaces in weird angles and oddly shaped rooms. You pay a premium for a useless layout with strange angles where you can't live.
"Arresting angles and curves" DO NOT equate to usable space! Higher density yes, walkable neighborhoods yes. As a degree in civil engineering, design practical floor plans in various sizes for a diverse market. Forget wasted spaces in weird angles and oddly shaped rooms. You pay a premium for a useless layout with strange angles where you can't live.
smeeeee, 133 Fans
07:50 AM on 07/23/2012
What builds community is working together, and families intermarrying. But we don't need to work together, since survival needs are all provided for on the whole, plus we have this American mythos of individual independence. And we move around a lot, that is also a disadvantage. If you go someplace where people do need to work together and have lived there a couple of generations, you will find community.
What builds community is working together, and families intermarrying. But we don't need to work together, since survival needs are all provided for on the whole, plus we have this American mythos of individual independence. And we move around a lot, that is also a disadvantage. If you go someplace where people do need to work together and have lived there a couple of generations, you will find community.
January, 83 Fans
12:44 AM on 07/23/2012
"We need another housing boom."
We need a "community" boom. Sprawling suburbs don't build community. Neither does living on top of each other (recall what has happened to public housing). Most disappointing is that we do not even seem able to recognize what "community" is or what it might look like.
I don't blame builders; it's a lot bigger than that. Most of us do not want any outsiders sticking their noses into our business. Just look how hard it is to protect children, women, and the elderly. Our cities require pioneers, and most of us are simply not up to that, as heroic as it might sound.
No, there is no easy answer. But can't we at least begin asking the right question? "Why can't we just get along together?" Then let's build whatever that takes.
"We need another housing boom."
We need a "community" boom. Sprawling suburbs don't build community. Neither does living on top of each other (recall what has happened to public housing). Most disappointing is that we do not even seem able to recognize what "community" is or what it might look like.
I don't blame builders; it's a lot bigger than that. Most of us do not want any outsiders sticking their noses into our business. Just look how hard it is to protect children, women, and the elderly. Our cities require pioneers, and most of us are simply not up to that, as heroic as it might sound.
No, there is no easy answer. But can't we at least begin asking the right question? "Why can't we just get along together?" Then let's build whatever that takes.
HUFFPOST SUPER USER, Mary Blickhahn, Is this really the best we can do?, 1291 Fans
12:42 AM on 07/23/2012
There are many good ideas and many bad ones. What is important is remain clear that one solution will not work for everyone and in every area. Plus all ideas will have to manage the actual implementation. Making it a reality often takes quite a bit of compromise. I do not like the over populations idea..that has proven to be a failure and a cesspool for disease. Those zoning laws prohibiting it are there for a reason. This is not a solution, but a night mare.
There are many good ideas and many bad ones. What is important is remain clear that one solution will not work for everyone and in every area. Plus all ideas will have to manage the actual implementation. Making it a reality often takes quite a bit of compromise. I do not like the over populations idea..that has proven to be a failure and a cesspool for disease. Those zoning laws prohibiting it are there for a reason. This is not a solution, but a night mare.
The Cicero plan may be the most intriguing, because it is crafted for a community that holds large numbers of recent immigrants from Mexico and Central America. We may tend to think of the suburbs as an expression of inclinations to break free of the city and get closer to nature, but these residents are generally not motivated by urban escape fantasies: They want to be closer to jobs and they want the opportunity to start businesses, and want access to good schools for their children and decent housing at an affordable price. For them, separating residential and commercial life is an inconvenience and a hardship, a relic of housing policy best relinquished.
The exhibit is at root an attempt to exploit the trauma at hand -- a foreclosure crisis that has swept through suburbs with malevolent force -- as an opportunity to reexamine the conditions that got us here. For decades, homebuilders and their financiers marketed an appealing version of the American dream, the idea that nourishing family life plays out in new single-family homes, the trophies of upward mobility. That vision has gone cancerous. We are wasting hours in traffic and dollars on gasoline. We are squandering land on individual lots that could be used as broader green space. Government is surrendering vast sums to maintain highways when it could repurpose that money toward energy-efficient mass transit.
Asking question such as, "What if we could create an entirely walkable suburb?" or "How can we live sustainably while close to nature?," the teams came up with truly unique, thought-provoking, and innovative proposals for addressing the crisis. My favorites were Nature City, which "combines the conveniences of urban life with the health benefits and access to agriculture of country living," and Simultaneous City, in which "publicly owned local land remains a public asset, and the income derived from development is shared with citizens" (-moma.org).
BL: Jeanne Gang’s “Machine in the Garden” is perhaps the place to start, as the central elements of the project are so clearly and bilingually communicated. One thing I cannot overstate is the value of community participation, which this team did better than anyone else. It costs very little to hold community meetings, interview residents, paint murals, and build neighborhood gardens and playgrounds, especially when compared to the overall cost of developing affordable housing, but the dividends reaped from these efforts are invaluable in terms of achieving a sustainable community that residents want to be a part of. Pride of ownership of individual property, which is something that has been pushed for a long time—again, since ’72— is nothing compared to the pride or want to belong to one’s community.
SheilaKhani
hp_blogger_Jonny Stewart, as long as we have Internet access
disclosureproject
when one doesnt have much to start with doesnt mean much to lose much
Typical_Boston_Liberal
JamesPowers, That number goes way down with a college education, and even further with a graduate level education. If you find a job you love, you'll want a house some day. There's no feeling like it, and that's why this is such a sad story.
Adlerrealestate
I started working NELA area 18 months ago feel in love with it and now have moved my Fam here.
Luke_Cloran
Theres a difference between suburb "developments", and actual communities.
JamesPowers
thats what is so brilliant about this...i think the old guard is going to get a real wake up about how america has changed. I dont want a damn yard i have to mowe haha I admit it im lazy
disclosureproject
i would like to live in a 55 and over community
Reference & Comparison (209)
Andrés Duany
5. “Zago vehemently attacked Dunham-Jones and New Urbanism for not having produced a single piece of ‘significant’ architecture, asking when they would give up in failure.”
Andrew Zago has achieved a new level of ignorance regarding the New Urbanism. I searched the net for a picture of him and was surprised to find that he does not look quite as slack-jawed stupid as he sounds, even though appearance is apparently how he judges substance.
Now (LORD grant me patience!), “significant” architecture is not really how New Urbanists keep score. We do so in many other ways: how many cars not bought; how many vehicle miles reduced; how much transit supported; how much carbon not spewed into the atmosphere; how many children and old folk walk to their daily needs; how much infrastructure cost saved; how much less expended on the delivery of municipal services; how many HOPE VI houses cherished by their residents; how much real estate value created; how many total acres under design (either as New Urbanist communities or through form-based codes); how many downtowns revitalized; how much choice available regionally to those whom suburbia does not serve well; and so on.
But Architect Zago keeps score by other means — like securing the good opinion of about a half-dozen critics in Los Angeles and New York. Indeed, he operates in a world so marginal that I need to be reminded of its existence, monthly, by Metropolis.
That his statement was thoroughly engaged by Director Martin, rather than being ignored as the antics of a simpleton, shows what kind of emissions pass for discourse in academia these days.
But let’s have a look at it from Architect Zago’s point of view. It turns out that even by the tight little standards of his world, and within just one little project (Seaside), there might be as much “significant” architecture as Architect Zago himself might hope to achieve in a lifetime. Seaside has Steve Holl’s first large building. Machado/Silvetti’s first large building. The first buildings (at least three each, and darn good, too) of Deborah Berke, Alex Gorlin, and Walter Chatham. The only building of Roger Ferri. The first building of Leon Krier. The only American house by Aldo Rossi. A wonderfully melancholic house by Sam Mockbee. Clever and charming pavilions by Michael McDonough, Stuart Cohen and Jersey Devil. A national AIA award-winning and gorgeous church by Scott Merrill. And those are only some of the modernism by the “names,” not all the best buildings.
Architect Zago is doubly ignorant: first of what New Urbanism intends to achieve on its own terms, and then of what it has achieved even on his terms.
Am I to understand that he teaches somewhere?
May 26, 2011, @ 2:49 pm
Andrew Zago has achieved a new level of ignorance regarding the New Urbanism. I searched the net for a picture of him and was surprised to find that he does not look quite as slack-jawed stupid as he sounds, even though appearance is apparently how he judges substance.
Now (LORD grant me patience!), “significant” architecture is not really how New Urbanists keep score. We do so in many other ways: how many cars not bought; how many vehicle miles reduced; how much transit supported; how much carbon not spewed into the atmosphere; how many children and old folk walk to their daily needs; how much infrastructure cost saved; how much less expended on the delivery of municipal services; how many HOPE VI houses cherished by their residents; how much real estate value created; how many total acres under design (either as New Urbanist communities or through form-based codes); how many downtowns revitalized; how much choice available regionally to those whom suburbia does not serve well; and so on.
But Architect Zago keeps score by other means — like securing the good opinion of about a half-dozen critics in Los Angeles and New York. Indeed, he operates in a world so marginal that I need to be reminded of its existence, monthly, by Metropolis.
That his statement was thoroughly engaged by Director Martin, rather than being ignored as the antics of a simpleton, shows what kind of emissions pass for discourse in academia these days.
But let’s have a look at it from Architect Zago’s point of view. It turns out that even by the tight little standards of his world, and within just one little project (Seaside), there might be as much “significant” architecture as Architect Zago himself might hope to achieve in a lifetime. Seaside has Steve Holl’s first large building. Machado/Silvetti’s first large building. The first buildings (at least three each, and darn good, too) of Deborah Berke, Alex Gorlin, and Walter Chatham. The only building of Roger Ferri. The first building of Leon Krier. The only American house by Aldo Rossi. A wonderfully melancholic house by Sam Mockbee. Clever and charming pavilions by Michael McDonough, Stuart Cohen and Jersey Devil. A national AIA award-winning and gorgeous church by Scott Merrill. And those are only some of the modernism by the “names,” not all the best buildings.
Architect Zago is doubly ignorant: first of what New Urbanism intends to achieve on its own terms, and then of what it has achieved even on his terms.
Am I to understand that he teaches somewhere?
May 26, 2011, @ 2:49 pm
Martin, the historian, illustrated his role by reframing the vitriol of team leader Andrew Zago with historical precision. Zago vehemently attacked Dunham-Jones and New Urbanism for not having produced a single piece of “significant” architecture, asking when they would give up in failure. Martin illustrated the false polarization of Zago’s argument – which pitted avant-garde or “significant” architecture against the kitsch that often results from New Urbanist ideology – redirecting the attack to Yale faculty member Leon Krier and making explicit the historical embroilment of the “significant” Ivy Leagues with suburban detritus.
Martin, the historian, illustrated his role by reframing the vitriol of team leader Andrew Zago with historical precision. Zago vehemently attacked Dunham-Jones and New Urbanism for not having produced a single piece of “significant” architecture, asking when they would give up in failure. Martin illustrated the false polarization of Zago’s argument – which pitted avant-garde or “significant” architecture against the kitsch that often results from New Urbanist ideology – redirecting the attack to Yale faculty member Leon Krier and making explicit the historical embroilment of the “significant” Ivy Leagues with suburban detritus.
david@davidhwells.com
SEPTEMBER 1, 2011, 6:00 P.M.
I have been photographing in and around foreclosed houses across the country for over two years, starting in April 2009, in a project I call “Foreclosed Dreams.” You can see the work and read more about that at: http://www.davidhwells.com/docuForeclosedDreams/index.html#_self
I have been photographing in and around foreclosed houses across the country for over two years, starting in April 2009, in a project I call “Foreclosed Dreams.” You can see the work and read more about that at: http://www.davidhwells.com/docuForeclosedDreams/index.html#_self
FORECLOSED: BETWEEN CRISIS AND POSSIBILITY
In Foreclosed: Between Crisis and Possibility, a group exhibition and series of public programs curated by Whitney Independent Study Program (ISP) Curatorial Fellows Jennifer Burris, Sofía Olascoaga, Sadia Shirazi and Gaia Tedone, “between” is the operative word. Well, that and “foreclosed.” Using foreclosure mainly as a point of departure, the show and discussions posit multiple approaches to looking at and utilizing the forgotten spaces that embody the aftershocks of a declining economy and ask how artists, architects and planners grapple with a culture of crisis.
“City as Stage,” a conversation between GSAPP Professor Emeritus and planner Peter Marcuse, urban planner/architect/artist Damon Rich, Director and Chief Curator of the Sheila C. Johnson Design Center Radhika Subramaniam and artist Tania Bruguera, moderated by Sadia Shirazi, was held at The Kitchen on June 11th. The afternoon began with a screening of Beau Geste by Yto Barrada. In Beau Geste, Barrada patches a malignant hole in a palm tree in a vacant lot in Tangier, trying to thwart a developer who gouged it in hopes of killing the tree, thus allowing him to build up the lot. This guerilla-style urban intervention set the tone for the ensuing discussion on several levels: the scale was small, the action direct, and its consequence indeterminate.
In Foreclosed: Between Crisis and Possibility, a group exhibition and series of public programs curated by Whitney Independent Study Program (ISP) Curatorial Fellows Jennifer Burris, Sofía Olascoaga, Sadia Shirazi and Gaia Tedone, “between” is the operative word. Well, that and “foreclosed.” Using foreclosure mainly as a point of departure, the show and discussions posit multiple approaches to looking at and utilizing the forgotten spaces that embody the aftershocks of a declining economy and ask how artists, architects and planners grapple with a culture of crisis.
“City as Stage,” a conversation between GSAPP Professor Emeritus and planner Peter Marcuse, urban planner/architect/artist Damon Rich, Director and Chief Curator of the Sheila C. Johnson Design Center Radhika Subramaniam and artist Tania Bruguera, moderated by Sadia Shirazi, was held at The Kitchen on June 11th. The afternoon began with a screening of Beau Geste by Yto Barrada. In Beau Geste, Barrada patches a malignant hole in a palm tree in a vacant lot in Tangier, trying to thwart a developer who gouged it in hopes of killing the tree, thus allowing him to build up the lot. This guerilla-style urban intervention set the tone for the ensuing discussion on several levels: the scale was small, the action direct, and its consequence indeterminate.
If, as Samuel Johnson famously said, “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel,” are the fine arts the last refuge of a humanist liberal? Whereas art museums once confined themselves to collecting and presenting for the edification and education of the masses, some institutions now see that education extending beyond the typical boundaries of art. "If the 20th century was primarily about collecting, I believe the 21st is about programming," MoMA director Glenn Lowry says in Cembalest’s piece. "Our goal is not so much to be the change agent, but rather, to create the kind of conversation that might lead at some future date to change by addressing critically important problems that engage specialists within the field as well as a more general public." A recent program at the MoMA titled "Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream" seems out of place in a modern art museum, but in response to the U.S. foreclosure crisis of the past few years, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon just doesn’t seem that relevant, at least directly. Lowry, and others hosting similar forums, claim not to be “change agents,” but the very act of promoting the “conversation” in a civil manner is a refreshing change.
Neal Stimler
My scholarly practice is devoted to speaking about the important roles that museums play in fostering democracy and civic engagement.
At the 2010 Museum Computer Network conference, I presented, “Fostering A Democratic Museum Culture” (http://mcn2010.pbworks.com/w/p.... This lecture defines museums as community centers that inspire citizens work for peace and human rights. Follow this link for the Prezi presentation (http://prezi.com/sy9yptkaskxo/....
My Ignite Smithsonian lecture, “Renewing American Democracy Through Museums & Digital Culture,” (http://www.ustream.tv/recorded... continued to address these themes in dialogue with museum and library leaders who are committed to public service in our digital culture (http://smithsonian-webstrategy....
Museums, libraries and archives are at the very core of a free society. Digital technology, when used democratically, enables cultural institutions to serve the public as they assemble, share, and interpret experiences across time and space.
At the 2010 Museum Computer Network conference, I presented, “Fostering A Democratic Museum Culture” (http://mcn2010.pbworks.com/w/p.... This lecture defines museums as community centers that inspire citizens work for peace and human rights. Follow this link for the Prezi presentation (http://prezi.com/sy9yptkaskxo/....
My Ignite Smithsonian lecture, “Renewing American Democracy Through Museums & Digital Culture,” (http://www.ustream.tv/recorded... continued to address these themes in dialogue with museum and library leaders who are committed to public service in our digital culture (http://smithsonian-webstrategy....
Museums, libraries and archives are at the very core of a free society. Digital technology, when used democratically, enables cultural institutions to serve the public as they assemble, share, and interpret experiences across time and space.
archedes
10:37 AM on 08/10/2011
Arianna - You always write timely, intelligent and articulate posts. Among the most important salient points in your article today is your noting that 'we have a surplus of untapped energy and creativity and talent'. Being a creative professional myself, I do not have the words to describe the devastation myself and my colleagues have suffered during this recession - financially, emotionally and even physically. Brilliant, highly educated and experienced graphic designers, interior designers, architects, painters, artists, musicians, dancers, etc. who have made our country a better place by improving the quality of everything we see, hear, touch, taste and feel have been tossed aside. Many were self-employed and are not able to obtain any unemployment insurance or other types of assistance. Others have been forced to do work where their skills, intellect and ability are demeaned by ridiculously low pay, poor treatment and complete disregard for their talent and the positive aspects it provides. At least during the last depression , the WPA and similar programs existed to tap into these talents and provide recognition, work and intellectual relief to this forgotten segment of our society. Disregarding these talented, creative individuals is proving to be one of the greatest downfalls of our society. It's tragic, sad and truly un-American.
Arianna - You always write timely, intelligent and articulate posts. Among the most important salient points in your article today is your noting that 'we have a surplus of untapped energy and creativity and talent'. Being a creative professional myself, I do not have the words to describe the devastation myself and my colleagues have suffered during this recession - financially, emotionally and even physically. Brilliant, highly educated and experienced graphic designers, interior designers, architects, painters, artists, musicians, dancers, etc. who have made our country a better place by improving the quality of everything we see, hear, touch, taste and feel have been tossed aside. Many were self-employed and are not able to obtain any unemployment insurance or other types of assistance. Others have been forced to do work where their skills, intellect and ability are demeaned by ridiculously low pay, poor treatment and complete disregard for their talent and the positive aspects it provides. At least during the last depression , the WPA and similar programs existed to tap into these talents and provide recognition, work and intellectual relief to this forgotten segment of our society. Disregarding these talented, creative individuals is proving to be one of the greatest downfalls of our society. It's tragic, sad and truly un-American.
Christine Shackelton
08:03 AM on 08/10/2011
Similarly, the Institute's political allegiances: top personnel maintained called a sentimental relationship to the Soviet Union (the Institute saw its goals as higher than that of Russian foreign policy. Stalin, who was horrified at the undisciplined, "cosmopolitan" operation set up by his predecessors, cut the Institute off in the late 1920's, forcing Lukacs into "self-criticism," briefly jailing him as a German sympathizer during World War II.
Lukacs survived to briefly take up his old post as Minister of Culture during the anti-Stalinist Imre Nagy regime in Hungary. Of the other top Institute figures, Herbert Marcuse are typical. He started as a Communist; became a protégé of philosopher Martin Heidegger even as the latter was joining the Nazi Party; coming to America, he worked for the World War II Office of Strategic Services (OSS), and later became the U.S. State Department's top analyst of Soviet policy during the height of the McCarthy period; in the 1960's, he turned again, to become the most important guru of the New Left; and he ended his days helping to found the environmentalist extremist Green Party in West Germany.
In all this seeming incoherence of shifting positions and contradictory funding, there is no ideological conflict. The invariant is the desire of all parties to answer Lukacs' original question: "Who will save us from Western civilization?"
-------------
Wall St now at the bourse
THE BULLS ARE LOCKED WITH THE OPPOSITE-- WE ARE DOING WELL-- IT IS NEUTRAL
Similarly, the Institute's political allegiances: top personnel maintained called a sentimental relationship to the Soviet Union (the Institute saw its goals as higher than that of Russian foreign policy. Stalin, who was horrified at the undisciplined, "cosmopolitan" operation set up by his predecessors, cut the Institute off in the late 1920's, forcing Lukacs into "self-criticism," briefly jailing him as a German sympathizer during World War II.
Lukacs survived to briefly take up his old post as Minister of Culture during the anti-Stalinist Imre Nagy regime in Hungary. Of the other top Institute figures, Herbert Marcuse are typical. He started as a Communist; became a protégé of philosopher Martin Heidegger even as the latter was joining the Nazi Party; coming to America, he worked for the World War II Office of Strategic Services (OSS), and later became the U.S. State Department's top analyst of Soviet policy during the height of the McCarthy period; in the 1960's, he turned again, to become the most important guru of the New Left; and he ended his days helping to found the environmentalist extremist Green Party in West Germany.
In all this seeming incoherence of shifting positions and contradictory funding, there is no ideological conflict. The invariant is the desire of all parties to answer Lukacs' original question: "Who will save us from Western civilization?"
-------------
Wall St now at the bourse
THE BULLS ARE LOCKED WITH THE OPPOSITE-- WE ARE DOING WELL-- IT IS NEUTRAL
Charles Betterton
06:18 PM on 08/10/2011
Having served as a disaster relief expert and community economic development specialist for 15 years under 5 previous US Administrations, I believe there has never been a better opportunity to provide expanded resources for individuals, organizations and communities to "claim their ultimate destiny".
The field of Community Economic Development (CED), which includes a focus on Self-help, Empowerment and Capacity Building, is best known for successes in microenterprise development, "community based development" and fostering "multi-sector collaborative partnerships".
Your initiative to recognize individuals who are stepping up and making a difference is similar to the Ultimate Destiny Hall of Fame Awards developed to recognize individuals who are fulfilling their ultimate destiny while helping others manifest their own destiny. That program recently led to a visionary description of "The United State of Americans", pending publication of a free publication on Solving the Ultimate Destiny of the USA and a proposal to help establish thousands of locally initiated non-profit CED Community Resource Centers whose mission is nearly identical with your message in this article.
The CAN DO! CED Resource Centers encompass Bucky Fuller's vision of "betterment for 100% of humanity", Authur Morgan's vision for The Great Community and it transforms Abraham Maslow's description of a fully actualized individual into a strategy for evolving more fully actualizing communities. The vision and mission is similar to several recent initiatives by President Obama and HUD Secretary Donovan such as Choice Neighborhoods, Sustainable Communities and most recently the Great Cities, Great Communities program.
Having served as a disaster relief expert and community economic development specialist for 15 years under 5 previous US Administrations, I believe there has never been a better opportunity to provide expanded resources for individuals, organizations and communities to "claim their ultimate destiny".
The field of Community Economic Development (CED), which includes a focus on Self-help, Empowerment and Capacity Building, is best known for successes in microenterprise development, "community based development" and fostering "multi-sector collaborative partnerships".
Your initiative to recognize individuals who are stepping up and making a difference is similar to the Ultimate Destiny Hall of Fame Awards developed to recognize individuals who are fulfilling their ultimate destiny while helping others manifest their own destiny. That program recently led to a visionary description of "The United State of Americans", pending publication of a free publication on Solving the Ultimate Destiny of the USA and a proposal to help establish thousands of locally initiated non-profit CED Community Resource Centers whose mission is nearly identical with your message in this article.
The CAN DO! CED Resource Centers encompass Bucky Fuller's vision of "betterment for 100% of humanity", Authur Morgan's vision for The Great Community and it transforms Abraham Maslow's description of a fully actualized individual into a strategy for evolving more fully actualizing communities. The vision and mission is similar to several recent initiatives by President Obama and HUD Secretary Donovan such as Choice Neighborhoods, Sustainable Communities and most recently the Great Cities, Great Communities program.
Some observers have been bewildered by this new use of the museum not as a sanctuary for continually re-launching a battle in a war I believe won long ago — namely the status of architecture as art — but rather as a public forum for advocacy. But this is not really a new program for the museum. The Museum of Modern Art opened its doors to the public in November 1929, just days after the big stock market crash, and it came of age in the Great Depression. From the first its agenda was multifold. Most architectural histories have preferred to emphasize the aesthetic manifesto of Philip Johnson and Henry-Russell Hitchcock’s seminal International Style exhibition of 1932; but in fact the most sustained activity of the architecture department’s first decade consisted of exhibitions and programs advocating for better public housing. Exhibitions such as America Can't Have Housing, of 1934, and Architecture in Government Housing, of 1936, had direct impacts on the creation of the New York City Housing Authority in 1934, and on the passage of the Federal Housing Act of 1937, with significant credit due to the activism of the young Catherine Bauer, who contributed to both shows, and the advocacy of Lewis Mumford.
FairfieldFox
September 18, 2011 at 11:43AM
Gosh, urban redevelopment with state financing. When will we ever learn? I guess Two Ton Tony Galento would be skeptical of these plans for his old stomping grounds. Samuel Bush, patriarch of the Bushs, and a colleague of the Rockefellers, would likely be quite pleased. As the only Orangian who became part of the Federal Reserve, Old Sammy Bush would like the idea of the government borrowing money...but only if he got a piece of the action.
Gosh, urban redevelopment with state financing. When will we ever learn? I guess Two Ton Tony Galento would be skeptical of these plans for his old stomping grounds. Samuel Bush, patriarch of the Bushs, and a colleague of the Rockefellers, would likely be quite pleased. As the only Orangian who became part of the Federal Reserve, Old Sammy Bush would like the idea of the government borrowing money...but only if he got a piece of the action.
FairfieldFox
September 18, 2011 at 3:40PM
Truth is, the Great Migration destroyed the great cities of Detroit, Cleveland, Chicago (Orly the Daley’s could hold this wondrously toddlin’ town together; Rahm’s clueless), Newark, L.A., Philadelphia and NYC. They aren’t coming back. Neither are places like Orange and Irvington, the former Camptown. Parasites will use our tax dollars in a quixotic attempt to recapture history, while pocketing some easy Money. Then, a thesis can be griten, a PhD for someone’s daughter in Urban Planning? Sure, why not? Then, a fellowship on the tazxpayers’ cuff. The rip-off.
It seems like only yesterday, that I could hop on the bus, for a dime, with friends and go “downtown”, to catch a ballgame, a movie or just mingle with the delightful crowds. Then, around 1958, that became dangerous for kids under 15….then under 20….then EVERYONE. The jostling started. The Huggins, the 5 vs. 2 shakedowns. The stabbings and the shootings and the rapes. A cannonball, they said, could be fired down every “Main Street”, without injuring a soul…because everyone had fled. What a helluva migration, as we look back over what was, and can never be again. Only yesterday.
Truth is, the Great Migration destroyed the great cities of Detroit, Cleveland, Chicago (Orly the Daley’s could hold this wondrously toddlin’ town together; Rahm’s clueless), Newark, L.A., Philadelphia and NYC. They aren’t coming back. Neither are places like Orange and Irvington, the former Camptown. Parasites will use our tax dollars in a quixotic attempt to recapture history, while pocketing some easy Money. Then, a thesis can be griten, a PhD for someone’s daughter in Urban Planning? Sure, why not? Then, a fellowship on the tazxpayers’ cuff. The rip-off.
It seems like only yesterday, that I could hop on the bus, for a dime, with friends and go “downtown”, to catch a ballgame, a movie or just mingle with the delightful crowds. Then, around 1958, that became dangerous for kids under 15….then under 20….then EVERYONE. The jostling started. The Huggins, the 5 vs. 2 shakedowns. The stabbings and the shootings and the rapes. A cannonball, they said, could be fired down every “Main Street”, without injuring a soul…because everyone had fled. What a helluva migration, as we look back over what was, and can never be again. Only yesterday.
As New York City was coming out of its darkest years, art did not exactly lead the way. Who would have asked it to try? Now two institutions have joined forces to do just that. The Noguchi Museum, in collaboration with Socrates Sculpture Park, offers "Civic Action: A Vision for Long Island City."
"Change the dream and you change the city." The line could describe their hopes exactly. Instead, it helps introduce five other plans for suburban America, each with a commitment to cities and to dreaming. The Museum of Modern Art calls the show "Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream." Yet, the curators are not looking for new architecture to house an older ideal. Rather, they want to change thinking, the kind that brought the tangle of postwar suburban sprawl and, in their minds, the doomed housing bubble.
"Change the dream and you change the city." The line could describe their hopes exactly. Instead, it helps introduce five other plans for suburban America, each with a commitment to cities and to dreaming. The Museum of Modern Art calls the show "Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream." Yet, the curators are not looking for new architecture to house an older ideal. Rather, they want to change thinking, the kind that brought the tangle of postwar suburban sprawl and, in their minds, the doomed housing bubble.
But in retrospect, Venturi and Scott Brown's characterization of suburban sprawl as "the current vernacular of the United States," or the "people's architecture as the people want it," was naive. (Both descriptions are from the revised 1977 edition of their classic book Learning from Las Vegas, which included their work on Levittown.) Suburban architecture was a travesty of the American vernacular, driven not by local tradition or individual expression but by the house's new status as a mass-produced consumer product. The artist Dan Graham had already made this point in 1966, with his legendary Homes for America, a spread for Arts Magazine, in which he pointed out that beneath their symbolic appliqués, suburban homes exhibited the same monotonous repetition as any other artifact of industrialized capitalism.
And despite the fact that interpretations of Matta-Clark's work have tended more toward the sculptural and kinesthetic than the semiotic, his building cuts can be understood in the context of a similar interest in the commercialized symbolism of the suburban house. "Architecture is a big business," he told an interviewer in Arts Magazine in May 1976, going on to criticize an "industry that profligates suburban . . . boxes as a context for insuring a passive, isolated consumer."
Early next year, MoMA’s Foreclosed exhibition will take on major issues in suburbia that have been under-examined for decades—themes that were explored through two other notable exhibits at The Museum of Modern Art in the past: 1973′s Another Chance for Housing: Low-Rise Alternatives presented a housing prototype designed to combine the best aspects of suburban and urban living, while the 1944 traveling exhibition Look at Your Neighborhood advocated for public spaces within suburbia.
MoMA has historically used its position of influence to call attention to issues in suburbia and housing. Collaborating with government agencies, as well as with architects, the Museum has framed arguments on new ways of living. In this tradition, Foreclosed, which is co-organized by MoMA and Columbia University’s Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture, will present five architectural teams’ re-imaginings of the American suburb.
MoMA has historically used its position of influence to call attention to issues in suburbia and housing. Collaborating with government agencies, as well as with architects, the Museum has framed arguments on new ways of living. In this tradition, Foreclosed, which is co-organized by MoMA and Columbia University’s Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture, will present five architectural teams’ re-imaginings of the American suburb.
Foreclosed asks its design teams to consider what is “‘public’ about today’s cities and suburbs.” The question recalls the central theme of MoMA’s very first exhibit on community planning and suburbia, 1944′s Look at Your Neighborhood. Less about design and more a call to civic action, the bare-bones show declared, “Your neighborhood needs you . . . Organize a neighborhood planning council.”
How do we parse socially engaged art and urban interventions when they are simultaneously museum programming and automobile branding? Business investment and corporate philanthropy have long been important to the Americanway of life, but the placement of company names in the public realm has also come to embody the powerlessness of ordinary citizens to exercise control over public processes. The capture of these practices by elite cultural institutions threatens to empty them of their socially engaged function and turn them into a sideshow. At the same time, museums have the capacity to provide much-needed access to resources for this type of work and apply it usefully to their own communities. One only needs to look back on MoMA’s legendary postwar exhibitions on housing and modern architectureto see the power of this kind of involvement.
This fall, BMW funded a Guggenheim lab on the Lower East Side that will travel—along with a lot of forward-thinking programs and events—to nine cities around the world for the next six years. Earlier this year, Audi funded the New Museum’s Festival Ideas for the New City on the Bowery which the museum plans on staging every other year. And in May, Volkswagen announced a two-year partnership with MoMA to fund online educational programming, on-site “labs,” and an exhibition of socially conscious international work at PS1.
Major museums andcultural institutions are jumping on the social activism bandwagon as never before, launching urban research projects, participatory art festivals, and engaged urbanist exhibitions that were once the primary engagement of only the most committed nonprofits and independent producers as tools of social action. In organizing these shows, curators are embracing an idea in the vanguard of contemporary art and design, and getting German luxury car companies to foot the bills. What’s going on here, and who’s really the beneficiary?
Major museums andcultural institutions are jumping on the social activism bandwagon as never before, launching urban research projects, participatory art festivals, and engaged urbanist exhibitions that were once the primary engagement of only the most committed nonprofits and independent producers as tools of social action. In organizing these shows, curators are embracing an idea in the vanguard of contemporary art and design, and getting German luxury car companies to foot the bills. What’s going on here, and who’s really the beneficiary?
I am looking forward to the Foreclosed show at MoMA, even if some of the connections in this article seem a little forced. I am not sure Frampton / IAUS’s Low Rise High Density project was about suburbanization exactly, or just non-monolithic, mat building type design. I don’t think it addressed the links between capital and buildings, which are the root of the foreclosure crisis. I do have the documents from the CCA laying around here so I should read more closely. Either way, I am eager to see how the teams of designers re-imagine single family homes, hopefully taking the role of finance into consideration.
jimmy-jo barrows
MAY 3, 2012, 10:19 A.M.
photo piece of the plight of Detroit along with a possible solution involving GIVING homes and commercial property or free rent to folks outside the city; photos of recipients revamping them and buisinesses starting up to support the new arrivals.
theme; how creativity along with left brain thinking can be used to solve vitsl cultural problems!
or pass on to “New Yorker” magazine for One City’s Museum of TOTAL Creativity Helps Save the Culture of Another
photo piece of the plight of Detroit along with a possible solution involving GIVING homes and commercial property or free rent to folks outside the city; photos of recipients revamping them and buisinesses starting up to support the new arrivals.
theme; how creativity along with left brain thinking can be used to solve vitsl cultural problems!
or pass on to “New Yorker” magazine for One City’s Museum of TOTAL Creativity Helps Save the Culture of Another
An interested visitor
FEBRUARY 29, 2012, 9:06 P.M.
Hi, I hope you’ll consider talking with Dan Immergluck, author of the book FORECLOSED, which chronicles how the subprime and foreclosure crises came happened. I suspect he would have an interesting angle on this, including an opinion on how to change the dream, and then change the funding mechanism.
Hi, I hope you’ll consider talking with Dan Immergluck, author of the book FORECLOSED, which chronicles how the subprime and foreclosure crises came happened. I suspect he would have an interesting angle on this, including an opinion on how to change the dream, and then change the funding mechanism.
Foreclosed calls into question the American Dream of home ownership and the way it was packaged and sold in the form of a single-family house in the suburbs. It ties the current foreclosure crisis to unsustainable trends in housing and planning that go back to the days of Frank Lloyd Wright and his Broadacre City. The exhibition also demonstrates how prevailing models for suburban development are not only environmentally unsustainable, but also financially unsound.
antiplanner
Levittown wasn't even the first fully planned suburb. Try Llewellyn Park in 1857. Or Riverside in 1868. Or Country Club Estates in about 1910. Levittown became famous mainly because its low prices made it affordable to a new class of homebuyers, not because it was first in anything.
December 22, 2011 at 11:22 am
December 22, 2011 at 11:22 am
Ken B
Levittown was the first fully planned suburban community – it was by no means, the first suburb. Not by a long shot.
December 21, 2011 at 2:43 pm
December 21, 2011 at 2:43 pm
Jude
From an empirical perspective, this article is incorrect in its claim that Levittown was the first suburb. Street car suburbs, such as Evanston and Oak Park near Chicago were built in the late 1800s. Residents used trains or street cars to commute into the city.
Perhaps by providing a definition of what they consider a "suburb" the authors of the article can resolve this issue.
As a side note, it would be interesting to see an article that explores the fate and paths of these even earlier locales.
December 21, 2011 at 12:52 pm
Perhaps by providing a definition of what they consider a "suburb" the authors of the article can resolve this issue.
As a side note, it would be interesting to see an article that explores the fate and paths of these even earlier locales.
December 21, 2011 at 12:52 pm
NWeiner
"Lost in suburbia hell where are we everything looks the same!" -Gone in 60 seconds
December 20, 2011 at 2:00 pm
December 20, 2011 at 2:00 pm
Ziggy Stardust
Houston is a dump with the worst weather on the planet next to the miserable jungle in Vietnam. They also appear to have no zoning there, you often see a body shop or dry cleaners next to a home in what appears to be a residential neighborhood. What hicks in the rest of the country don't seem to understand about living in the Northeast is the opportunity to make big money here. I worked in Venture Capital for 15 years in NYC, made a boatload of money, had a big house in CT, cars, the dream. Then it all came crashing down in 2008. I sold everything I could and moved to Wyoming where I now work as a tile setter (my dad tought me the trade when I was a kid) I couldn't be happier. I miss all the toys, but life is good. Wyoming is breathtakingly beautiful Houston is just breathtaking (FROM THE STENCH)
December 20, 2011 at 2:26 pm
December 20, 2011 at 2:26 pm
vintage274
I, too, was reared in the same streetcar suburb as my mother. Housing was a mix of single family and apartment buildings with many more trees than the city. Houses varied from some streets that contained row-type houses to others with spacious Victorians. Each of those suburbs had a main street with needed businesses, but most men went into the city or off to the industrial section for daily work. Our family home was built just after the change of the century. In the 1950s the "real" suburbs popped up out on the edge of the farms. They had no apartment buildings, no main streets. Each single family home had both a front and back lawn and a garage. They were typically smaller than the streetcar suburb houses, but boasted modern conveniences. Strip malls were the rage (though limited to one complex for evey ten or so communities) and contained a branch of at least one large downtown department store, a family shoe store, and a pharmacy of some sort. Large groceries were nearby, but not a part of the malls. In the 60s large indoor malls became the rage as well, and big cities boasted one in each georgraphical direction. Although Levittown is a suburban icon in America, it was not the model all over the country. The suburb I lived in as a teen in Pennsylvania (built in the 1940s) offered larger houses than the Levittown model (usually 3 bedroom) which were generally built of brick and offered in a vaiety of architectural styles - ranch, Cape Cod, two story, split level - carefully interspersed to add variety to the neighborhood.
December 20, 2011 at 12:51 pm
December 20, 2011 at 12:51 pm
musings
Why CNN does not teach American Studies: The first suburbs were "Streetcar Suburbs" NOT car suburbs. I live in one, and believe me, it is mostly houses – but they are from the 1880's and they were purpose-built to coordinate with the streetcar (now subway) system. Los Angeles was built up in the same fashion long before everyone drove cars.
So those songs about ticky tacky boxes – well that historical revisionism.
December 20, 2011 at 12:00 pm
So those songs about ticky tacky boxes – well that historical revisionism.
December 20, 2011 at 12:00 pm
Jim P.
"The word "suburb" didn't even exist back then, in the late '40s and early '50s"
Yes it did. The word was in use in the 1890's certainly and possibly earlier. Heck, the Chevy Suburban has been made since the 1930's I think....1935 to be exact.
Bad writer, no cookie!
December 20, 2011 at 11:54 am
Yes it did. The word was in use in the 1890's certainly and possibly earlier. Heck, the Chevy Suburban has been made since the 1930's I think....1935 to be exact.
Bad writer, no cookie!
December 20, 2011 at 11:54 am
KCRick
We all lived in the same kind of houses in the 50's. My version was in a Pittsburgh suburb. Our attic was finished and man was it hot up there in the summer. Used to put fans in both windows. You could not hide in that house. One TV, homework on the kitchen table, one bathroom, and if you were lucky an unattached garage for one car.
December 20, 2011 at 11:25 am
December 20, 2011 at 11:25 am
musings
Decisions were made after WWII to create a consumer society around suburbs, cheap gasoline and "national defense highways".
But there were real suburbs long before most people drove cars: streetcar tracks were everywhere in LA and in the East they coordinated with commuter trains. This phenomenon dates back to the 1880's. I live in such a neighborhood and it still works much better than the one I grew up in, Anaheim, California (a typical 50's suburb).
Suburbs would be great if there was a lot of public transportation that linked them efficiently with cities nearby. I love my Boston suburb and it is much simpler to get downtown than it is if you live in LA and have to sit in traffic on the freeway. I keep sampling and comparing the two since my family still lives in LA: Boston wins.
December 20, 2011 at 12:13 pm
But there were real suburbs long before most people drove cars: streetcar tracks were everywhere in LA and in the East they coordinated with commuter trains. This phenomenon dates back to the 1880's. I live in such a neighborhood and it still works much better than the one I grew up in, Anaheim, California (a typical 50's suburb).
Suburbs would be great if there was a lot of public transportation that linked them efficiently with cities nearby. I love my Boston suburb and it is much simpler to get downtown than it is if you live in LA and have to sit in traffic on the freeway. I keep sampling and comparing the two since my family still lives in LA: Boston wins.
December 20, 2011 at 12:13 pm
"It was heaven," she said of Levittown. "Heaven, heaven. Our own square plot of land."
Alexander J Felson
MARCH 21, 2012, 12:40 P.M.
First, I really appreciate the commentary from both KB (12/15) and DK (03/07) regarding the rewilding concepts in relation to suburbanization. I would like to respond first to DK’s point of building dense and compact cities and leaving the “hinterland and wilderness as intact as possible” is the ideal and I certainly do not disagree with this position. That said this is not what is taking place on the ground. Urbanization is continuing to spread into the hinterlands here in the US, in China, India, and Brazil and around the globe. The proposal here is to consider the potential for these exurban developments to adopt an ecological mandate.The focus on the MOMA exhibit and analysis is also very specific and thus the proposal needs to be seen in its context. We were specifically tasked with looking at foreclosure housing projects and how as designers and scientists we might bring federal funding to address some of the issues faced. Thus the site was selected for us, and due to its proximity to the San Bernardino National Forest and the ecologically intact conditions of the surrounding context including the Lytle Creek Wash, we saw the notion of creating a neighborhood focused in part on ecological management as an opportunity for collaboration between developers, the federal government and future homeowners.A third factor to consider is climate change and global warming. The earth is changing in part through large-scale anthropogenic causes. These are creating pressures and constraints on the hinterland ecosystems and organisms. Already, there are discussions of how to foster species migration as their ranges shift north. This is an area that scientists are keenly interested in the role they might play. Consider the species introductions, assisted migrations and other efforts scientists are already participating with the goal of enhancing ecosystems. In other words, just leaving the hinterlands out there “undisturbed” by the built environment does not mean they remain undisturbed, and to maintain ecosystems and organisms human interventions will likely be an important component. Consider John Foley’s diagram of the changing landscape conditions – where is the “hinterlands” in his diagram?Finally, Rewilding (and this goes back to KB’s comments) is a radical proposal and one that is debated amongst ecologist. Much of the issue arises from the concern over human – wildlife conflict that would likely ensue if we were to reintroduce large carnivores etc. to the US. At the same time, most ecologists would agree that top down predation would benefit ecosystem health and lead to greater diversity of species. Thus the issue is one of public acceptance. As a result, getting this concept out there through a variety of venues (given that Rewilding is in the “marketing” stage) should mostly benefit the cause. It is a much more radical concept than simply allowing people to manage biological systems at the urban fringe and is intended to create debate and discussion.The MoMA exhibit is pervaded by architectural discourse of the suburb and could use this layer of integration of knowledge into new suburban forms. The architect and their modes of working and analysis were prioritized and sites open to large development were sites for new visions. Still, the rewilding concept is part of the exhibit, which means that tens of thousands of museumgoers visiting the exhibit will have the opportunity to reflect on what role people can play in managing ecosystems in their neighborhoods, and on the potential value of rewilding as a concept to consider for promoting ecosystem function.
First, I really appreciate the commentary from both KB (12/15) and DK (03/07) regarding the rewilding concepts in relation to suburbanization. I would like to respond first to DK’s point of building dense and compact cities and leaving the “hinterland and wilderness as intact as possible” is the ideal and I certainly do not disagree with this position. That said this is not what is taking place on the ground. Urbanization is continuing to spread into the hinterlands here in the US, in China, India, and Brazil and around the globe. The proposal here is to consider the potential for these exurban developments to adopt an ecological mandate.The focus on the MOMA exhibit and analysis is also very specific and thus the proposal needs to be seen in its context. We were specifically tasked with looking at foreclosure housing projects and how as designers and scientists we might bring federal funding to address some of the issues faced. Thus the site was selected for us, and due to its proximity to the San Bernardino National Forest and the ecologically intact conditions of the surrounding context including the Lytle Creek Wash, we saw the notion of creating a neighborhood focused in part on ecological management as an opportunity for collaboration between developers, the federal government and future homeowners.A third factor to consider is climate change and global warming. The earth is changing in part through large-scale anthropogenic causes. These are creating pressures and constraints on the hinterland ecosystems and organisms. Already, there are discussions of how to foster species migration as their ranges shift north. This is an area that scientists are keenly interested in the role they might play. Consider the species introductions, assisted migrations and other efforts scientists are already participating with the goal of enhancing ecosystems. In other words, just leaving the hinterlands out there “undisturbed” by the built environment does not mean they remain undisturbed, and to maintain ecosystems and organisms human interventions will likely be an important component. Consider John Foley’s diagram of the changing landscape conditions – where is the “hinterlands” in his diagram?Finally, Rewilding (and this goes back to KB’s comments) is a radical proposal and one that is debated amongst ecologist. Much of the issue arises from the concern over human – wildlife conflict that would likely ensue if we were to reintroduce large carnivores etc. to the US. At the same time, most ecologists would agree that top down predation would benefit ecosystem health and lead to greater diversity of species. Thus the issue is one of public acceptance. As a result, getting this concept out there through a variety of venues (given that Rewilding is in the “marketing” stage) should mostly benefit the cause. It is a much more radical concept than simply allowing people to manage biological systems at the urban fringe and is intended to create debate and discussion.The MoMA exhibit is pervaded by architectural discourse of the suburb and could use this layer of integration of knowledge into new suburban forms. The architect and their modes of working and analysis were prioritized and sites open to large development were sites for new visions. Still, the rewilding concept is part of the exhibit, which means that tens of thousands of museumgoers visiting the exhibit will have the opportunity to reflect on what role people can play in managing ecosystems in their neighborhoods, and on the potential value of rewilding as a concept to consider for promoting ecosystem function.
Siobhán Ó Mócháin B.
JANUARY 24, 2012, 7:12 P.M.
For A Regular Guy(Written after reading the story in L.A. Times of a dead man found in a foreclosed home in Westchester, CA on 7/20/2009 by a real estate agent preparing to show the house to a prospect.)
Three bedroom 2 bath
garage backyard lawn
rambling family style
home for kids pets. 1957.
Needs work
refinancing available
forbearance provided
for small fee.
A sunny southern Cal
kind of Monday
in Westchester.
Realty Modern
shows same home
once bestowed
with bank notes
loans interest rates
derivatives
credit-default swaps.
Brokered down by
adjustable rates
pre-payment penalties.
Now liberated by the
free market.
Lien holders
mean holder
sof bankrupt dreams.
FORECLOSED.
Ready to buy
best terms
and cheap!
But oh dear!
What’s a 45-year-old
dead man doing here?
Didn’t we clean this
property up?
Who could
miss the odor
of late payments ?
The gruesome smell
of maxed out credit?
The stench of the
unemployed?
What’s an agent to do?
Come back later.
This regular guy
Laid off. Laid out cold
in the family room.
Second mortgage borrowerr
avaged by pyramid
schemes. No modification
no public offering
for him. No gold man of stocks
no Fed unreserved no inside track
no parachute for this everyday chump.
Lien holdersmean holders
of bankrupt dreams.
FORECLOSED.
For A Regular Guy(Written after reading the story in L.A. Times of a dead man found in a foreclosed home in Westchester, CA on 7/20/2009 by a real estate agent preparing to show the house to a prospect.)
Three bedroom 2 bath
garage backyard lawn
rambling family style
home for kids pets. 1957.
Needs work
refinancing available
forbearance provided
for small fee.
A sunny southern Cal
kind of Monday
in Westchester.
Realty Modern
shows same home
once bestowed
with bank notes
loans interest rates
derivatives
credit-default swaps.
Brokered down by
adjustable rates
pre-payment penalties.
Now liberated by the
free market.
Lien holders
mean holder
sof bankrupt dreams.
FORECLOSED.
Ready to buy
best terms
and cheap!
But oh dear!
What’s a 45-year-old
dead man doing here?
Didn’t we clean this
property up?
Who could
miss the odor
of late payments ?
The gruesome smell
of maxed out credit?
The stench of the
unemployed?
What’s an agent to do?
Come back later.
This regular guy
Laid off. Laid out cold
in the family room.
Second mortgage borrowerr
avaged by pyramid
schemes. No modification
no public offering
for him. No gold man of stocks
no Fed unreserved no inside track
no parachute for this everyday chump.
Lien holdersmean holders
of bankrupt dreams.
FORECLOSED.
As one example, MOS Architects (undoubtedly under the influence of The Buell Hypothesis) dismisses the street, the block, and the playground as spatial mythologies. They probably didn't mean it the way it sounds. However, as indicated earlier, their solution reaffirms the same trope by superimposing Constant’s New Babylon-redux upon the old neighborhood—a new fantasy in place of the old.
The imposition of professional, taxonomical knowledge obscures the complex social, spatial, economic, and cultural aspects of these territories. The realities of the suburbs—their spatial and cultural resiliencies, their persistence (not to mention formal mechanisms of governance)—suggest that big plans cannot rule the day. Foreclosed can thus be contextualized in the history of urban renewal, slum clearance, public housing, and other such large-scale, top-down housing policies that have failed. History seems to demonstrate that micro-transformations, house by house, lot by lot, bottom-up renewal, will most likely define the limits of suburban change [8].
“yes i was wondering how i go about not lossing my house it has been in my wifes famlily for over a hundred years my wife was layed off the morgage company wouldnt talk to us because she was layed off and now we are so far behind we cant get cought up so now we are loosing our home is there help out there for me”— unedited comment from MoMA workshop blog (2011)
"Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work."
— Daniel Hudson Burnham (1846-1912)
— Daniel Hudson Burnham (1846-1912)
One of the best precedents we can relay for this argument is our own hometown of Somerville, Massachusetts just north of Boston, a once hard pressed streetcar suburb that has slowly turned the corner through both grassroots initiatives and design charities. Just like MoMA, the Boston Society of Architects (BSA) in 2007 developed a forum and outlet for Somerville called Edge As Center (EAC) to broadcast its current conditions and goals after decades of trouble and neglect. At the beginning of 2007, Somerville was still regularly depicted by its negative label of "Slummerville" from the 1950's. The 2007 spotlight helped shed the moniker while starting to showcase the benefits and strengths of Sommerville's location, infrastructure, and heavily populated residential fabric, most of which followed Cicero's process of cut up triple deckers for new student, young professionals, and new immigrant housing close to the city center.
Reinventing British urbanist Ebenezer Howard's classic term "Town-Country," WORKac's proposal Nature City integrates a wide variety of housing types-across a range of affordability-with publicly accessible nature, including ecological infrastructure, sky gardens, urban farms, and large swaths of restored native habitats. Bringing a higher density and more sustainable living to the metropolitan edge, where the greatest development pressures have long existed, the proposal also provides larger economic growth for the city and the site.
LECORBUSIER
The writer of this article doesn't seem to have the foggiest idea of what is actually being done to fix the suburbs. For a summary of the good work being done, see the book Retrofitting Suburbia by Ellen Dunham-Jones.
As I would expect from MOMA, the designers in this exhibit are more interested in attracting attention to themselves by doing something new and different than in doing something that can work: "Michael Bell would herd newcomers to Temple Terrace, Florida, into a pair of high-tech megastructures lifted above vast urban plazas. Zago turns the classic subdivision into a largely car-free cubist collage...."
Obviously, this sort of thing cannot be done. But when the writer concludes that transforming the suburbs "probably can’t be done" at all, he just shows that he has not looked beyond this museum exhibit at what actually is being done in suburbs across America.
6 Months Ago
As I would expect from MOMA, the designers in this exhibit are more interested in attracting attention to themselves by doing something new and different than in doing something that can work: "Michael Bell would herd newcomers to Temple Terrace, Florida, into a pair of high-tech megastructures lifted above vast urban plazas. Zago turns the classic subdivision into a largely car-free cubist collage...."
Obviously, this sort of thing cannot be done. But when the writer concludes that transforming the suburbs "probably can’t be done" at all, he just shows that he has not looked beyond this museum exhibit at what actually is being done in suburbs across America.
6 Months Ago
JAKE_WEGMANN
I totally agree with Kazooguy.
I was about to write this piece off, but then I read the absolutely spot-on dose of skepticism at the end, and then I was OK with it.
For starters, couldn't the architects have deigned to live "in residence" in, I dunno, a blue collar suburb like Brentwood, Long Island rather than Long Island City, Queens? Would it really have killed them to go and look at a (GASP) actual suburb and talk to some people who actually live in one?
On a more fundamental level, I question whether architects come from the right profession to address the undeniable problems that suburbs face. Design is the easy part. The hard part has to do with politics, infrastructure, taxes, race, class, regulations, and so forth.
And on a still more fundamental level, I question whether the term "suburb" is even useful at all. Are Claremont and Riverside both "suburbs" of Los Angeles? Well, I guess so. Do they even remotely have anything in common with each other, apart from the fact that they are in the LA region but not part of the City of LA? Not really. In fact, not at all. I think the very framing of this exhibit is outdated, and was put together by people who do not get out of their bougie, 24-hour city enclaves enough to have a whole lot that's interesting to say about the "real America" (the REAL real America, full of racial, ethnic and other kinds of diversity, not Sarah Palin's 1950s-era small town fantasy) and what problems it faces.
6 Months Ago
I was about to write this piece off, but then I read the absolutely spot-on dose of skepticism at the end, and then I was OK with it.
For starters, couldn't the architects have deigned to live "in residence" in, I dunno, a blue collar suburb like Brentwood, Long Island rather than Long Island City, Queens? Would it really have killed them to go and look at a (GASP) actual suburb and talk to some people who actually live in one?
On a more fundamental level, I question whether architects come from the right profession to address the undeniable problems that suburbs face. Design is the easy part. The hard part has to do with politics, infrastructure, taxes, race, class, regulations, and so forth.
And on a still more fundamental level, I question whether the term "suburb" is even useful at all. Are Claremont and Riverside both "suburbs" of Los Angeles? Well, I guess so. Do they even remotely have anything in common with each other, apart from the fact that they are in the LA region but not part of the City of LA? Not really. In fact, not at all. I think the very framing of this exhibit is outdated, and was put together by people who do not get out of their bougie, 24-hour city enclaves enough to have a whole lot that's interesting to say about the "real America" (the REAL real America, full of racial, ethnic and other kinds of diversity, not Sarah Palin's 1950s-era small town fantasy) and what problems it faces.
6 Months Ago
As anyone familiar with the tragic history of public housing in Chicago knows, high-rise housing has often proved ill-suited to the needs of low-income families, especially large families. A mother on the 10th floor can't look out her kitchen window and keep a close eye on her child playing in the backyard. Unsupervised children often play in elevators, causing them to break down.
Anonymous
With the thick black glasses and the silly design, Andrew Zago could be the next Daniel Libeskind. (And that's not a good thing.)
2/16/2012 6:31 PM CST
2/16/2012 6:31 PM CST
Anonymous
News to MoMA: You don't need abstract, avant-garde "investigations" on the subject. This work is already being done, in practical ways. Entire books have been written documenting case studies. The Sprawl Repair Manual is an entire book filled with PRACTICAL design and implementation methods to accomplish this challenge.
2/16/2012 6:05 PM CST
2/16/2012 6:05 PM CST
Anonymous
Theory-based architects consider themselves the vanguard of civilization, leading mere mortals towards a better world where untested ideas are more relevant than facts. The vision and superior attitude of these self-anointed guardians of our future lacks respect for the wisdom inherent in experience and common opinion. Its practitioners value abstractions—dreams for an egalitarian world where conflicts and the preferences rooted in individuality do not exist. The cold urban wastelands that result from this approach are to be seen all over Eastern Europe. Why would anyone want to repeat these mistakes now?
2/16/2012 12:40 PM CST
2/16/2012 12:40 PM CST
Anonymous
All of these proposals are too heavy handed. They should have studied the metabolism movement. The american dream is still so rooted in the idea of a single family house with a yard. You must reflect that creatively or its just a museum exhibition.
2/16/2012 12:11 AM CST
2/16/2012 12:11 AM CST
Anonymous
Once again, the self annointed cognoscenti propose using fellow humans as the guinea pigs to test ideas that are blatantly backrupt. As George Orwell said, "There are some ideas so stupid only an intellectual could believe in them."
2/15/2012 10:05 PM CST
2/15/2012 10:05 PM CST
Anonymous
To the post several lines down comparing these elitist idealogues to Steve Jobs: I'm still laughing. Steve jobs didn't create a "trend" as you say. He created great products that people want to buy. Therein is the lesson Architects should learn. Is there room for expressionism and "rethinking the box" in architecture. Pehaps. And if one wants to build there practice on such, go for it. If one does it well enough that people buy-in, then they will have achieved the real American Dream - not one contrived for them by others who "know better" as seems to be the intent of this show.
2/15/2012 6:44 PM CST
2/15/2012 6:44 PM CST
Anonymous
God, just another example of the liberal agenda. Seriously they want to make us live in weird shapes and they don't mention of Jesus anywhere. Can we please go back to Gothic Architecture and creationism.
2/15/2012 4:23 PM CST
2/15/2012 4:23 PM CST
Anonymous
There are many real examples where former "fringe" industrial areas have been reappropriated for residential use. London's Canary Wharf (docklands) and New York's SoHo and Williamsburg areas (warehousing), are good examples. Often it was artists and students seeking low-cost housing at the perifery that created the beach head for the later urban development. But Free Market forces drove these initiatives both at the begining (students) and at the end (yuppies).
Quasi-intellectual architect-driven initiatives have rarely had the same positive result. Almost a century of bombastic architectural "visions' from Corb's plan to level Paris, to Pruitt-Igoe and beyond have repeatedly shown that many architects know less about how people really want to live than do the developers they so easily criticize. So much for the fruits of half-baked liberal thinking rooted in "speculation" rather than informed analysis. Typically, the more theoretically driven the project, the worse were the results. - QED "Foreclosure".
2/15/2012 12:50 PM CST
Quasi-intellectual architect-driven initiatives have rarely had the same positive result. Almost a century of bombastic architectural "visions' from Corb's plan to level Paris, to Pruitt-Igoe and beyond have repeatedly shown that many architects know less about how people really want to live than do the developers they so easily criticize. So much for the fruits of half-baked liberal thinking rooted in "speculation" rather than informed analysis. Typically, the more theoretically driven the project, the worse were the results. - QED "Foreclosure".
2/15/2012 12:50 PM CST
Anonymous
WORCac's creation of open space seems admirable. However, the design of the homes looks like something out of Jacques Tati's film, 'Play Time'. The architecture in that film was bad then. It looks even more ridiculous now.
2/15/2012 6:14 AM CST
2/15/2012 6:14 AM CST
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Ill give you libeskind, im not a fan of his either, but just because an idea isn't popular doesn't automatically make it incorrect...this is a lesson that has been repeated through the course of history. People are resistant to change, we like the status quo. People hated the eiffel tower, now they love it. The same holds true for the pompidou center. People's like or dislike of things really does not prove whether or not it is inherently wrong or bad design or anything. It just proves that they are unfamiliar with it, nothing more. Give these ideas a chance and they might actually have some worth. And I wouldn't dismiss the education of today and compare it to the ecole. Most of the study of ecole revolved around tirelessly perfecting the Orders, today's education (at certain schools) deals more with complex building systems and the human interaction with the space.
2/14/2012 4:12 PM CST
Ill give you libeskind, im not a fan of his either, but just because an idea isn't popular doesn't automatically make it incorrect...this is a lesson that has been repeated through the course of history. People are resistant to change, we like the status quo. People hated the eiffel tower, now they love it. The same holds true for the pompidou center. People's like or dislike of things really does not prove whether or not it is inherently wrong or bad design or anything. It just proves that they are unfamiliar with it, nothing more. Give these ideas a chance and they might actually have some worth. And I wouldn't dismiss the education of today and compare it to the ecole. Most of the study of ecole revolved around tirelessly perfecting the Orders, today's education (at certain schools) deals more with complex building systems and the human interaction with the space.
2/14/2012 4:12 PM CST
Anonymous
To the poster below: - The education received by an architect in the Beaux Arts era is very different from the course of study that passes for an architectural education today. I don't think anyone can find too much fault with the work produced in that earlier period. Not so with the work of most architects in the last 50 years where a relatively small number of architectural works are really appreciated by the public. (Daniel Libeskind's Crystal' ... anyone?) - So is it fair to say that today's architects are really educated enough to lead the rest of society? A better question would be to ask outselves why the public dislikes so much of what our profession creates today. Therein lies the way forward. Ignoring your audience is not the solution to anything.
2/14/2012 3:23 PM CST
2/14/2012 3:23 PM CST
Anonymous
To the commenter below who said "BTW, people are stupid ..." - Just because you lack intelligence, don't assume everyone else is in the same boat. The comparison with Steve Jobs and Apple is highly selective. For every Apple there has been a slew of failures. The projects shown here seem more likely to be in the failure category. We've seen this stuff before. It didn't work then, it won't work now. - But it's a free country. If these architects chose to be pretentious, who am I to stop them. It's their mind to waste revisiting dead end speculations.
2/14/2012 2:42 PM CST
2/14/2012 2:42 PM CST
Anonymous
Wasn't it left-wing, socialist, eggheady liberal architects that gave us projects like Pruit-Igoe (and a host of comparable crime-infested dumps still standing)? Why do some architects refuse to learn from these mistakes? - Don't answer, but while you're scratching your head, I'd like to welcome the latest generation of architectural lemmings to the cliff face now. WORKac and MOS, let's start with you please. Go on, jump ... you can do it!
2/14/2012 2:34 PM CST
2/14/2012 2:34 PM CST
Anonymous
BTW people are stupid- they don't know what they want. It takes people like Steve Jobs to create trends and others will follow. Architecture is no different. The apple of architecture is here, it just takes a while for people to catch on (the amoebae effect). Remember apple was the butt of many jokes from pc users. Now look who's laughing.
2/14/2012 2:24 PM CST
2/14/2012 2:24 PM CST
Anonymous
There's a reason the general public prefer New Urbanism to the quasi-intellectual fantasies proposed here. The former adresses the real needs of the end users in a way that has stood the test of time, even as it evolves stylistically and functionally. As evidenced in the elitist and out-of-touch works shown here, the latter approach is at best a disconnected abstration that responds only to the imposed program of its creator. It has no basis in the world we as architects are supposed to service. Using trumped up jargon like "investigations" or "speculations" cannot hide the intellectual abyss from which this work emanates.
2/14/2012 12:58 PM CST
2/14/2012 12:58 PM CST
Anonymous
"The city can not be a work of art."
--Jane Jacobs
2/13/2012 6:32 PM CST
--Jane Jacobs
2/13/2012 6:32 PM CST
Anonymous
These all seem recycled ideas, all of which have been seen at one time or other since WWII, when the suburbs were developed with full steam, and that's a long time ago.
There don't seem to be any strong critical concept in re-thinking the suburb, or the "American Dream", in the time of the "American Nightmare". Can't see the attractiveness of WORkac's proposal, one story strips and towers.....? how original.
2/13/2012 4:26 PM CST
There don't seem to be any strong critical concept in re-thinking the suburb, or the "American Dream", in the time of the "American Nightmare". Can't see the attractiveness of WORkac's proposal, one story strips and towers.....? how original.
2/13/2012 4:26 PM CST
Anonymous
This is a terrific question for the design community but “Academics” are not equipped to address it because by definition they are insulated from the market forces that drive these questions.
Their design responses always seem to find answers in central planning socialism (or communism) where the lord in charge decrees how the little people shall live. In the context of the greatest economy on earth, these solutions always vary from amusing and trendy to useless. Ironically and predictably, the housing solutions generated by real world socialists and communists are among the worst on the planet!
Two years ago I outlined a grant project to design and build "the next American Home" using an award winning, very expensive, AE design and development team that no market rate home owner could ever afford. My local region's weather, utility rates, standard of living, aesthetic sensibilities and real estate market would all form the basis for this project. Once constructed, it would be leased and its overall performance measured over years – including elements like comfort, pride of ownership and livability in addition to the boring engineering stuff like energy performance.
The goal would be to offer a platform for the next generation of America’s homebuilders to reference when that industry recovers. I will not give away all the beans because I may resurrect it someday but needless to say, even in this economy I became too busy to fuss around with it.
2/13/2012 4:12 PM CST
Their design responses always seem to find answers in central planning socialism (or communism) where the lord in charge decrees how the little people shall live. In the context of the greatest economy on earth, these solutions always vary from amusing and trendy to useless. Ironically and predictably, the housing solutions generated by real world socialists and communists are among the worst on the planet!
Two years ago I outlined a grant project to design and build "the next American Home" using an award winning, very expensive, AE design and development team that no market rate home owner could ever afford. My local region's weather, utility rates, standard of living, aesthetic sensibilities and real estate market would all form the basis for this project. Once constructed, it would be leased and its overall performance measured over years – including elements like comfort, pride of ownership and livability in addition to the boring engineering stuff like energy performance.
The goal would be to offer a platform for the next generation of America’s homebuilders to reference when that industry recovers. I will not give away all the beans because I may resurrect it someday but needless to say, even in this economy I became too busy to fuss around with it.
2/13/2012 4:12 PM CST
Anonymous
Studio Gang seems to have recycled Yona Friedman and a lot of the futurist thinking of the sixties. That was fifty years ago. It turned out not to be all that palatable then and I don't think it's going to do any better today. On the whole, I have to agree with the previous comments about how out of sync with the real world these proposals happen to be. McMansions are not the answer and I think most people today would agree that little boxes all in a row (ticky tacky) don't make the grade either but higher densities and an architectural language that comforts rather than confronts may provide some of the answers that we are seeking. I am not talking about the acres of "townhomes" that spring up in the suburbs. I am suggesting something else altogether that is neither that nor what we are seeing in the "Foreclosed" exhibition.
Jim Pettit (I am not anonymous)
2/13/2012 4:08 PM CST
Jim Pettit (I am not anonymous)
2/13/2012 4:08 PM CST
Anonymous
Once again, I applaud MOMA reaching out to Architects for thoughtful investigations. One hopes that someday actionable ideas come out of this brainstorming. The argument that the housing industry is not serving the needs of Americans is valid, but not much in this show is any better. Like "Home Delivery" and "Small Scale: Big Change", earlier MOMA investigations, these aesthetic fantasies are appealing to look at but largely out of touch.
2/13/2012 3:45 PM CST
2/13/2012 3:45 PM CST
Anonymous
These type of ideas always give me pause. This walks, talks and acts like the urban renewal of the sixties. Our idealized vision has a way of not turning out the way free people want to live.
2/13/2012 2:53 PM CST
2/13/2012 2:53 PM CST
Anonymous
Central Planning in Beijing might be a better place for this exhibit. Are these Utopians sure we are all too anti-social and numb to survive as a species? Are we dummies so brainwashed by the old-fashioned we just can't let go of streets, fences, single family homes and going to the store for produce? Clientless design imposed on the "masses" is not the answer to fixing the world that embarrasses these folks...the answer is not to answer the unasked question....and I am sure none of the pathetic low incomers that I know asked to live in a decommissioned pile of box cars. Architecture is evolving at a nice evolutionary rate; leave it to do so. Fix federal regulation and banking and leave this type of "creativity" in North Korea where it works so well.
2/13/2012 2:27 PM CST
2/13/2012 2:27 PM CST
Less developed is the plan by Michael Bell and Eunjeong Song to revamp parts of Temple Terrace, Florida, near Tampa. The models and renderings are colorless—if the goal was to avoid tropical clichés, the architects succeeded. Andrew Zago went to the other extreme, covering the houses in his proposed development (part of Rialto, California) in patterning so bold, it recalls the work of Ettore Sottsass at the giddy height of Memphis. One extraordinary rendering appears to have been printed out of register (so that colors overlap in unexpected ways), symbolizing the desired blurring of lines between public and private property.
Stroll through the suburbs (if there are sidewalks or anything is accessible by foot) and the uniformity, lack of retail space, and absence of food markets is readily apparent. Many of the proposals in the installation look to rectify the discontinuity between the suburbs and ecology. Undoubtedly, several of the New Urbanist ideals of mixed use neighborhoods, shunned during the explosive growth over the past decades, will be featured prominently in the renderings.
Anonymous
"Architecture is the art of making places." -Robert Campbell
2/17/2012 4:22 PM CST
2/17/2012 4:22 PM CST
Anonymous
The term "intellectual" is a self-imposed occupational description rather than a qualitative label or an honorific title. One of the surprising privileges of intellectuals is that they are free to be scandalously asinine without harming their reputation. By comparison, no one judged Vince Lombardi's ideas about football by their plausibility a priori or by whether they were more complex or less complex than the ideas of other football coaches, or by whether they represented new or old conceptions of how the game should be played. Vince Lombardi was judged by what happened when his ideas were put to the test on the football field.
2/17/2012 4:50 PM CST
2/17/2012 4:50 PM CST
Anonymous
The New Urbanists have already addressed this issue and produced workable, walkable models that achieved popular and professional respect. So why does MoMA see fit to waste time and money "investigating" pretentious schemes like these? Ill-concieved, wrong-headed abstractions are the problem, not the solution. Let's move on from this self-indulgent posturing by people with little real work experience.
2/25/2012 2:22 PM CST
2/25/2012 2:22 PM CST
Anonymous
lar davis sez: for someone named "anonymous", they sure do talk a real lot! But not saying anything worthwhile. ps: New Urbanists are thugs and troublemakers, God luv 'em.
3/1/2012 8:32 AM CST
3/1/2012 8:32 AM CST
That proposal is by Amale Andraos and Dan Wood of WORKac, for a section of Keizer, Oregon that would be five times as dense as neighboring suburbs, but with three times as much open space. A gorgeous, dome-shaped structure contains a community composting plant. Around it are buildings that recall the best work of Steven Holl, Bjarke Ingels, and MVRDV. One imagines a developer seeing Andraos and Wood’s elaborate 1:250 model, depicting a gently futuristic suburb, and wanting to break ground tomorrow.
By altering the cultural narrative that is as pervasive as it was when first introduced into mainstream society in 1931 by James Truslow Adams, we can rewrite and ultimately redesign the future of American cities. These five proposals on display at MoMA, while optimistic and idealistic in nature, do capture the spirit of change and forward thinking in both design and practice. While differing in scale and execution, all five projects address the notion of the "American Dream" as an ideal that needs to be refigured in order to reflect current needs and demands of contemporary society.
TomPaine4
11 months ago
What crap. For example, says Jeanne Gang, "Cicero’s code also defines "family" in a way that excludes the large, multigenerational groupings." Too much trouble to look? Here is the definition, from the Cicero Illinois Code of Ordinances, sec 46-466:
"Family means a single individual, doing his own cooking, and living upon the premises as a separate housekeeping unit, or a collective body of persons doing their own cooking and living together upon the premises as a separate housekeeping unit in a domestic relationship based upon birth, marriage, or other domestic bond, as distinguished from a group occupying a boardinghouse, lodginghouse, club, fraternity or hotel."
So, multigenerational, and related by birth? That's a family. Large? Not in the definition. Not related by blood, nor by marriage, but cooking and living together, based on a domestic bond? Family, again.
I have no love for Cicero, but Jeanne Gang can make municipal ordinances look reasonable by comparison.
Let's go on to the very next phrase, "now common across the country." Are we to believe that large multigenerational groupings are now common across the country? If they are common, then these onerous regulations aren't having much effect. If they aren't common, then we have Jeanne Gang reporting what she wishes were true, in place of what is. Tool.
What crap. For example, says Jeanne Gang, "Cicero’s code also defines "family" in a way that excludes the large, multigenerational groupings." Too much trouble to look? Here is the definition, from the Cicero Illinois Code of Ordinances, sec 46-466:
"Family means a single individual, doing his own cooking, and living upon the premises as a separate housekeeping unit, or a collective body of persons doing their own cooking and living together upon the premises as a separate housekeeping unit in a domestic relationship based upon birth, marriage, or other domestic bond, as distinguished from a group occupying a boardinghouse, lodginghouse, club, fraternity or hotel."
So, multigenerational, and related by birth? That's a family. Large? Not in the definition. Not related by blood, nor by marriage, but cooking and living together, based on a domestic bond? Family, again.
I have no love for Cicero, but Jeanne Gang can make municipal ordinances look reasonable by comparison.
Let's go on to the very next phrase, "now common across the country." Are we to believe that large multigenerational groupings are now common across the country? If they are common, then these onerous regulations aren't having much effect. If they aren't common, then we have Jeanne Gang reporting what she wishes were true, in place of what is. Tool.
Jesus Negros
11 months ago
"decoupling the previous notion that ownership is a home and the land beneath it."
It's called a trailer park. It's already been invented.
"decoupling the previous notion that ownership is a home and the land beneath it."
It's called a trailer park. It's already been invented.
15 Feb, 2012 - (@orrshtuhl)
Urbanism museum combo! "Foreclosed" opens at MoMA, while "Greatest Grid" exhibit is up at MCNY. http://archrecord.construction.com/news/2012/02/F …(via @cristinabe)
jla-x
Feb 23, 12 12:07 pm
Sub-urban and suburban are also two very different things. I would argue that sub-urban is not bad. A good example of this is in some parts of Brooklyn, Queens, and Nassau county NY. The density is greater than the typical suburban environment, and there is a small business walkable street scape that flanks a mix of multi and single family housing in many of these neighborhoods. There is also access to public transit in and out of the city. There is a mix of home owners and renters, and the opportunity to own a house and rent out the top floor. There is a sense of community and a feeling of being in a small town within a city. The film "Do the Right Thing" by Spike Lee so clearly expresses this. Another issue is density. More density is not the solution alone. We need to find an appropriate balance of density, production, and economy so that development can be in some sort of sustainable balance. I think that sub-urban form has the greatest potential for a sustainable development because there is enough space to support a mix of agriculture, industry,small business, housing, park space, etc...as well as enough density to support local businesses with regard to employees and consumers. Cities like manhattan will never be able to become hybrid typologies because things like urban agriculture and production will be far too expensive due to crazy high land prices. The only problem with the sub-urban typology is that it sometimes becomes gentrified over time as we see in brooklyn or the opposite happens where it becomes a ghetto due to the home values going down as density goes up like in Jamaica Queens (balance is always a thin line). On the other hand, suburban development lends itself to exploitation by corporate interests as James R. clearly articulates. The American dream of owning a single family home is not going away. It is a part of the American culture that dates back hundreds of years. We need to find a solution to the problem without ignoring the cultural mentality that led to it. This is why ideas like the ones in the MoMA exhibit never work. I believe that we need to study examples that already work like Astoria, and go from there.
Sub-urban and suburban are also two very different things. I would argue that sub-urban is not bad. A good example of this is in some parts of Brooklyn, Queens, and Nassau county NY. The density is greater than the typical suburban environment, and there is a small business walkable street scape that flanks a mix of multi and single family housing in many of these neighborhoods. There is also access to public transit in and out of the city. There is a mix of home owners and renters, and the opportunity to own a house and rent out the top floor. There is a sense of community and a feeling of being in a small town within a city. The film "Do the Right Thing" by Spike Lee so clearly expresses this. Another issue is density. More density is not the solution alone. We need to find an appropriate balance of density, production, and economy so that development can be in some sort of sustainable balance. I think that sub-urban form has the greatest potential for a sustainable development because there is enough space to support a mix of agriculture, industry,small business, housing, park space, etc...as well as enough density to support local businesses with regard to employees and consumers. Cities like manhattan will never be able to become hybrid typologies because things like urban agriculture and production will be far too expensive due to crazy high land prices. The only problem with the sub-urban typology is that it sometimes becomes gentrified over time as we see in brooklyn or the opposite happens where it becomes a ghetto due to the home values going down as density goes up like in Jamaica Queens (balance is always a thin line). On the other hand, suburban development lends itself to exploitation by corporate interests as James R. clearly articulates. The American dream of owning a single family home is not going away. It is a part of the American culture that dates back hundreds of years. We need to find a solution to the problem without ignoring the cultural mentality that led to it. This is why ideas like the ones in the MoMA exhibit never work. I believe that we need to study examples that already work like Astoria, and go from there.
jla-x
Feb 16, 12 2:22 pm
Eichler, yes, I agree Kevin. You know of any contemporary developers that are doing this kind of work with a little more focus on community design and sustainability? I would love to do a little research into this.
Eichler, yes, I agree Kevin. You know of any contemporary developers that are doing this kind of work with a little more focus on community design and sustainability? I would love to do a little research into this.
Kevin W.
Feb 16, 12 1:30 pm
Builders, developers and real estate people have been telling people how to live for years....it's obvious now, more than ever, thats how things are done....people don't know what they want...Architects stopped telling people what they want in the 1960's....see what we have now? I think as far as far as something develor driven, the Eichler approach today would be a good start....Developer, hiring good and great Architects, offering something different that makes sense.
Builders, developers and real estate people have been telling people how to live for years....it's obvious now, more than ever, thats how things are done....people don't know what they want...Architects stopped telling people what they want in the 1960's....see what we have now? I think as far as far as something develor driven, the Eichler approach today would be a good start....Developer, hiring good and great Architects, offering something different that makes sense.
jla-x
Feb 16, 12 11:27 am
Why does innovation from Architects always have to come in the form of telling people how to live their lives?
You hit the nail on the head. This goes back the the FLW broad acre city idea, that we can reinvent society in totality to fit a certain utopian vision. The problem is that every architect wants to invent the big cure not the gradual remedy, because the glory lies in being Jonas Salk not the guy who invented Robatusin. The problem with any utopian model is that it usually works in theory, but is completely unrealisable due to the given societal constraints with regard to culture and economy. I have been arguing on threads here that we need to become developers and offer realistic alternatives to crap suburbia. Once again, architects are thinking of top down solutions to what can only be achieved with bottom up models. We live in a free market society whether we like it or not. We need to create demand by building better stuff. "if you build it they will come" We can't just dictate our solutions and hope for society to demand our service. The suburban model is not going away because it is deeply part of the american culture. Rather than get rid of it, lets start by building more sustainable and enriching suburaban communities that are affordable. Look at the way the auto industry copes with these constraints...Sure a small electric car that weighs 1000 lbs. may be the best solution, but they recognise that society will not change so quick, so they focus on hybrid suv's and 4 door sedans. We need to build the "civic hybrid" equivelent of architecture right now (transitionary projects) not the electric smart car, because unfortunatly many people out there still have steel testicles hanging from the back of their pick-up trucks. If we can't even do that, how the hell are we going to do anything more radical. While I wish society was easy to change and would love to see such grand projects, it just ain't gonna happen yet.
Why does innovation from Architects always have to come in the form of telling people how to live their lives?
You hit the nail on the head. This goes back the the FLW broad acre city idea, that we can reinvent society in totality to fit a certain utopian vision. The problem is that every architect wants to invent the big cure not the gradual remedy, because the glory lies in being Jonas Salk not the guy who invented Robatusin. The problem with any utopian model is that it usually works in theory, but is completely unrealisable due to the given societal constraints with regard to culture and economy. I have been arguing on threads here that we need to become developers and offer realistic alternatives to crap suburbia. Once again, architects are thinking of top down solutions to what can only be achieved with bottom up models. We live in a free market society whether we like it or not. We need to create demand by building better stuff. "if you build it they will come" We can't just dictate our solutions and hope for society to demand our service. The suburban model is not going away because it is deeply part of the american culture. Rather than get rid of it, lets start by building more sustainable and enriching suburaban communities that are affordable. Look at the way the auto industry copes with these constraints...Sure a small electric car that weighs 1000 lbs. may be the best solution, but they recognise that society will not change so quick, so they focus on hybrid suv's and 4 door sedans. We need to build the "civic hybrid" equivelent of architecture right now (transitionary projects) not the electric smart car, because unfortunatly many people out there still have steel testicles hanging from the back of their pick-up trucks. If we can't even do that, how the hell are we going to do anything more radical. While I wish society was easy to change and would love to see such grand projects, it just ain't gonna happen yet.
Nam Henderson
Feb 15, 12 7:15 pm
Or to reference a line from Blair Kamin's review of Jeanne Gang studios contribution to the exhibit maybe what is needed is less concept more blueprint?
Or to reference a line from Blair Kamin's review of Jeanne Gang studios contribution to the exhibit maybe what is needed is less concept more blueprint?
Nam Henderson
Feb 15, 12 6:36 pm
I would be interested in hearing from any Nectors who have read the book/visited the exhibit/participated in the studios.
Particularly in light of Guy Horton's recent piece of criticism Thoughts on MoMA's Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream wherein he wrote "This is a shame because there are some valuable ideas. Ironically, most of those are contained in the boring data taken from economists and social scientists. Were the architects trying too diligently to spatialize the data?...As unsettling as the damage the financial crisis has wrought on the fabric of dwelling in America, the distance these proposals travel away from what caused these foreclosures is equally unsettling."
Or Justin Davidson who recently in NY Magazine wrote "Some ideas in the show sit on the border between bold and silly...As a whole, though, the show merges daydreams with pragmatism."
There he specifically critiqued Mr. Bell's vision as seeking to "herd newcomers to Temple Terrace, Florida, into a pair of high-tech megastructures lifted above vast urban plazas."
Finally, more substantively to me was his feeling that "For all its thoughtfulness and rigor, though, a whiff of colonialism blows through the project, with its corps of city-based experts venturing into suburbia with maps and modern technology and plans for reforming the indigenous culture. The visions they come up with have a familiar urban feel, and the show replaces old conventional wisdom with the only slightly fresher dogma of density". Is it inevitable that this sort of project/process will perhaps come across as disconnected from on the ground socio-politics and communities. I wonder how a more organic approach to the problem could be articulated, perhaps even as simple as something like OccupyourHomes but more architecturally or spatially focused....
Also, this item Housing and the 99 Percent recently posted to News feed seem apropos.
I would be interested in hearing from any Nectors who have read the book/visited the exhibit/participated in the studios.
Particularly in light of Guy Horton's recent piece of criticism Thoughts on MoMA's Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream wherein he wrote "This is a shame because there are some valuable ideas. Ironically, most of those are contained in the boring data taken from economists and social scientists. Were the architects trying too diligently to spatialize the data?...As unsettling as the damage the financial crisis has wrought on the fabric of dwelling in America, the distance these proposals travel away from what caused these foreclosures is equally unsettling."
Or Justin Davidson who recently in NY Magazine wrote "Some ideas in the show sit on the border between bold and silly...As a whole, though, the show merges daydreams with pragmatism."
There he specifically critiqued Mr. Bell's vision as seeking to "herd newcomers to Temple Terrace, Florida, into a pair of high-tech megastructures lifted above vast urban plazas."
Finally, more substantively to me was his feeling that "For all its thoughtfulness and rigor, though, a whiff of colonialism blows through the project, with its corps of city-based experts venturing into suburbia with maps and modern technology and plans for reforming the indigenous culture. The visions they come up with have a familiar urban feel, and the show replaces old conventional wisdom with the only slightly fresher dogma of density". Is it inevitable that this sort of project/process will perhaps come across as disconnected from on the ground socio-politics and communities. I wonder how a more organic approach to the problem could be articulated, perhaps even as simple as something like OccupyourHomes but more architecturally or spatially focused....
Also, this item Housing and the 99 Percent recently posted to News feed seem apropos.
One of the best of these was (ironically) another MoMA show, “Small Scale, Big Change,” presented just last year. Curator Andres Lepik selected projects in which the architects maintained a sustained relationship with the communities they served. The projects were developed and carried out with the involvement of the communities, not invented in a museum for distant “beneficiaries”. Rather than being esoteric ideas proposed for whole “mega-regions” of the country, these projects were site-specific and actually built, in cooperation with the people who benefited.
Questioning the value of an outsider’s perspective in MoMA’s “Foreclosed” | Legally Sociable
February 22, 2012 at 11:15 AM
[...] seems to be provoking a lot of strong reactions (see Brian’s previous commentary here). Diana Lind, editor in chief of Next American City, questions both the motives and the [...]
[...] seems to be provoking a lot of strong reactions (see Brian’s previous commentary here). Diana Lind, editor in chief of Next American City, questions both the motives and the [...]
It’s a spectacular, futuristic enclave with “sky gardens,” urban farms and ribbons of native habitat snaking into handsome arrangements of what would been called “garden apartments” if it were, say, 1955.
Jeannie Kim
Reaction to (and, at times, shrill critique) of) the recently opened exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, “Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream,” might suggest that – yes – perhaps designers are better off sticking to the 1% that they know well, given architecture’s repeated historic failures to address complex urban (and suburban) challenges. After all, as Steven Holl apparently said in a 2010 interview, “It’s always about the clients. Without good clients you can’t have good architecture,” (quoted in Nicolai Ouroussoff, “By the Architects, for the People: A Trend for 2010s,” The New York Times, May 3, 2010) and the 99% is a notoriously difficult client. Yet the most innovative architects have and, thankfully, will continue to engage these questions, whether speculatively or with actual “blueprints” rather than just “visions”. OWS and the 99% have been galvanized by mortgage foreclosures, setting up camp at the same time the MoMA teams were first presenting their proposals (nee “visions”) last fall. Any design activity that engages these questions needs to be linked to radical changes in fiscal policy and transit infrastructure as well, however. The announcement that the Obama administration will be unveiling new standards this week for now banks treat the millions of people facing foreclosure may help, therefore, but it’s just a step toward addressing a vast problem that architects and designers alone cannot solve.
Wednesday, February 22 at 6:05pm
Wednesday, February 22 at 6:05pm
Reinventing the American dream is quite a daunting task and I really wanted to check what the MoMA had to say about this. Do these elite architects have a real alternative to what took us to the mess we are in today? We are talking about the MoMA here, so I was really expecting to be blown away by at least some of the 5 design projects. Well instead I kind of felt like I was at some 1950's World's fair show (The Jetsons even came to mind) Why this sensation of deja vu?
Sprawl Repair
Ms. Lind correctly states that we should avoid the simplistic view of suburbia, but then asks the simplistic question of whether it's better to annihilate it or perfect it. Pragmatic solutions will include both, as well as many other approaches.
"Sprawl" might be a better word to use than "suburb." Not all suburbs are sprawl --- in fact, some suburbs are already perfect as they are, while some sprawl will unfortunately need to be annihilated. Others will require different approaches. The key is to analyze each place, ideally beginning at the regional level, and identify the needs, opportunities, and measures to be taken. Ellen Dunham-Jones said as much in the article published on this site one day before (http://goo.gl/qK5p9).
The Sprawl Repair Manual (sprawlrepair.com) (http://goo.gl/B5lCW) provides the practical solutions Ms. Lind refers to. They include techniques for analyzing (from the region to the building), planning, zoning, designing, financing, and implementing the repair of sprawl.
4 months ago
"Sprawl" might be a better word to use than "suburb." Not all suburbs are sprawl --- in fact, some suburbs are already perfect as they are, while some sprawl will unfortunately need to be annihilated. Others will require different approaches. The key is to analyze each place, ideally beginning at the regional level, and identify the needs, opportunities, and measures to be taken. Ellen Dunham-Jones said as much in the article published on this site one day before (http://goo.gl/qK5p9).
The Sprawl Repair Manual (sprawlrepair.com) (http://goo.gl/B5lCW) provides the practical solutions Ms. Lind refers to. They include techniques for analyzing (from the region to the building), planning, zoning, designing, financing, and implementing the repair of sprawl.
4 months ago
These radical visions that are so insensitive to the suburbs remind me of the Modernist public housing projects that were once foisted on inner cities. Created by well-intentioned but essentially ignorant architects and planners, those buildings made sense in theory but not in practice. They didn’t respond to the rhythms and needs of the people who would be housed there, because the architects didn’t really respect or understand the lives of poor people. MoMA should have found some architects who could love and live in the suburbs, showing us the way to make the most of suburban housing instead of wishing it didn’t exist.
Carl W. Smith
02.26.12 at 07:29
Retrofitting the American Dream in a flat world
I hate the over developed suburban wasteland, having grown up in a small town in eastern PA. Shortly after developers cut down the apple orchard at the end of my street to build more houses I escaped to art school. Ironically I grew up in a town that had a lot of history & culture — where American folk artist Edward Hicks painted the Peaceable Kingdom. In that Newtown, which is a very old American town, I learned a few things. If we combine a time for work (the lion), a time for home (the lamb) and a time for culture (the horse) we will rediscover the American Dream. Our Dream just needs a little pruning to flourish.
I agree with Ellen Dunham’s optimistic ideas for retrofitting suburbia. She touches on the idea of people having a third place to go to after the home and the workplace. We need to develop this idea. The only thing I would add to Ellen’s summary is to build equestrian centers on public land through out the American suburban landscape to add culture to the town centers. People need a place to meet and reconnect. We need to get back on the horse and rediscover our culture.
Thank you for your post
Retrofitting the American Dream in a flat world
I hate the over developed suburban wasteland, having grown up in a small town in eastern PA. Shortly after developers cut down the apple orchard at the end of my street to build more houses I escaped to art school. Ironically I grew up in a town that had a lot of history & culture — where American folk artist Edward Hicks painted the Peaceable Kingdom. In that Newtown, which is a very old American town, I learned a few things. If we combine a time for work (the lion), a time for home (the lamb) and a time for culture (the horse) we will rediscover the American Dream. Our Dream just needs a little pruning to flourish.
I agree with Ellen Dunham’s optimistic ideas for retrofitting suburbia. She touches on the idea of people having a third place to go to after the home and the workplace. We need to develop this idea. The only thing I would add to Ellen’s summary is to build equestrian centers on public land through out the American suburban landscape to add culture to the town centers. People need a place to meet and reconnect. We need to get back on the horse and rediscover our culture.
Thank you for your post
Diana Lind wrote a fairly heated denunciation of the exhibition at Next American City; I didn’t feel the architects involved “demonized” the suburbs, but I also didn’t see a natural bridge between the visions and blueprints. I wonder if the show might have been stronger if it had stopped short of asking the architects to build new towns, which end up looking and sounding a lot like new Brooklyns. Three stories, home offices, granny flats, walkable. That's my life, but many of my friends don't want it.
oboe
I think the more extreme viewpoints including have left people very defensive, and believing things about urbanism that give ammo the antiurbanists, and make their job of persuasion easier.
By way of a comparison: gay people have been struggling for marriage equality for decades now. Many cultural conservatives are very angry about this, and feel their way of life is under assault. It's a difficult thing to persuade them. Frequently, you'll see footage of some gay pride parade somewhere, which is repeated on a loop for the express purpose of stoking this outrage.
Do gay pride parades make arguing for gay marriage more difficult? Of course. But that's not the fundamental problem.
Same goes for environmentalism: if it weren't for that guy with dreadlocks on that college campus somewhere in the midwest who goes on about Gaia, would folks like George Will have signed on to "cap and trade" by now?
If no one ever said anything mean about suburban cul-de-sacs on GGW, do you think the Randall O'Toole's of the world would cease talking about shadowy urbanists trying to take away your car? Or UN initiatives that threaten our freedom? After all, that's where your average "man on the street" gets such nonsense, not because they read some urbanist gadfly in the comments section of an obscure blog somewhere.
C'mon. Municipalities are trying to retrofit to urbanism because the experts feel they don't have a choice, long-term. But industries (and that includes conservative political parties) that benefit from suburban sprawl will fight with every fiber of their being to prevent that from happening. Do you really think the Rush Limbaughs of the world are going to find TOD religion if the David Alperts of the world start praising ample parking?
Sure there are individuals with essentially zero influence who bad-mouth suburbia, and that may register with the very, very few people who read GGW, but in the larger debate, they're hardly even background noise.
Feb 22, 2012 11:47 am
By way of a comparison: gay people have been struggling for marriage equality for decades now. Many cultural conservatives are very angry about this, and feel their way of life is under assault. It's a difficult thing to persuade them. Frequently, you'll see footage of some gay pride parade somewhere, which is repeated on a loop for the express purpose of stoking this outrage.
Do gay pride parades make arguing for gay marriage more difficult? Of course. But that's not the fundamental problem.
Same goes for environmentalism: if it weren't for that guy with dreadlocks on that college campus somewhere in the midwest who goes on about Gaia, would folks like George Will have signed on to "cap and trade" by now?
If no one ever said anything mean about suburban cul-de-sacs on GGW, do you think the Randall O'Toole's of the world would cease talking about shadowy urbanists trying to take away your car? Or UN initiatives that threaten our freedom? After all, that's where your average "man on the street" gets such nonsense, not because they read some urbanist gadfly in the comments section of an obscure blog somewhere.
C'mon. Municipalities are trying to retrofit to urbanism because the experts feel they don't have a choice, long-term. But industries (and that includes conservative political parties) that benefit from suburban sprawl will fight with every fiber of their being to prevent that from happening. Do you really think the Rush Limbaughs of the world are going to find TOD religion if the David Alperts of the world start praising ample parking?
Sure there are individuals with essentially zero influence who bad-mouth suburbia, and that may register with the very, very few people who read GGW, but in the larger debate, they're hardly even background noise.
Feb 22, 2012 11:47 am
Falls Church
Municipalities are trying to retrofit to urbanism because the experts feel they don't have a choice, long-term.
I think the disconnect between the urbanists and many suburbanites is in the intensity of belief. Plenty of suburbanites think that a transformation to a more urban form would be good but think it's way off-base to say that without such a transformation, the burbs will fail. It would be similar to saying that DC cannot be successful or sustainable without radical change in its public education system. Obviously, it would be great if DC schools got a lot better but I don't see another collapse happening for DC anytime soon, with or without better schools.
It's also like saying that DC can never be successful without better governance. Frankly, some people in DC would find it insulting if you said that DC can never be successful with certain CMs as part of the Council (just like some suburbanites find some things that urbanists say to be condescending). In fact, there are many people who would have been insulted if you said that about Harry Thomas up until the day he was arrested. Once again, clearly DC would benefit from better CMs but there will be no collapse even with continued bumbling along with the current crop of CMs.
Feb 22, 2012 5:53 pm
I think the disconnect between the urbanists and many suburbanites is in the intensity of belief. Plenty of suburbanites think that a transformation to a more urban form would be good but think it's way off-base to say that without such a transformation, the burbs will fail. It would be similar to saying that DC cannot be successful or sustainable without radical change in its public education system. Obviously, it would be great if DC schools got a lot better but I don't see another collapse happening for DC anytime soon, with or without better schools.
It's also like saying that DC can never be successful without better governance. Frankly, some people in DC would find it insulting if you said that DC can never be successful with certain CMs as part of the Council (just like some suburbanites find some things that urbanists say to be condescending). In fact, there are many people who would have been insulted if you said that about Harry Thomas up until the day he was arrested. Once again, clearly DC would benefit from better CMs but there will be no collapse even with continued bumbling along with the current crop of CMs.
Feb 22, 2012 5:53 pm
For all their problems, suburbs clearly “work” on some levels. (If they didn’t, suburbs would hold little attraction for to the millions happily residing in them.) Lind’s specific examples of cultural clueless-ness on the part of the MoMA-commissioned architects are well worth pondering. She suggests that failing to consider what aspects of suburbs work (and how) results the same sort of ham-fisted, bureaucratic approach that destroyed thriving urban neighborhoods in the mid-twentieth century:
MB: There’s the Glass-Steagall Act which segregated commercial and
investment banking. There’s the Wagner-Steagall Act which funded public housing. Steagall was on both.
CH: Interesting.
MB: It’s very interesting.
CH: Now we’ve got huge conglomerate banks and no public housing.
investment banking. There’s the Wagner-Steagall Act which funded public housing. Steagall was on both.
CH: Interesting.
MB: It’s very interesting.
CH: Now we’ve got huge conglomerate banks and no public housing.
CH: What does that mean? I think we sort of have a sense of the automobile, the sort of oil-fueled world of post-World War II America and suburban sprawl as these kinds of the things that have conspired to build the great sprawling American suburban landscape. What does rethinking that involve from a design perspective? From a policy perspective?
MB: […] In the 1990s you had a booming economy, you had a kind ofpush to alter, if not end, the welfare state. By the 2000s, you have a real estate bubble. And today you have a foreclosure crisis. But in all of these situations, there are a couple things that have been consistent. The amount of money people spend on housing and transportation is immense. They can’t afford it. You don’t want to tell people they can’t afford something and say that’s the reason to change. You want to be more positive than that. But there are many, many factors about affordability, about energy consumption, and frankly about the role of design in any of it. The American single-family house is a commodity product that has virtually no research and development, no design. Architects, in a spec house in Houston in the late 1990s—their fee was about twelve dollars per house. These are mass-produced commodities. There is no professional engagement. […] I think most of the people in this exhibition are quite
positive and excited about the suburbs. We know it’s a deeply, deeply important part of the American ethos, if not just everyday life of course. But, they’re not inevitable. And the financial underpinnings of them have really dramatically shifted in the last five, ten, fifteen years—not just the last two.
CH: Talk about that R&D thing. You made a point in the video in the exhibition that blew my mind about the comparison between how much money in R&D goes into your iPhone or anti-lock brakes versus an American home.
MB: I did mention anti-lock brakes. For many commodities, before they hit the market, there are billions of dollars that might precede it, whether it’s Clorox or whether it’s an iPhone or a Honda Civic which is quite an ingenious product. Housing as we know it has kind of ironed all of that
out of it, and it did it a long time ago. […] They are paying Mercedes Benz prices for a twenty-year-old used car. The single-family house market atomizes out all of the financial processes, and you still are spending large sums of money, but you’re not getting the sophisticated product. It’s not that it’s not a nice product or something people love, but it could be much, much better in energy and everything else.
MB: […] In the 1990s you had a booming economy, you had a kind ofpush to alter, if not end, the welfare state. By the 2000s, you have a real estate bubble. And today you have a foreclosure crisis. But in all of these situations, there are a couple things that have been consistent. The amount of money people spend on housing and transportation is immense. They can’t afford it. You don’t want to tell people they can’t afford something and say that’s the reason to change. You want to be more positive than that. But there are many, many factors about affordability, about energy consumption, and frankly about the role of design in any of it. The American single-family house is a commodity product that has virtually no research and development, no design. Architects, in a spec house in Houston in the late 1990s—their fee was about twelve dollars per house. These are mass-produced commodities. There is no professional engagement. […] I think most of the people in this exhibition are quite
positive and excited about the suburbs. We know it’s a deeply, deeply important part of the American ethos, if not just everyday life of course. But, they’re not inevitable. And the financial underpinnings of them have really dramatically shifted in the last five, ten, fifteen years—not just the last two.
CH: Talk about that R&D thing. You made a point in the video in the exhibition that blew my mind about the comparison between how much money in R&D goes into your iPhone or anti-lock brakes versus an American home.
MB: I did mention anti-lock brakes. For many commodities, before they hit the market, there are billions of dollars that might precede it, whether it’s Clorox or whether it’s an iPhone or a Honda Civic which is quite an ingenious product. Housing as we know it has kind of ironed all of that
out of it, and it did it a long time ago. […] They are paying Mercedes Benz prices for a twenty-year-old used car. The single-family house market atomizes out all of the financial processes, and you still are spending large sums of money, but you’re not getting the sophisticated product. It’s not that it’s not a nice product or something people love, but it could be much, much better in energy and everything else.
The ideas underlying the project are drawn from SMART growth strategies that have been developed to stem the tide of urban sprawl. But this project also dips into important issues related to the demographic change in the structure of neighborhoods that needs to be taken into account. For example, the case of Cicero, Illinois, emphasizes the role of immigration from Mexico in changing the sociodemographic structure of this Chicago suburb. In fact, they even name the Mexican states of Jalisco, Colima, and Michoacan as being major sources of the area's residents. It's a complicated story, of course, but two things that I did not see in the exhibit (despite the apparent emphasis on their importance) were references to where jobs are and what transportation systems exist to get people from these re-imagined communities to their jobs--whatever and wherever they may be.
Aaron Cohn, “Dream Houses,” Columbia Magazine, Summer 2012, 3.
DREAM HOUSES
Letters
The proposed housing models featured in your Spring 2012 issue (“Dreaming American”) are best described as solutions in search of a problem. In particular, the proposal for the Oranges, in New Jersey — which would fill underused streets between existing buildings with ribbons of new developments — creates problems for which there are no reasonable solutions.
Problem number one is that the new structures, to meet disability-access regulations and building codes, would require elevators and public corridors leading to enclosed exit stairways, neither of which can be accommodated within the proposed configurations. Problem number two is that the structures would interfere with access for emergency vehicles.
But aided by the reclamation of previously private spaces (“The idea is that private space that is now abandoned, foreclosed, or empty would be given back to the public”), a more realistic project could be conceived featuring the following:
• Narrowed and reconfigured roads for use by bicyclists and joggers, and access for emergency vehicles.
• Playgrounds, parks, and open space enabled by the demolition of buildings deemed to be unsuited for adaptive reuse.
• Varied housing types to accommodate residents with a wide range of family structures and financial resources.
• Ground-level spaces for such services as childcare, health care, laundry, and community administration.
• Community-owned shuttle buses to provide access to shops and schools.
I’m sure that Jane Jacobs, if she were alive today, would be pleased to see this concept implemented.
Aaron Cohn ’49GSAPP
Los Angeles, CA
Aaron Cohn, “Dream Houses,” Columbia Magazine, Summer 2012, 3.
Of the proposals on view, perhaps the most appealing is Nature-City, WorkAC’s inventive re-imagining of the modest Portland feeder town of Keizer, Oregon. A surprisingly urban vision for a relatively remote locale, the design boasts a wide variety of housing typologies, all of them arrayed around a municipal complex whose tumulus-like forms suggest a connection to nature fully qualified by the development’s eco-friendly features. As with the Zago group’s plan for Rialto, California, and Gang’s for Cicero, Illinois, Nature-City puts a premium on communal space and services, not only as a means to foster community but as a hedge against the mercenary commercialism that gave us the late housing boom and bust. And to the special credit of Andraos, Wood, and their academic and engineer collaborators, the Keizer scheme avoids the trap (into which Michael Bell’s proposal, Simultenaous City, slips all to easily) of rehearsing the problematic motifs of 20th century social housing, creating instead a novel and lively template for the future of American life.
Dee Carter
134 days ago
Weren't these experiments tried in the late 50's, 60's and 70's post modernist movement? I think they ended up calling them "the projects"! Epic FAIL!
...I guess these are different because they are proposed for the suburbs. Yeah, that's it...that's it.
Weren't these experiments tried in the late 50's, 60's and 70's post modernist movement? I think they ended up calling them "the projects"! Epic FAIL!
...I guess these are different because they are proposed for the suburbs. Yeah, that's it...that's it.
Robert
133 days ago
Here we go again - architects attempting to be the deciders on who lives in a cooked up utopian paradise. I agree with Dee - didn't we go through this before - actually several times before - go back to Lutyens and others pre-Victorian UK for other references. This argument is as old as time in architecture circles and frankly something I believe in my bones architects need to stay way far away from.
The problems associated with the current debacle in housing goes way beyond just cooking up alternatives to a model that for decades had worked pretty well until the restraints of the banking system and the policy makers in DEE CEE were unshackled. Thank you Barney Frank, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Sarbanes / Oxley, CRA, Derivatives, MBS, CDO's, Wall Street, Glass Steagle (no more), FHA, HMA, Phil Gramm, Rudman, Fannie, Freddie, National Assoc. of Realtors, Mortgage Banking Association, TARP, QE whatever, Helicopter Ben, HARP, HAMP, Obama and the porkulus - the list of imposters posing as statesmen and policy wonks and their attendant fixes goes on and on. To just read this article on the surface and agree would be in my humble opinion horribly misguided and naive.
Wake up architects - putting the design blinders on only will not serve you nor your clients well. A much broader and active view is needed - bone up on economics, finance, politics, local government, proper spheres of authority, the scriptures - you name it. Without a broader and DEEPER view of the market the profession will continue to wallow in the ditch it finds itself in, unable to provide any added value to projects and their sponsoring clients. Clients want value - not just ideas!!! And one final thing......
I LIKE LIVING IN THE SUBURBS!!!
Here we go again - architects attempting to be the deciders on who lives in a cooked up utopian paradise. I agree with Dee - didn't we go through this before - actually several times before - go back to Lutyens and others pre-Victorian UK for other references. This argument is as old as time in architecture circles and frankly something I believe in my bones architects need to stay way far away from.
The problems associated with the current debacle in housing goes way beyond just cooking up alternatives to a model that for decades had worked pretty well until the restraints of the banking system and the policy makers in DEE CEE were unshackled. Thank you Barney Frank, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Sarbanes / Oxley, CRA, Derivatives, MBS, CDO's, Wall Street, Glass Steagle (no more), FHA, HMA, Phil Gramm, Rudman, Fannie, Freddie, National Assoc. of Realtors, Mortgage Banking Association, TARP, QE whatever, Helicopter Ben, HARP, HAMP, Obama and the porkulus - the list of imposters posing as statesmen and policy wonks and their attendant fixes goes on and on. To just read this article on the surface and agree would be in my humble opinion horribly misguided and naive.
Wake up architects - putting the design blinders on only will not serve you nor your clients well. A much broader and active view is needed - bone up on economics, finance, politics, local government, proper spheres of authority, the scriptures - you name it. Without a broader and DEEPER view of the market the profession will continue to wallow in the ditch it finds itself in, unable to provide any added value to projects and their sponsoring clients. Clients want value - not just ideas!!! And one final thing......
I LIKE LIVING IN THE SUBURBS!!!
The Buell Hypothesis also highlights another central fact: the need for architects to return to research on these non urban areas. Until now, the suburbs have been analyzed by a specific group of architects linked to the New Urbanism movement. Usually the argument has been that a mixture of nostalgia and contemporary priorities (sustainability, green space, pedestrian zones and so on) has been the idea which has inspired the form of these areas, in most cases. And thus prevailing opinion has often linked the reading of suburbs more to that of a village than a city. The Hypothesis attempts to provide another way of understanding these areas,
Anonymous
People need to understand the point of these projects. A good article was written on this topic in Metropolis. The 1st point to make is that these are largely political and social problems that have to be tackled in that realm in order for architects to even have the ability to address them. For example, Americans can't keep electing people who don't believe in sustainability and who are beholden to oil companies if they want to solve these problems. Architects can't overcome the weight of political and legal restrictions holding them back without help from American voters. There need to be subsidies for green tech, mass transit, sustainable development, etc. These architects know enough about these issues to know this is the case. I have no problem with utopian solutions in this case, because the point of the projects are to reinforce what first needs to be done in order to get anywhere on these issues. Therefore mass transit is critical, even though it's nearly impossible in our current political climate. Does that means architects should abandon proposing ideas that make mass transit central to their designs? No. The point of projects like this is to reinforce what the model needs to be. Once people understand what the model needs to be, they can vote accordingly for people that will allow architects to move the country in that direction. People who are overly critical of utopian proposals are missing the forest for the trees. Utopian proposals have a critical role to play in making sure everyone is facing up to reality in terms of what our goals should be. If we cut architects off at the legs and force them to only propose ideas that work for today's developers, then we get nowhere and in reality architects aren't doing their jobs. They're just legitimizing bad developers and their values.
3/23/2012 1:52 PM CDT
3/23/2012 1:52 PM CDT
Anonymous
Jacob,
As Deb Gans made clear in her interview on this website, it's critical that architects in 2012 address both formalism and green issues. It's not enough to be either/or. Either/or is only doing half an architect's job, and that's not enough. Everyone deserves access to progressive contemporary design, rich people, poor people, Americans, Africans, everyone. It's about equality and respect and not patronizing people.
3/23/2012 1:46 PM CDT
As Deb Gans made clear in her interview on this website, it's critical that architects in 2012 address both formalism and green issues. It's not enough to be either/or. Either/or is only doing half an architect's job, and that's not enough. Everyone deserves access to progressive contemporary design, rich people, poor people, Americans, Africans, everyone. It's about equality and respect and not patronizing people.
3/23/2012 1:46 PM CDT
Anonymous
In a world with an ever diminishing attention span, notoriety is best achieved with one-liner gimmicks featuring a calculated mix of simplistic graphics, pseudo-intellectual pretension and the requisite shock value that appeals primarily to adolescents. Fashionable nonsense and superficiality trumps substance every time. We’ve seen it from Ville Radieuse to Pruitt Igoe and to other slums designed by self-styled “intellectuals” lacking the compassion and talent to create meaningful places and homes. ‘Foreclosed’, the latest incarnation of ill-informed ideas rooted in the abstract ruminations of amateurs with (mostly) little or no real world building experience, fits this sad mold exactly. Remarkable principally for its lack of insight in the research and dignity on the end products, it comes across as the work of self-indulgent poseurs proposing novelty for novelty’s sake as though ‘invention’ is somehow synonymous with ‘solution’. Candy-colored shape-making is offered in lieu of sincerity.
The use of charged buzzwords words and phrases like “activist” and “socially or environmentally conscious dimension” suggests some serious import where none is evident in the work itself. It is a common liberal ploy to distract from any more intuitive thought processes that would likely conclude that these ill-conceived experiments will almost certainly be the slums of tomorrow.
Dr. D.S. Abrams
New York City
3/23/2012 12:31 PM CDT
The use of charged buzzwords words and phrases like “activist” and “socially or environmentally conscious dimension” suggests some serious import where none is evident in the work itself. It is a common liberal ploy to distract from any more intuitive thought processes that would likely conclude that these ill-conceived experiments will almost certainly be the slums of tomorrow.
Dr. D.S. Abrams
New York City
3/23/2012 12:31 PM CDT
Peter Sellers
Mar 6th 2012, 07:17
"Nature-City" for Keizer, Oregon resembles what Singapore has begun to look like. Ughhh
Disclosure: I live in Singapore (and am obviously not pleased with the changes I see here).
"Nature-City" for Keizer, Oregon resembles what Singapore has begun to look like. Ughhh
Disclosure: I live in Singapore (and am obviously not pleased with the changes I see here).
Mad Hatter
Mar 6th 2012, 13:29
Architects/Urban planners often suffer from the same level of hubris as religious and political zealots. They “believe” they know how humanity should behave and think.
When presenting they will say. “One walls along this avenue, and feels a sense of…” Huh? The world abounds with architectural and urban planning disasters. Look at a park where instead of following some meandering walkway, there is a muddy path straight across the grass.
Le Corbusier was amongst the worst, and subsequent generations not much better. A case of the “Emperor’s Clothes”.
Throw in a little anti-capitalist, anti-car, eco looniness, and you end up with Milton Keynes, or worse, Bracknell where I am spending too much time. I need Sat-Nav to get in and out of town and contribute to muddy paths straight across roundabouts.
Now we have computers, curves and angles thrive, simply because they can be designed, not because they make sense,
Why reinvent the wheel? We have spent thousands of years evolving buildings and spaces that work.
Essential reading. Jane Jacobs : “The Death and Life of Great American Cities”, Peter Collins: “Changing Ideals in Modern Architecture”, John Summerson, “Heavenly Mansions”. All classic texts on modern architecture and urban design. And anything by Colin Davies.
Classic examples of Urban planning disasters caused by hubris? Brasilia along with Chandigarh in India. Loved by the acolytes of modern architecture, a failure by everybody else’s standards.
Architects/Urban planners often suffer from the same level of hubris as religious and political zealots. They “believe” they know how humanity should behave and think.
When presenting they will say. “One walls along this avenue, and feels a sense of…” Huh? The world abounds with architectural and urban planning disasters. Look at a park where instead of following some meandering walkway, there is a muddy path straight across the grass.
Le Corbusier was amongst the worst, and subsequent generations not much better. A case of the “Emperor’s Clothes”.
Throw in a little anti-capitalist, anti-car, eco looniness, and you end up with Milton Keynes, or worse, Bracknell where I am spending too much time. I need Sat-Nav to get in and out of town and contribute to muddy paths straight across roundabouts.
Now we have computers, curves and angles thrive, simply because they can be designed, not because they make sense,
Why reinvent the wheel? We have spent thousands of years evolving buildings and spaces that work.
Essential reading. Jane Jacobs : “The Death and Life of Great American Cities”, Peter Collins: “Changing Ideals in Modern Architecture”, John Summerson, “Heavenly Mansions”. All classic texts on modern architecture and urban design. And anything by Colin Davies.
Classic examples of Urban planning disasters caused by hubris? Brasilia along with Chandigarh in India. Loved by the acolytes of modern architecture, a failure by everybody else’s standards.
The most visually stunning and forward-thinking model comes from WORKac, a team of lower East Side architects led by Amale Andraos and Dan Wood. They were inspired by British urbanist Ebenezer Howard’s 1890s concept of the “Town-Country,” which combined the best of nature and agriculture with the conveniences of urban life. WORKac tried to create that mix for Keizer, Ore. The city, an hour outside of Portland, is expected to grow by 13,000 people in the next 20 years. Rather than expand the Urban Growth Boundary — which was created in Oregon to contain sprawl — WORKac reworked an area currently occupied by big-box retailers to hold a combination of housing types and a variety of green space from sky gardens to urban farms.
lapin229
Mar 5th 2012, 14:55
Architects (some) have always had an over-evolved sense of their own importance. At least Paulo Soleri had style, these guys are recycling stuff we did in the 70's, just not as well. The big design solutions and Urban planning of the past don't work for the future. The next step will be devolution, self sustaining, smaller, less susceptible to economic changes and power failures. I think you call them villages in europe. We don't have that concept in the USA. The curator screwed the pooch on this one, there's lot of interesting alternate work out there.
Architects (some) have always had an over-evolved sense of their own importance. At least Paulo Soleri had style, these guys are recycling stuff we did in the 70's, just not as well. The big design solutions and Urban planning of the past don't work for the future. The next step will be devolution, self sustaining, smaller, less susceptible to economic changes and power failures. I think you call them villages in europe. We don't have that concept in the USA. The curator screwed the pooch on this one, there's lot of interesting alternate work out there.
Anderson-2
Mar 5th 2012, 13:25
This stuff looks like the public housing experiments of the 60s given an absolutely fabulous facelift and a couple of pairs of mahnolos. I'm all into walking and dense housing and good public transport, and lived that for 8 years in Cologne, but this stuff gives me the screaming hebijibies.
“Privacy is a sense of realising who is where and what they are doing, and that allows you to be calm.” ? WTF
This stuff looks like the public housing experiments of the 60s given an absolutely fabulous facelift and a couple of pairs of mahnolos. I'm all into walking and dense housing and good public transport, and lived that for 8 years in Cologne, but this stuff gives me the screaming hebijibies.
“Privacy is a sense of realising who is where and what they are doing, and that allows you to be calm.” ? WTF
johnberkowitzin reply to SometimesLeftSometimesRight
Mar 3rd 2012, 14:36
I agree with you 100%. The problem is that the market is not controlled by people with ideas but by people seeking profit. And building a sustainable and children-friendly environment is not that important. Each building has its own architect, own solutions and etc. But look on the wonderful planning of Brasil (the capital of Brazil), with the coherent architecture and sustainable environment. And it is almost 50 years old right now, but it looks wonderful!
I agree with you 100%. The problem is that the market is not controlled by people with ideas but by people seeking profit. And building a sustainable and children-friendly environment is not that important. Each building has its own architect, own solutions and etc. But look on the wonderful planning of Brasil (the capital of Brazil), with the coherent architecture and sustainable environment. And it is almost 50 years old right now, but it looks wonderful!
johnberkowitz
Mar 3rd 2012, 09:32
I think that contemporary architecture should reflect the community needs of the current population. The idea of changing the old style of living into more dynamic one is great. Replacing bungalows by the condo style type of living is just a great idea. I can see the European and Canadian influence in the battle against the old English style of living.
From my point of view, creating the new "centers" of life in the suburbs is also very interesting idea. Sometimes it is much better to reconstruct everything from the scratch than to continue with the old structures and ideas. Never ending House Flipping can not sustain the houses forever and sooner or later, the old suburb has to be replaced by a new one.
With new model of suburb, you get more possibilities to evade old mistakes and give people better life conditions and space for their everyday lives.
I think that contemporary architecture should reflect the community needs of the current population. The idea of changing the old style of living into more dynamic one is great. Replacing bungalows by the condo style type of living is just a great idea. I can see the European and Canadian influence in the battle against the old English style of living.
From my point of view, creating the new "centers" of life in the suburbs is also very interesting idea. Sometimes it is much better to reconstruct everything from the scratch than to continue with the old structures and ideas. Never ending House Flipping can not sustain the houses forever and sooner or later, the old suburb has to be replaced by a new one.
With new model of suburb, you get more possibilities to evade old mistakes and give people better life conditions and space for their everyday lives.
After this, however, Nature-City has some clever tricks up its sleeves. A water tower housed at the top of an apartment block cascades down as an indoors waterfall. Buildings are equipped with cut-outs and internal parks to encourage animal migration. The strangest structure might be an enormous dome that uses methane from the city’s waste to heat public swimming pools. As an update on Ebenezer Howard’s Garden City, it’s playful, utopian, and probably a nice place to live.
Ann, Texas
4/3/2012 15:10
What do you think MAN MADE UP GLOBAL WARNING was all about??
What do you think MAN MADE UP GLOBAL WARNING was all about??
Fred, Ca.
4/3/2012 14:49
They only left out the ovens for the peaple who do not comply and the millions of cameras to exploit the U.N. Iron fist rule!!! A CITY PRISON.
They only left out the ovens for the peaple who do not comply and the millions of cameras to exploit the U.N. Iron fist rule!!! A CITY PRISON.
lcid, london
4/3/2012 9:54
U.N.;s Agenda 21 for the new world order sers pure and simple.
Rating 13
U.N.;s Agenda 21 for the new world order sers pure and simple.
Rating 13
Pete, Lincs
4/3/2012 5:51
'Little Boxes' a hit for Pete Seeger in 1963 (not written by him).
'Little Boxes' a hit for Pete Seeger in 1963 (not written by him).
molly, oop north
4/3/2012 4:28
The picture at the top reminds me of the German prisoner of war camps and the rest...........................ghettos within ghettos!
The picture at the top reminds me of the German prisoner of war camps and the rest...........................ghettos within ghettos!
DrMallard, West Palm Beach, Florida, USA
4/3/2012 1:57
"Blade Runner", anyone?
"Blade Runner", anyone?
Don, Whitehorse, Canada
3/3/2012 20:16
Ewww, absolutely no character and downright ugly. My ideal home is a Hobbit house,...go Tolkien for inspiration.
Ewww, absolutely no character and downright ugly. My ideal home is a Hobbit house,...go Tolkien for inspiration.
Yves Harlow, MO, USA
3/3/2012 18:24
Bleak. They look like prison blocks - only condos instead of cells. This certainly looks like part of the NWO/Agenda 21 propaganda, and brings the film "Camp FEMA" to mind. Please watch this documentary on YouTube. They just want to herd us up like cattle...
Bleak. They look like prison blocks - only condos instead of cells. This certainly looks like part of the NWO/Agenda 21 propaganda, and brings the film "Camp FEMA" to mind. Please watch this documentary on YouTube. They just want to herd us up like cattle...
tom bowden, perth australia
3/3/2012 16:22
Looks like PR for Agenda 21 aka Smart Cities, Sustainable Living, Plannedopolis etc, nice pack 'em and stack 'em blocks close to PUBLIC transit, suggest cars and private property a thing of the past, American Dream or NWO nightmare? If you are going to seduce us with slick packaging and sophisticated propaganda, do try to make it slick or half sophisticated, this is embarrassingly see through.
Looks like PR for Agenda 21 aka Smart Cities, Sustainable Living, Plannedopolis etc, nice pack 'em and stack 'em blocks close to PUBLIC transit, suggest cars and private property a thing of the past, American Dream or NWO nightmare? If you are going to seduce us with slick packaging and sophisticated propaganda, do try to make it slick or half sophisticated, this is embarrassingly see through.
Justine, USA
3/3/2012 15:44
Robert Moses, many many years ago, suggested that we save all the beauty areas of the country for ALL the people. so the rich couldnot take up acreage on the beach in same the Hamptons, etc. HE suggested, smaller homes with huge common gardens, playgrounds....yet we would all have beach access, lake access, etc. I think its a good idea (in theory)..in reality, I don't want to pick up others doggie doo, or garbage. If we were all abiding and pleasant, it would be wonderful. BUT I DO agree that it is not right for the very rich to be able to 'control' a beach area. WHY should they be able to claim part of the Atlantic or Pacific for their very own? makes no sense. ALL beaches should be public, be in Malibu or Quogue.
Robert Moses, many many years ago, suggested that we save all the beauty areas of the country for ALL the people. so the rich couldnot take up acreage on the beach in same the Hamptons, etc. HE suggested, smaller homes with huge common gardens, playgrounds....yet we would all have beach access, lake access, etc. I think its a good idea (in theory)..in reality, I don't want to pick up others doggie doo, or garbage. If we were all abiding and pleasant, it would be wonderful. BUT I DO agree that it is not right for the very rich to be able to 'control' a beach area. WHY should they be able to claim part of the Atlantic or Pacific for their very own? makes no sense. ALL beaches should be public, be in Malibu or Quogue.
George, Lymington
3/3/2012 14:48
plus ca change...
plus ca change...
Cecilia, Glasgow
3/3/2012 14:40
It looks like the place where the cartoon charachters "The Jetsons" lived in space! Futuristic and lifeless.
It looks like the place where the cartoon charachters "The Jetsons" lived in space! Futuristic and lifeless.
Rachel Foss, Glasgow
3/3/2012 13:52
While the The Garden in the Machine project for Cicero, Illinois is interesting to look at, the 'container' living fad that has been played out in design and, now, architecture, for sometime is just that. A fad. I think it's legacy would be that of Brutalist Architecture; vulgar and out-dated 20/30 years in the future. 8 house in Denmark is a lovely example of compound/community living. I'v never been fully convinced on this 1930s/bauhaus notion of suburbia, I think I've read too much Richard Yates.
While the The Garden in the Machine project for Cicero, Illinois is interesting to look at, the 'container' living fad that has been played out in design and, now, architecture, for sometime is just that. A fad. I think it's legacy would be that of Brutalist Architecture; vulgar and out-dated 20/30 years in the future. 8 house in Denmark is a lovely example of compound/community living. I'v never been fully convinced on this 1930s/bauhaus notion of suburbia, I think I've read too much Richard Yates.
Neil Kerslake, German
3/3/2012 13:50
Mainly, they look like prisons.
Mainly, they look like prisons.
Steve, The Shire
3/3/2012 12:33
Hmm..most of it looks suspiciously like the stuff produced by the Bauhaus movement in 1930's Germany.
Hmm..most of it looks suspiciously like the stuff produced by the Bauhaus movement in 1930's Germany.
pat, cleveland
3/3/2012 11:22
my local Socialist council "has this dream" about one of our sea side towns that looks like Beirut on a bad day, ......dream on, dream on!
Rating 50
my local Socialist council "has this dream" about one of our sea side towns that looks like Beirut on a bad day, ......dream on, dream on!
Rating 50
Pete, Lincs
3/3/2012 11:01
I remember all the futuristic designs from the 50s - and how many do we have?
I remember all the futuristic designs from the 50s - and how many do we have?
Linda, Daytona Beach, FL
4/3/2012 18:37
Looks kind of like an upper class prisoner of war camp to me......another way to control people by putting them into neat little compartments. Thanks, but no thanks.
Looks kind of like an upper class prisoner of war camp to me......another way to control people by putting them into neat little compartments. Thanks, but no thanks.
As the architectural critic Ada Louise Huxtable wrote, "The exhibition marks the return of the museum to an activist position." Huxtable was writing 39 years ago, on the occasion of MoMA's most recent show on housing, 1973's Another Chance for Housing: Low-Rise Alternatives. With further discussions planned to connect Foreclosed with current New York City-based housing initiatives, the activist potential for MoMA remains.
n an earlier era, the connection between the museum's exhibitions and housing policy was more direct: Catherine Bauer, a key contributor to MoMA's first architectural shows in the early 1930s, co-authored the Housing Act of 1937, and then continued to collaborate on MoMA housing exhibitions from her position within the newly created United States Housing Authority, the predecessor to HUD.
jeremysiegel
8th Mar
Mortgage Refinance
While interest rates have never been more attractive, the number of people taking advantage of the historically low rates and refinancing their mortgages has dropped substantially, most of them dont even aware of the rates, i recommend 123 Refinance for refinance
Mortgage Refinance
While interest rates have never been more attractive, the number of people taking advantage of the historically low rates and refinancing their mortgages has dropped substantially, most of them dont even aware of the rates, i recommend 123 Refinance for refinance
I took these images at the MoMA exhibit, ‘Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream”. They had these tabletop displays of re-imagined urban living spaces where everything was more communal, economical and efficient. What struck me about the mock ups was not their architectural design, though impressive, but the little snapshots of life within them. It gave me an almost Laforet-esque feeling on the microcosm of how we live amongst the urban sprawl. It was a great exhibit, I highly I recommend if your able to go
Nottosmart
134 days ago
A modern Eastern Europe apartment complex, Chinese, Russian? The architects would be better off spending their idle time finding ways to rid themselves of our current legislators, economic development leadership and others, and begin to lure businesses into the area that will hire locals in huge quantities, companies that will not depend on government handouts and pay their employees a living wage plus benefits.
A modern Eastern Europe apartment complex, Chinese, Russian? The architects would be better off spending their idle time finding ways to rid themselves of our current legislators, economic development leadership and others, and begin to lure businesses into the area that will hire locals in huge quantities, companies that will not depend on government handouts and pay their employees a living wage plus benefits.
BrooksScarpa
MAR 14, 2012 1:45 PM EDT
Over 20 years ago Angela Brooks was looking at this condition in a proposal in Southern California. The proposal was titled “Post Suburbia” and won a PA Award in 1992. Her proposal looks at how to add density to the tracts of single family homes by allowing new zoning and modest expansion of Single family homes to allow more dwelling units. You can see more of the proposal just posted on the Brooks + Scarpa Facebook page at:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Brooks-Sc arpa-Architects/131136066935667
Over 20 years ago Angela Brooks was looking at this condition in a proposal in Southern California. The proposal was titled “Post Suburbia” and won a PA Award in 1992. Her proposal looks at how to add density to the tracts of single family homes by allowing new zoning and modest expansion of Single family homes to allow more dwelling units. You can see more of the proposal just posted on the Brooks + Scarpa Facebook page at:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Brooks-Sc arpa-Architects/131136066935667
GRRR
MAR 14, 2012 8:40 AM EDT
I don’t know how you can say that the housing crisis was mostly a suburban thing. In downtown Portland all of the condo projects that were completed between 2007 and 2009 were subsequently turned into apartments or turned over to banks. Unsold units in bank possession were auctioned off or otherwise sold at a 40% discount. This reversed the trend of the prior decade of apartment buildings being converted into condos. Look around and the cranes are building new apartment buildings, not condos.
To the point of suburban architectural solutions to making housing affordable. You know that museum-curated shows are always ‘think big or don’t come’. When was the last time you saw a curated show present pragmatic proposals that could be installed in real life, the next day?
Real life solutions are already being played out in the burbs of Portland, and undoubtedly in hundreds of other burbs in the nation.
Orenco Station is supposed to be a New Urbanism project, although its growth has been driven by the big-box strip mall (a blend between the traditional strip mall and the single lot big box store).
A twist on Jane Jacobs romanticism connected to mass transit rail is discerned from stop after stop along the TriMet MAX, with tracts of townhomes and pocket parks within 1000′ of a MAX stop.
Not two weeks ago, the Portland Home Show unveiled the IKEA House. A collaboration between IKEA and a local company – Ideabox – that designs and builds prefab structures. It turns out, the solution to making housing affordable is to downsize the McMansion and make it practical inside.
In any case, the solution is either to expand suburbia outward or increase density — move out or move up.
I don’t know how you can say that the housing crisis was mostly a suburban thing. In downtown Portland all of the condo projects that were completed between 2007 and 2009 were subsequently turned into apartments or turned over to banks. Unsold units in bank possession were auctioned off or otherwise sold at a 40% discount. This reversed the trend of the prior decade of apartment buildings being converted into condos. Look around and the cranes are building new apartment buildings, not condos.
To the point of suburban architectural solutions to making housing affordable. You know that museum-curated shows are always ‘think big or don’t come’. When was the last time you saw a curated show present pragmatic proposals that could be installed in real life, the next day?
Real life solutions are already being played out in the burbs of Portland, and undoubtedly in hundreds of other burbs in the nation.
Orenco Station is supposed to be a New Urbanism project, although its growth has been driven by the big-box strip mall (a blend between the traditional strip mall and the single lot big box store).
A twist on Jane Jacobs romanticism connected to mass transit rail is discerned from stop after stop along the TriMet MAX, with tracts of townhomes and pocket parks within 1000′ of a MAX stop.
Not two weeks ago, the Portland Home Show unveiled the IKEA House. A collaboration between IKEA and a local company – Ideabox – that designs and builds prefab structures. It turns out, the solution to making housing affordable is to downsize the McMansion and make it practical inside.
In any case, the solution is either to expand suburbia outward or increase density — move out or move up.
Among the questions on the table is that of the role of architecture (and architecture within the museum) in the search for workable solutions, to which the stock answer within the field is something about synthetic problem solving and visionary thought leadership. The first step may simply be the difficult and contentious public identification of where the problems actually lie in order to move beyond top/bottom and toward throughout/within, a step architects and the MoMA have taken before. In 1934, the museum exhibited America Can’t Have Housing aimed at “show[ing] why America needs housing and yet is so backward at filling this need.”[1] That was several architectural lifetimes ago and the specifics of the housing problem were different, but it seems much of the conversation was the same. In the museum’s Bulletin, Carol Aronovici (chairman of the committee responsible for that exhibition) refers to the rationalized plans of Modernism when he writes, “Impatient with the confusion of our cities and unable to find a solution which would provide for the essential human needs, many of these innovators have presented radical schemes for city planning as fantastic as they are inconsistent with the structure of modern society.” He continues, “This is perhaps not the fault of these innovators, but rather of the social order under which our cities have grown up…We cannot hope to rebuild our cities without changing our social and economic structure…”
The reality is that few houses in the United States are designed by architects; I remember seeing a statistic a few years ago that suggested it was roughly 5-10%. There are plenty of other people who think they can design them, such as builders or engineers or Menards. A couple of issues could be present here. Adding an architect to the homebuilding process includes another person that needs to be paid. If you are a builder who is hoping to Some designs might be considered “too modern” for many suburban neighborhoods that tend to celebrate bland or known styles. This is the reason you can get stucco houses across the country – people know these but are more skeptical of modernist homes.
And yet, they must not think too big, as the ghost towns of China and the zombie subdivisions of the Southeast and Intermountain West attest. Not everyplace can be like New York, and enjoy its good fortune and staggering wealth. But in terms of its grid and planning for growth, it may be the perfect example of Goldilocks planning – not too far-reaching, not insufficient, but impressively, just right.
Neil Padukone
I haven't seen it yet, but I'm looking forward to the Museum of the City of NY exhibit about the grid. You summarize the issue of the grid pretty well here. But one thing that many reviews of the exhibit seem to neglect is what Robert Neuwirth writes about in "Shadow Cities": the power dynamic that was central to the creation of the New York City grid. By laying out the land in blocks, the city was better able to define and allocate plots of land (usually coterminous with building numbers) to landowners. They were better able to assign and keep track of the values and prices of those plots. This inherently favored landowners in what was, at the time, a city largely inhabited by squatters.
In places like Mumbai, where arguably a majority of the city is inhabited---and much of it was literally developed---by squatters in slums and shanties, this commodification of land is very risky. Shutting (poor) squatters out of land is precisely what governments in Mumbai and Beijing are doing now, by bulldozing slums. And this is harmful not just for reasons of justice and equity, but also because the urban poor contribute a great deal of labor and economic activity to the city.
Blocks and grid systems would facilitate that process by specifically defining plots of land and putting a price on them, which would then be an "opportunity cost" of housing the poor.
In places like Mumbai, where arguably a majority of the city is inhabited---and much of it was literally developed---by squatters in slums and shanties, this commodification of land is very risky. Shutting (poor) squatters out of land is precisely what governments in Mumbai and Beijing are doing now, by bulldozing slums. And this is harmful not just for reasons of justice and equity, but also because the urban poor contribute a great deal of labor and economic activity to the city.
Blocks and grid systems would facilitate that process by specifically defining plots of land and putting a price on them, which would then be an "opportunity cost" of housing the poor.
The task at hand is retrofitting -- going back to landscapes that have turned out wrong. That was in stark contrast to another outstanding exhibit in New York right now -- The Greatest Grid: The Master Plan for Manhattan 1811 - 2011, at the Museum of the City of New York.
Anonymous
In response to - Anonymous: "...any actual success stories of 'big-box' (with 20-acre asphalt parking lot) redevelopment? I haven't seen any."
3/22/2012 12:15 PM
See Denton, TX public library - a former grocery store turned library: http://archrecord.construction.com/projects/bts/archives/libraries/06_Denton/overview.asp
Published right here, in ArchRecord back in May 2006.
3/22/2012 12:15 PM
See Denton, TX public library - a former grocery store turned library: http://archrecord.construction.com/projects/bts/archives/libraries/06_Denton/overview.asp
Published right here, in ArchRecord back in May 2006.
Anonymous
Has there been any actual success stories of 'big-box' (with 20-acre asphalt parking lot) redevelopment? I haven't seen any. My impression is that Wal-Mart would rather abandon the place to the skateboarders and the urban campers before they would sell out to Target or Kohls.
3/22/2012 12:15 PM CDT
3/22/2012 12:15 PM CDT
Anonymous
Ladies , Gentlemen ,Professors et al ,
Have you forgotten the sad lessons of Pruitt - Igoe .
Since then the hard road to "Love thy neighbor as Thy self " in America has been shattered by
Inner city Gangs on one side & Gated WEALTH on the other .
The American dream for the rest of us ( the dying middle class) has become a survival Hell !!!
Now that the GREED & ME first failures have happened ;perhaps we can have SOCIAL change .
TRY this . Housing complexes with Cultural places which are inclusive of ALL classes & cultures .
Howard Roark
3/22/2012 2:57 AM CDT
Have you forgotten the sad lessons of Pruitt - Igoe .
Since then the hard road to "Love thy neighbor as Thy self " in America has been shattered by
Inner city Gangs on one side & Gated WEALTH on the other .
The American dream for the rest of us ( the dying middle class) has become a survival Hell !!!
Now that the GREED & ME first failures have happened ;perhaps we can have SOCIAL change .
TRY this . Housing complexes with Cultural places which are inclusive of ALL classes & cultures .
Howard Roark
3/22/2012 2:57 AM CDT
Anonymous
I think the market is determining that suburbs are unsustainable and more dense living is the way to go. In suburbs around Chicago, like Arlington Heights, downtowns were designed, developed and built so people can have that downtown feel. People want places to have dinner, then walk to the show, and then have ice cream afterwards. All within walking distance. For those of you who haven't tried it, treat yourself to the experience.
3/22/2012 12:33 AM CDT
3/22/2012 12:33 AM CDT
One would be hard-pressed to find a more jarring juxtaposition to the new exhibit "Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream" than the venue itself: New York's Museum of Modern Art. MoMA is pre-High Line Big Apple contemporary, with glass, steel and high-end patrons. It is located in a very high-end neighborhood, a far cry from cities like Rialto, Calif., and Cicero, Ill. discussed in the exhibit. One is far more likely to be standing next to a Carioca discussing her new downtown condo than suburbanites wondering about foreclosure or falling property values. At $25 a ticket, an hour of museum entrance fees on a typically busy weekday could probably buy an entire block in many of the hard-hit suburban communities across the country.
That said, it is high time that a high-profile American cultural institution took on the question of housing and the future of the American Dream, and the exhibit does an admirable job of asking some important questions.
That said, it is high time that a high-profile American cultural institution took on the question of housing and the future of the American Dream, and the exhibit does an admirable job of asking some important questions.
This sort of vague, non-ideological collectivism hangs over the entire show. Designs by Visible Weather and, in particular, Zago Architecture, stress the blurring of the usual lines between public and private, renting and owning, residential and commercial sites. Such imprecise boundaries give these projects a Ballardian air: what use is changing the dream if you replace it with a nightmare?
SV: What is MoMA doing putting on such an obviously political exhibit? What are they doing?
AU: The Museum of Modern Art has a tradition of putting on---
Sandra Smith [blonde]: I was going to say, artists are never political.
SV: It's always the elite telling the rest of us how we should live, isn't it?
AU: No, it's---
SV: Always.
AU: No, in fact, the state of California is enacting zoning policies to make suburbs more dense. You know, and the Wall Street Journal just pointed out last week that they are trying to, instead of having four houses per acre, they're going to have twenty houses per acre.
AU: The Museum of Modern Art has a tradition of putting on---
Sandra Smith [blonde]: I was going to say, artists are never political.
SV: It's always the elite telling the rest of us how we should live, isn't it?
AU: No, it's---
SV: Always.
AU: No, in fact, the state of California is enacting zoning policies to make suburbs more dense. You know, and the Wall Street Journal just pointed out last week that they are trying to, instead of having four houses per acre, they're going to have twenty houses per acre.
MOMA has a new show called Foreclosed which is four architects who tackle the problem of that great disaster environment the American suburb. This show is so much better than MOMA’s lame 2008 Housing for New Orleans show in which a half dozen architects proposed designer suburban homes for the newly dried out city in the gulf – baptism by hubris: ’you still have to drive to get your milk, but at least you live in a hip little house,’ that show seemed to be saying.
Four American architects confronting face on the debacle of the suburb is a rare thing – we’ve seen lots addressing, but few confronting. Perhaps this show establishes a watershed moment in which more and more begin to speak out. Is it good news for architects everywhere, who may now speak openly about urban ideas and planning and government involvement in development etc? They now have at least some precedent to defend against recrimination. The sphere of the built environment has become as politicized as the many other hot button issues of our time – health, education etc, but it rarely gets air time, in great part because of fear of recrimination.
Commenting on the architects’ renderings — tiered gray blocks of aerated concrete — both Ms. Jackson and Ms. Gidigbi compared them to what one might find in the third world. And on that note, Mr. Meredith suggested it was the Orange officials who were in need of a reality check.
“You could say parts of Orange look like a third-world country already,” he said. “It’s incredibly tragic what’s going on there, what some people have to do to survive.”
“You could say parts of Orange look like a third-world country already,” he said. “It’s incredibly tragic what’s going on there, what some people have to do to survive.”
A PAIR of New York architects describe the plan they have conceptualized for remaking downtown Orange as something that will “rewrite both the physical and social spaces of Orange.” Township officials, on the other hand, compare it to what “you could see in a third world country” and say it’s “not really grounded in reality.”
On April 16, 2012 at 5:50 pm HG Watson
On April 16, 2012 at 5:50 pm
I got to school in Windsor so it's definitely familiar territory. This project is very interesting though.
I got to school in Windsor so it's definitely familiar territory. This project is very interesting though.
Angie
On April 16, 2012 at 7:26 pm
Um, where is historic preservation in this conversation???? HP must be a part of the conversation for community sustainability.
Um, where is historic preservation in this conversation???? HP must be a part of the conversation for community sustainability.
The resulting projects, for actual American suburbs, are predictably varied in their practicality and architectural flair. A proposal for an Oregon community designed around a compost mountain by the New York firm WORKac seemed especially daring. Chicago's Jeanne Gang proposed the retrofitting of a derelict factory, and used it to piggyback an argument for better design and smarter financing options on the opinion page of The New York Times. Taken together, the projects would seem to suggest that the American suburbs should look a lot more like Europe, or really Holland. That is, they should be more dense, less dependent on the car, more flexible, and more environmentally friendly.
When I walked into the press opening of Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream at MoMA, an endless panel discussion was underway, and all I could do was tiptoe from model to model—from Studio Gang Architects’ charming Kenner Building Set take on Cicero, Illinois, to Andrew Zago’s new strategy for Rialto, California, which is represented by a batch of oddly shaped, multicolored boxes that don’t appear to say anything specific about housing. I spent time pondering Nature- City, the Keizer, Oregon, project designed by a team led by Amale Andraos and Dan Wood of Work AC. Its biomorphic form reminded me of Arcosanti, the Paolo Soleri “city” that has been rising in the desert north of Phoenix for decades, and its concept evoked the long-postponed eco-city of Dongtan, China, near Shanghai. Then I shrugged and walked away. A play on that old line from Roman Polanski’s Chinatown came to mind: “Forget it, Jake. It’s MoMA.”
The American Dream has never really been my cup of tea. It never made sense to me. Maybe the world has shrunk over the last couple decades so that I, unlike generations prior who seem to have bought into the idea of the American Dream intimately, see the problems and needs of the human race more clearly. With that recent insight made possible through technology and shared information how can the blind pursuit of your own self interest and desires be the end all be all? How does this consumptive me-first attitude provide for the well being of your children and their children with the daunting realities present in today’s world? I read a quote by the author and economist Jeremy Rifkin that sums up this point better than I can. He said:
“You can’t have 6.8 billion cowboys out there and begin to think about bringing the species together in a global economy and a global biosphere.”
The American Dream is not a sustainable intelligent vision. The needs of the many are left out of the utopian backyard. And I have never witnessed, in all my days, a direct correlation between happiness and prosperity.
“You can’t have 6.8 billion cowboys out there and begin to think about bringing the species together in a global economy and a global biosphere.”
The American Dream is not a sustainable intelligent vision. The needs of the many are left out of the utopian backyard. And I have never witnessed, in all my days, a direct correlation between happiness and prosperity.
Uniquely, this was not a contest. The five teams were invited to host open conversations with each other at MoMA, and the 5 designs, though wildly different, were actually the product of open collaboration. They have provided five new models of living, working, and commuting in a metropolis. Some of the ideas look like the product of a J.G. Ballard nightmare, but others are truly innovative.
shtrum
JUNE 1, 2012 • 10:09 AM
shtrum said…
At the risk of playing devil’s advocate, MOMA is only doing what MOMA does. But blaming them for popular culture is like blaming Lady Gaga for bologna sandwiches.
If architects want to know why only 2% of housing is designed by architects, they only need look in a mirror. A $200+/sf mirror.
Did i mention i was playing devil’s advocate? :)
shtrum said…
At the risk of playing devil’s advocate, MOMA is only doing what MOMA does. But blaming them for popular culture is like blaming Lady Gaga for bologna sandwiches.
If architects want to know why only 2% of housing is designed by architects, they only need look in a mirror. A $200+/sf mirror.
Did i mention i was playing devil’s advocate? :)
Justin
MAY 29, 2012 • 7:42 AM
I saw this back when it graced Arch Daily at some point. Larger issues aside, the MOS project is unequivocally bad. It reminds me more a gridded version of elevated highways that dissected our cities in the 60′s. This typical created a “good” and “bad” side. Formally, the language of the complexes are imposing and completely unnatural to their contexts.
Otherwise, I’m of complete agreement that MoMA did more harm than good here.
I saw this back when it graced Arch Daily at some point. Larger issues aside, the MOS project is unequivocally bad. It reminds me more a gridded version of elevated highways that dissected our cities in the 60′s. This typical created a “good” and “bad” side. Formally, the language of the complexes are imposing and completely unnatural to their contexts.
Otherwise, I’m of complete agreement that MoMA did more harm than good here.
Grahampuba
MAY 29, 2012 • 6:30 AM
Usually the eye roll comes at a roof garden with mature trees on the 93rd floor, but waterfalls..? Other thoughts would have been; are those Petri dish? are we plebs bacteria colonizing on your culture? I’d like to think i would have come to the same conclusion but I think i would have not made it past the waterfall Voltron skyscraper without cursing enough to be shown the door.
Usually the eye roll comes at a roof garden with mature trees on the 93rd floor, but waterfalls..? Other thoughts would have been; are those Petri dish? are we plebs bacteria colonizing on your culture? I’d like to think i would have come to the same conclusion but I think i would have not made it past the waterfall Voltron skyscraper without cursing enough to be shown the door.
But just a few minutes into the exhibit and we wondered if we had taken a wrong turn back at the stark-white Mies van der Rohe inspired vestibule. Perhaps we had wandered into the surrealist room, or maybe we stumbled into a symposium discussion on deciphering nightmares. The models in the center of the room were disturbingly unrealistic; they all seemed to stem from dystopian visions of dense, industrial mega-plexes. Filling in the empty spaces, previously known as backyards, with geometrically arranged chaos seemed to be the priority for most schemes. The only thing missing were miniature figures from the film Blade Runner standing on lonely decks staring out over the vast disarray of their tiny surroundings.
Big Daddy
JUNE 7, 2012 · 8:01 PM
I live in the wrong part of the world to offer first hand critique of Foreclosed, but this criticism seems unqualified. MoMA is an art museum, and will provide inventive solutions based in the arts, surely! That is what i would expect to see at MoMA, and would be disappointed otherwise. I dont think they promised ‘practical’ solutions. Bit like going to a Michelin star restaurant and criticising them because they dont serve Big Macs.
I live in the wrong part of the world to offer first hand critique of Foreclosed, but this criticism seems unqualified. MoMA is an art museum, and will provide inventive solutions based in the arts, surely! That is what i would expect to see at MoMA, and would be disappointed otherwise. I dont think they promised ‘practical’ solutions. Bit like going to a Michelin star restaurant and criticising them because they dont serve Big Macs.
Therein lies the problem. Since cities began to rapidly expand more than a century ago, urban thinkers have proposed transit-oriented, neighborhood-based development as the antidote, packaged in architectural wrapping appropriate to innovative thinking of the time. Obviously, we’re missing something. The strongest piece on this exhibit wall is a deceptively simple ad campaign. The actual buildings of Foreclosed range from whimsical to indecipherable; a few might be at home in Manhattan or downtown Chicago, but none would be adopted by a suburban developer today. While we lament the lack of popular design sophistication, visitors flock to the model with blinking lights and tiny people, and miss the more important underlying ideas. We architects are left talking with ourselves, once again.
04 Jun, 2012 - (@MichaelTG09)
Love that this vision of a future city is basically a remix of classic townhouse design. Lets focus on reuse/repurpose. http://www.moma.org/interactives/e …
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/keizer/
The result is a series of essentially utopian schemes. I was most drawn to the solution called Nature City, for Keizer, Oregon by WORKac, a design firm in Manhattan. Inspired by the Garden City concept espoused by influential late 19th century British urbanist Ebenezer Howard, (detail of part of a garden city plan shown above, courtesy Our Letchworth), they proposed developing a 225 acre parcel (already slated for big box stores and the like) in a way that is “five times denser than the adjacent suburban blocks but has three times the amount of public open space, including a 158-acre nature preserve.”
18 Jun, 2012 - (@rkeil)
Interesting for me to read that Rodney King apparently lived & died in Rialto, CA. http://www.moma.org/interactives/e …Has anyone picked up on that story?
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/rialto/
Too often public and private are positioned as opposites, as extremes that lead to nothing less than different systems. (The right-wing rhetoric that's branded President Obama as "socialist" is only the latest example.) In this schema, high public good is equated with high government spending, high public debt, and ultimately low private value; likewise high private value is equated with high profit and minimal public good. But no matter its political uses, this sort of either/or thinking is unproductive; the rise of both the corporate social responsibility movement and the non-profit social enterprise sector underscore that public good and private value not only can coexist but can also be mutually reinforcing.
So I believe the hybrid approach is the likeliest way to achieve real innovation in housing as well as in real estate development practices. What might be the role of architects in this effort? The South African architect Iain Low has described a building as a manifesto, a declaration of what is possible. (“I work within the possibility of significantly transforming reality, as opposed to reinventing it," he said.) And indeed, the five projects in Foreclosed show us the possibilities of dreaming big.
So I believe the hybrid approach is the likeliest way to achieve real innovation in housing as well as in real estate development practices. What might be the role of architects in this effort? The South African architect Iain Low has described a building as a manifesto, a declaration of what is possible. (“I work within the possibility of significantly transforming reality, as opposed to reinventing it," he said.) And indeed, the five projects in Foreclosed show us the possibilities of dreaming big.
One of the largest visions is housing for all. From WORKac’s attempt to bring a five-fold increase in densification through high-rise building to MOS’s decoupling of ownership and place through the mechanism of portable mortgages, the projects in Foreclosed seek to meet this goal through various new strategies. But what about small-scale strategies that have already proven successful? Here's one example: Accessory Dwelling Unit programs, which flourished in the last decade, have added density, diversity and connectivity to existing communities, and in the process made them more sustainable. In 2006 Santa Cruz, California, started one of the most progressive ADU programs in the U.S., largely to enhance housing affordability in an affluent city where less than 10 percent of the population could afford to buy even a median-priced home. The program included loan financing and technical assistance, and it hired design firms to create prototypes for likely "accessory" conditions. Today it's one of the city’s most popular programs, with an average of 50 new units every year.
At ADPSR we agree with much of Prof. Martin’s analysis. As an organization — and also as individual practitioners — we too are dismayed by the unceasing rollback of social welfare programs (to cite just one example: here in cash-strapped California, the epicenter of the taxpayers revolt in the 1970s, legislators have recently eliminated all of the state's almost 400 redevelopment agencies) and by the right-wing and libertarian attack on the idea that government can be a locus of collective action and shared values. The steady and intensifying dismantling of American public housing — as exemplified not just by the demolition of Pruitt-Igoe but also by the wholesale destruction in the past decade of Chicago's postwar high-rise public housing — is certainly part of this rollback. And we would go even further: we believe it’s important to restore the perceived worth of public housing in order to validate and implement the fundamental human right to housing. Understanding the project of public housing within the larger human rights framework will advance Prof. Martin's position and help architects (and civilians) appreciate the value of Foreclosed as well. It will also expose the misbegotten faith in "individualism," which has distorted the politics of human rights.
It is equally interesting, and maybe troubling, that the overwhelming majority of the projects did not take up practices of participatory design that also date back to the 1970s and even earlier. Still, it is worth noting that the more recent codification of “bottom-up” approaches to housing, particularly in Latin America, has coincided with neoliberal “structural adjustment” in the global economy. In the case of sites-and-services and other models of user-generated, low-income housing — in which municipalities provide only minimal financing and basic infrastructure (e.g., water, electricity, sanitation) and depend upon residents to construct their own shelter — this has often meant, among other things, offloading the material cost of that housing onto the backs of already dispossessed residents. This reality in no way delegitimizes vital efforts to empower residents in the provision of housing; it merely marks one of the potential contradictions — the fact that residents are often compelled by implicit, seemingly horizontal power relations to participate in processes that validate and perpetuate their own dispossession. And it suggests that empowerment from below must center on developing the political resources with which to contest — intellectually and pragmatically — the very structures by which this occurs.
More specifically they were asked, gently but persistently, to design public housing on publicly owned or supported land identified in The Buell Hypothesis: not "affordable housing," or housing provided by "public-private partnerships," but genuinely public housing that learns even from notorious precedents like the Pruitt-Igoe and Cabrini-Green "experiments," as well as from far more successful examples that still endure in cities and suburbs across the country and around the world.
It is a sign of the times that this exhortation has proved controversial not because it reminds us of the economic inequity, the structural racism, and the gender violence that has marked every stage of so much welfare-state public housing, from inception to management, even as it challenges the apparent inevitability of such results. It is controversial because it suggests that the state, or the public sector — conceived along with civil society in terms of multiple, overlapping, virtual and actual publics — might play a more active, direct and enlightened role in the provision of housing and, by extension, of education, health care and other infrastructures of daily life in the United States. In other words, it is a direct challenge to the now-dominant paradigm of privatization. That the design teams did not entirely take up this challenge is, in my view, at least as interesting as what they actually did propose, and is perhaps symptomatic of how deeply the politics of privatization has shaped design culture. Simply put, can we no longer imagine architecture without developers?
It is a sign of the times that this exhortation has proved controversial not because it reminds us of the economic inequity, the structural racism, and the gender violence that has marked every stage of so much welfare-state public housing, from inception to management, even as it challenges the apparent inevitability of such results. It is controversial because it suggests that the state, or the public sector — conceived along with civil society in terms of multiple, overlapping, virtual and actual publics — might play a more active, direct and enlightened role in the provision of housing and, by extension, of education, health care and other infrastructures of daily life in the United States. In other words, it is a direct challenge to the now-dominant paradigm of privatization. That the design teams did not entirely take up this challenge is, in my view, at least as interesting as what they actually did propose, and is perhaps symptomatic of how deeply the politics of privatization has shaped design culture. Simply put, can we no longer imagine architecture without developers?
First, we need to struggle to establish a basic right to housing and a right to the city for all. Eviction and displacement should never be allowed as solutions — they are “solutions” only for landlords and bankers, and they invariably happen at the expense of tenants and homeowners. As amply defined by UN-Habitat and in international covenants, the right to housing is much more than a roof over one’s head; it is a right to a decent quality of life in a viable, sustainable community. Groups like the New York City-based National Economic and Social Rights Initiative and the Habitat International Coalition, which has members and allies worldwide, are strongly advocating for this expanded definition of rights.
Mark Hogan
I posted this article on Facebook, and a friend who is not involved in planning or architecture commented on the theme of forgetting history, and how it is similar to the themes of the book "1984". The theatrical erasure of Pruitt Igoe has become a stand-in for the failure of modernism and public housing- I remember taking undergraduate planning classes at a very liberal university where public housing was being taught as being synonymous with failure. Everyone has bought into this fabricated history, and also to the new reality of public-private partnerships. That being said, I commend Amit Price Patel for taking a nuanced stance and recognizing that the fundamental goal is to provide housing and to recognize it as a right, rather than to quibble over the funding and ownership mechanisms.
We need more effective ways to build housing quickly and cheaply, and this requires both a design solution and a policy solution. Even in cities like San Francisco where there is a push by the local government to create housing for people at all income levels, the process works too slowly and leaves too many people out. Housing policy is a failure when there are thousands of people waiting for a home that they can afford.
06.26.12 at 02:51
We need more effective ways to build housing quickly and cheaply, and this requires both a design solution and a policy solution. Even in cities like San Francisco where there is a push by the local government to create housing for people at all income levels, the process works too slowly and leaves too many people out. Housing policy is a failure when there are thousands of people waiting for a home that they can afford.
06.26.12 at 02:51
HUFFPOST SUPER USER, revolution7153, Stupidity has a knack for getting its way..., 68 Fans
07:27 AM on 07/23/2012
Amen. Americans need to stop worshipping at the alter of the lawn. Its absolutely insane. Name me another activity where Im expected to nurture something and make it grow just so I can mow it down when it grows too much? I think Elvis had the right idea with Astroturf.
Amen. Americans need to stop worshipping at the alter of the lawn. Its absolutely insane. Name me another activity where Im expected to nurture something and make it grow just so I can mow it down when it grows too much? I think Elvis had the right idea with Astroturf.
HUFFPOST SUPER USER, revolution7153, Stupidity has a knack for getting its way..., 68 Fans
08:07 AM on 07/23/2012
Of course. Most of the huge old Victorian homes were broken up into apartments because no one could afford to heat or maintain them. The same thing will happen with the plague of McMansions that have cropped up in the past 15 years or so.
Of course. Most of the huge old Victorian homes were broken up into apartments because no one could afford to heat or maintain them. The same thing will happen with the plague of McMansions that have cropped up in the past 15 years or so.
mcmutter, A Groover has to expect a few setbacks ....., 3052 Fans
06:10 AM on 07/23/2012
those 55+ housing developments are 20x worse .... nobody even walks the streets or goes outside .....
those 55+ housing developments are 20x worse .... nobody even walks the streets or goes outside .....
HUFFPOST SUPER USER, Stanley Bonk, "mad, bad, and dangerous to know" 586 Fans
07:43 AM on 07/23/2012
Odd you should mention that. There are actually lawmakers in my corner of the world in the rust belt, that are considering whether the health hazards of chickens are large enought to keep an old prohibition against keeping small number of chickens on your property. It seems we're trending towards bringing the chickens back.
Odd you should mention that. There are actually lawmakers in my corner of the world in the rust belt, that are considering whether the health hazards of chickens are large enought to keep an old prohibition against keeping small number of chickens on your property. It seems we're trending towards bringing the chickens back.
4eva, .-.. --- ...- . --..-- / -. --- - / .... .- - ., 2995 Fans
09:21 AM on 07/23/2012
see my post on Sprawl Repair Kit ... there are lots of ideas about transforming suburbs
see my post on Sprawl Repair Kit ... there are lots of ideas about transforming suburbs
4eva, .-.. --- ...- . --..-- / -. --- - / .... .- - ., 2995 Fans
12:30 AM on 07/23/2012
A talk with Galina Tachieva, author of 'The Sprawl Repair Manual'
http://grist.org/article/2010-12-15-a-talk-with-galina-tachieva-author-of-the-sprawl-repair-manual/
Sprawl Repair Manual
http://www.amazon.com/Sprawl-Repair-Manual-Galina-Tachieva/dp/1597267325
A talk with Galina Tachieva, author of 'The Sprawl Repair Manual'
http://grist.org/article/2010-12-15-a-talk-with-galina-tachieva-author-of-the-sprawl-repair-manual/
Sprawl Repair Manual
http://www.amazon.com/Sprawl-Repair-Manual-Galina-Tachieva/dp/1597267325
MaryfromIL, 996 Fans
02:36 AM on 07/23/2012
During the 1930's depression, 50% of the houses were foreclosed on. So Obama didn't do too badly.
There was no way to keep the housing bubble at that high rate, foreclosures are a result of natural market settle.
During the 1930's depression, 50% of the houses were foreclosed on. So Obama didn't do too badly.
There was no way to keep the housing bubble at that high rate, foreclosures are a result of natural market settle.
Audience Member: I used to be a homeowner in Fort Lee, but the taxes got to be too high. As you know in New Jersey the taxes for homes are among the highest in the country. So, I sold the home at a loss in this economy and received a HUD voucher to get a rental space. In my town, I was told there is a lack of public housing. If I were to go into a HUD building, I could move in but not move out. It would be better for someone of my age to get a HUD voucher and just try to find affordable housing with that voucher. Now that new development is not taking into consideration affordable housing, so my question to you is since the housing authority in my town said they cannot approach the developer, and the town that is making the deal with the developers cannot request affordable housing, can gentlemen like you make any suggestions? I understand that Governor Christie of New Jersey has the idea that affordable housing, the HUD program, is something where the developers that have put in money into the fund for these things, the funds have not been used, and that money he wants the government to take. So, the affordable housing in New Jersey is stagnant and looks like it’s going away. Can you make any suggestion how affordable housing can have a future and how there can be better communication with developers that are getting a great deal for people like me?
BL: What you essentially did in maybe two minutes is cut a broad swath right through just about every problem that we kind of touched upon up here and hopefully to some extent a lot of these projects started to poke at. I would, with all due respect to my colleagues, suggest they didn’t really get into that cut. And, when Barry said this would be a little more nuts and bolts, I didn’t realize we were talking this nuts and bolts, but you’re absolutely right. You point out a whole series of problems starting from the fact that you’ve been displaced, put in a position where you could no longer afford your house because of the taxes on that house. Now you’re being left with very few options. I would hope on a really basic level that your voucher is portable, so that you aren’t stuck just looking for housing in Fort Lee which I know can be somewhat challenging. […] The whole Affordable Housing Trust Fund is a problem because it’s like the old George Bernard Shaw play Major Barbara: It allows these guys to buy their way out of providing affordable housing. […] As long as you continue to take what amounts to developers’ ransom money, you’re going to continue to have segregated neighborhoods. You’re going to continue to have folks like yourself who are stuck, getting forced out of their neighborhood…
BL: What you essentially did in maybe two minutes is cut a broad swath right through just about every problem that we kind of touched upon up here and hopefully to some extent a lot of these projects started to poke at. I would, with all due respect to my colleagues, suggest they didn’t really get into that cut. And, when Barry said this would be a little more nuts and bolts, I didn’t realize we were talking this nuts and bolts, but you’re absolutely right. You point out a whole series of problems starting from the fact that you’ve been displaced, put in a position where you could no longer afford your house because of the taxes on that house. Now you’re being left with very few options. I would hope on a really basic level that your voucher is portable, so that you aren’t stuck just looking for housing in Fort Lee which I know can be somewhat challenging. […] The whole Affordable Housing Trust Fund is a problem because it’s like the old George Bernard Shaw play Major Barbara: It allows these guys to buy their way out of providing affordable housing. […] As long as you continue to take what amounts to developers’ ransom money, you’re going to continue to have segregated neighborhoods. You’re going to continue to have folks like yourself who are stuck, getting forced out of their neighborhood…
BL: What I think was really innovative about this project [“Simultaneous City”] was the coupling of mixed-income residential with various public amenities and civic spaces, and it’s not too far off from what is currently being pushed in the CHOICE Neighborhoods Initiative, which if you’re unfamiliar is essentially a follow-up to HOPE VI.
BL: With the second [Mt. Laurel] decision, it was one of the first states to not necessarily recognize housing as a need or as an inalienable human right, but what it did recognize was that a society or a community or a municipality has an obligation to its residents to provide low-income housing options. And so, in a way, it kind of turned the provision-of-housing argument in on itself and put that on the role of society which, in a lot of ways, is what The Buell Hypothesis argues. But the problem that New Jersey is running into—and this is an affordable housing development in Mt. Laurel—is that the infrastructure that is required to sustain that low level of density for low-income families is not really practical. That’s why COAH [Coalition on Affordable Housing] is being challenged. That’s why Mt. Laurel I and II are being challenged. That’s why a lot of this is being rethought. And I’m not saying that we should come down on one side or the other, but one thing I really enjoy about the comparison of these projects is what the issues of density mean to that debate.
BL: “Properties with Property” occupies the only site that anyone who doesn’t live in Manhattan would call a “real suburb,” which Marc alluded to, and unapologetically so. In so doing, Team Zago really brings to the fore, in the most aesthetically exciting way possible, issues of the overlaps between public and private space that are paramount to any affordable housing development since the introduction of Newman’s Defensible Space. […] But the question that automatically brings up, especially when compared against MOS’s project, is that even though the density in some places in Rialto is quadrupled from what it was or what it was proposed to be, is that still enough density to survive? Even though that density is camouflaged, would the people that want to be in a low-density area still want to be there? And would the people who need the density in order to survive, and predominantly those are low-income families, would they be able to get the supportive services that they would need in a community with that level of density?
BL: I think it’s important for us, especially within the context of this exhibition, to look at New Jersey because we’re not really talking about what we understood to be “suburbia” any more, and we’re also not really talking about what we understood to be “the city” anymore. East Orange and “Thoughts on a Walking City” are an excellent example of that. The Oranges, if they were compared to the largest cities in the United States, would be the fifth densest city in the United States. It actually has over 16,000 people per square mile. (To give you some frame of reference, New York only has 27,000 people per square mile, and the drop-off after New York is rather rapid.) So, I applaud MOS for their somewhat backhanded recognition that, despite this density, there still aren’t enough services, there still isn’t enough affordable housing, and “Oh, and by the way, you’re all fat.” The answer they came up with, which I don’t disagree with at all, is that we actually need to make it denser, what they suggest is essentially Smart Growth on steroids. […] The way Smart Growth is essentially practiced now is in very small increments, and to the extent that it’s practiced in these small increments, it’s working. But if it were practiced at a much larger scale, as MOS suggested, who knows what the implications could be? I like to think that could be very beneficial.
Brian Loughlin (BL): I want to thank the Museum for reengaging the issue of housing after what has been a long and notable absence. I think we can argue that also absent, from this never-ending conversation about the public’s role in the provision of housing to its citizens—as it continues in media and budget hearings and courtrooms and in community meetings— have been the contributions of academic institutions like the Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture. In fact, I would go so far as to say that in large part, Architecture (with a big A) has pulled back from the discourse on social housing in this country since the proclaimed death of modern architecture with the fall of Yamasaki’s buildings in ’72. Even the Congress for New Urbanism, coauthors of this fine document here, through their involvement with HOPE VI, have inserted themselves into the void where traditional public housing and modern architecture reportedly failed, by quietly steering its supposed cure. But, they’ve sought to do so without the appearance of Architecture (again, big A) or authorship, relying instead on the stylistics of nostalgia and the will of the public as apparently expressed in community charrettes.
MJ: But we’re still only tentatively seizing these opportunities. In some sense, when public bodies dither, private developers leap. In Huntington, Long Island in 2010, after three years of planning and endless meetings, a mixed-income, mixed-use rental and homeownership development proposed by Avalon Bay Communities and located less than a half-mile from the Long Island Rail Road station was defeated. The politics of change are extremely hard.
MJ: But East Orange’s riff on transit-oriented development is a very smart proposal as well. It stretches our thinking, residing on the edge of the practical and the ideal. It proposes a politic trade: save revenue and therefore tax dollars by eliminating many of the neighborhood streets and the costs associated with maintaining them. Additionally, this approach radically diminishes the role of the automobile in the community. It treats the streets like we’ve treated vacant land in the city: as an opportunity for infill housing. It increases density in the area near an existing rail station and incorporates mixed uses enriching the area’s amenities while, again, reducing the residents’ reliance on the car to get things done. Curiously, however, while calling for the end of the ghetto enclave, its uninterrupted ribbon development results in a densely packed community that reminds me of my image of the kasbah, a true enclave, impenetrable from the outside, labyrinthine from the inside, and devoid of large, open, public spaces where people can meet and talk and relax. To relegate these opportunities, as they say in the paper, to the ground floors of new developments which might contain a variety of shops and services is to subordinate community to commerce.
It’s refreshing that the team unabashedly suggests that much of these new ribbons of housing would be developed as public housing. But if this is a serious idea, not simply a gesture or metaphor, then one must confront the fact that public housing in the United States, apart from unfortunately being in ideological disrepute, is also grossly underfunded.
It’s refreshing that the team unabashedly suggests that much of these new ribbons of housing would be developed as public housing. But if this is a serious idea, not simply a gesture or metaphor, then one must confront the fact that public housing in the United States, apart from unfortunately being in ideological disrepute, is also grossly underfunded.
MJ: In some ways, in its effort to strengthen the demographics of certain communities, the city used the crisis of the ’70s and ’80s to subtly suburbanize low- and moderate-income neighborhoods through its land disposition and financing strategy. It pushed the needle just a bit in the direction of homeownership, and under Mayor Bloomberg’s plan up until the real estate bubble burst, homeownership—single-family, cooperative, and condominium—continued to be integral to the plan. But what has been and remains truly integral to the plan has been a commitment to encourage mixed-income and mixed-use development based upon the belief that this strategy will result in stronger developments and more stable, durable, and healthier communities.
MJ: In fact, amidst the rubble and smoldering ruins of the South Bronx, building these 1950s, Beaver Cleaver, suburban tract homes was as provocative and improbable an act as building any of the five projects proposed in Foreclosed. It went contrary to and undermined every conceivable narrative about the South Bronx and the folks who lived there. It provided people with hope, an ineffable but indispensible quality that something could be done to roll back the firestorm of devastation. And it provided them with a model for how to do that: draw upon the ambition, energy, and resources of organized community residents, marry it with significant philanthropic and more importantly government resources and political will, and use those relationships to leverage private capital.
hp_blogger_Jonny Stewart
let's all go back to pitching and living in tent communes.
tlstryker
same type of heist the same powers that be did at the great depression. they got the bailouts and the properties. total money grab by the rich.
westward1
The FBI reports 80% of mortgage fraud was committed by lenders.
toncuz
Except FDR told those banks ...you are no longer in the loan business...the loans belong to us now...here's some chump change
Eddie_VanderMolen
hp_blogger_Clay Chiles, Churches in Harlem did just that.
Luanne_Taylor
Alabama gives you a year to come back and reclaim your home...
JamesPowers
look on the bright side if we end up homeless we can still get fed by the public in philly! hahaha that story really blows my mind
Enock_Zamora
I went to the 'slash and burn' chamber of commerce in the (8) district in Denver last night in the 'redevelopment' on Welton St.. The Renewal agency now say they are 'reformed'. What a concept.
Adlerrealestate
I started working NELA area 18 months ago feel in love with it and now have moved my Fam here.
Adlerrealestate
York blvd is changing every day it's amazing
eastcoastprogressive
How about one of those Futura homes. Only 100 were made. http://www.berting.nl/futuro I'd like to see these make a come back.
Gadea268
In NYC a $200.00 a night, pet hotel has just opened up. Maybe 10 blocks from the Chelsea Pet Hotel, on the FDR drive, there are homeless families that would love to share a room in the hotel with the pet.
JohnBryansFontaine
World?s Easiest-to-Build House http://www.houselogic.com/blog/home-improvement/easy-build-house/?
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Responsibility (39)
03 May, 2011 - (@AzureMagazine)
Join us Saturday May 7, 2:00-6:00pm for Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream Symposium http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/events/12430
Foreclosed is situated in the midst of this drama, which is also playing out around the “American Dream” of suburban home ownership. It asks, gently but firmly: What are the rules by which housing ought to be designed, produced, and made available in the United States? To whom? By whom? To what end? What ought to be the role of governments in these processes? Of markets? Of architecture? Of urbanism?
About four years ago, a latent pattern of unethical, self-interested and surreptitious decision-making reared its head to wreak havoc in the American housing market. Americans were living on a dream buoyed by false hope: we thought we could have it all. But as millions defaulted on mortgages with unmanageable interest rates, made on credit they couldn’t afford to pay off, the country was exposed to the networks of mistrust and corruption that came to define the zeitgeist of today’s financial system.
republic4all
03:04 PM on 08/10/2011
The American Dream has always been based on the freedom to pursue your dreams and the enabler for the American Dream has always been our Constitution, the rule of law, and economic liberty. Our free enterprise system lifted more people out of poverty than any other system this earth has ever known. Government exists to protect your rights and to prevent other people from interfering with your pursuit of these dreams, free of harm.
The American Dream is different for every person in this country. For some it is to own a home. For some it is to have a successful business. Whatever that Dream is to be achieved through your own personal perseverance, drive, determination and responsibility. It's not anybody else's job to deliver your American Dream to your doorstep, and that includes the government. The American government is in the business of protecting the freedom of its citizens to pursue their dreams.
The American Dream has always been based on the freedom to pursue your dreams and the enabler for the American Dream has always been our Constitution, the rule of law, and economic liberty. Our free enterprise system lifted more people out of poverty than any other system this earth has ever known. Government exists to protect your rights and to prevent other people from interfering with your pursuit of these dreams, free of harm.
The American Dream is different for every person in this country. For some it is to own a home. For some it is to have a successful business. Whatever that Dream is to be achieved through your own personal perseverance, drive, determination and responsibility. It's not anybody else's job to deliver your American Dream to your doorstep, and that includes the government. The American government is in the business of protecting the freedom of its citizens to pursue their dreams.
carolgregor, 104 Fans
04:39 PM on 08/10/2011
The challenge now is not in our ability to solve problems but in our core values as fellow human beings. The American Dream is gone as we knew it. Homes have become unhealthy physically, spiritually and soulfully. Our families are broken, medications are excessive and stress has filled our lives. Homes used to be our sacred space but today it is the cause of of distress.
How did this happen?
After a career in home design and building I became acutely aware of the pressure to have bigger and bigger homes. At the same time we have lost millions of acres of land to sprawl and the reports are in that sprawl causes heart attack and stroke because people are not moving enough. On top of this, our water is disappearing and our air is heavy because corporate builders are profit driven and have no concern for the health of the homeowner. Joined with unethical bankers, the US homeowner has poorly built expensive homes. 1/4 of homes are under water financially as poorly built ones depreciate faster than people can afford to maintain.
There are a couple of solutions that can recapture our dream. By taking personal responsibility in what we purchase we can regain control. In home design and building, choose smaller, better built homes. Buy on an existing grid and use local builders and materials. Smaller, infill homes will immediately change the quality of life we experience and we recapture the sacred core of our homesteads.
The challenge now is not in our ability to solve problems but in our core values as fellow human beings. The American Dream is gone as we knew it. Homes have become unhealthy physically, spiritually and soulfully. Our families are broken, medications are excessive and stress has filled our lives. Homes used to be our sacred space but today it is the cause of of distress.
How did this happen?
After a career in home design and building I became acutely aware of the pressure to have bigger and bigger homes. At the same time we have lost millions of acres of land to sprawl and the reports are in that sprawl causes heart attack and stroke because people are not moving enough. On top of this, our water is disappearing and our air is heavy because corporate builders are profit driven and have no concern for the health of the homeowner. Joined with unethical bankers, the US homeowner has poorly built expensive homes. 1/4 of homes are under water financially as poorly built ones depreciate faster than people can afford to maintain.
There are a couple of solutions that can recapture our dream. By taking personal responsibility in what we purchase we can regain control. In home design and building, choose smaller, better built homes. Buy on an existing grid and use local builders and materials. Smaller, infill homes will immediately change the quality of life we experience and we recapture the sacred core of our homesteads.
Foreclosed asks its design teams to consider what is “‘public’ about today’s cities and suburbs.” The question recalls the central theme of MoMA’s very first exhibit on community planning and suburbia, 1944′s Look at Your Neighborhood. Less about design and more a call to civic action, the bare-bones show declared, “Your neighborhood needs you . . . Organize a neighborhood planning council.”
sol
Yes, the government f the american dream with regulation. Thankfully, my grandfather left brooklyn in 1948 and made it overseas. Now I dont have to f worry about regulation or whine aobut 'sub-urbia'
be rational–the future is gated communities–there is not 'community' or 'society'...just a bunch of f trying to get ahead by either playing the victim card or getting elected to congress or the executive branch.
The equivalent of a bunch of mentally re-tarded third graders run america. So yea, I think thed solution is for everyone to give one big middle finger to everyone that wants to tell other people how to live, and if they keep at it, move–
THERE ARE SEVERAL PLACES AROUND THE PLANET that are looking for professionals, america is not the only happy pie-
they give you too much sh-t, you leave. GIVE ONE BIG MIDDLE FINGER to all the little angry faced third graders as the economy sours. They dont deserve your taxes. The f idiots can't get out of a cardboard box.
December 20, 2011 at 3:47 pm
be rational–the future is gated communities–there is not 'community' or 'society'...just a bunch of f trying to get ahead by either playing the victim card or getting elected to congress or the executive branch.
The equivalent of a bunch of mentally re-tarded third graders run america. So yea, I think thed solution is for everyone to give one big middle finger to everyone that wants to tell other people how to live, and if they keep at it, move–
THERE ARE SEVERAL PLACES AROUND THE PLANET that are looking for professionals, america is not the only happy pie-
they give you too much sh-t, you leave. GIVE ONE BIG MIDDLE FINGER to all the little angry faced third graders as the economy sours. They dont deserve your taxes. The f idiots can't get out of a cardboard box.
December 20, 2011 at 3:47 pm
John
See, Bill learned a skill and became successful. Notice he is not occupying anything crying about how unfair it all is. Hell, if he keeps at it with his stated work ethics, he may become one of the 1%. A little published fact that the liberal media is trying to bury – 80% of the 1% started their own businesses, built them from the ground up. But we don't want people to think they can work hard an be successful. You must receive free hand outs!!!
December 20, 2011 at 3:27 pm
December 20, 2011 at 3:27 pm
Bill
Uh, I'm a high school drop out and have already owned 3 homes. I now live in Orlando, work at home on my 3 dozen websites and will buy another home in 2012 before they go up again. How much you make or how successful in life you are depends on you, not what school you went to.
December 20, 2011 at 3:01 pm
December 20, 2011 at 3:01 pm
Marky
Where we live (the Dallas area) housing is not terribly expensive. My daughter has a house that would cost about 80-85K, and the schools are very good, the shopping is great, and there is public transportation not only in our city, but pretty much anywhere in Dallas. She could live in a bigger, nicer house if they were more careful in their spending, but the one they have is 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom. They prefer to spend their money on traveling and "stuff"; their choice. People today also think they have to have 3000 sq. ft for 4 people, and back in the day, we grew up in 700 sq ft, and didn't think it was too small for 4 people. Focus on what you are spending on, and think about what your priorities should be.
December 20, 2011 at 2:36 pm
December 20, 2011 at 2:36 pm
Lesley
I'm a 23 year old homeowner. I live in a 1400 sq ft house on 2 acres with an inground pool in mid-Michigan. We paid $79,700 for it because the housing market is so bad in Michigan. I am an insurance agent and my husband is a factory worker (no degrees). The only reason none of my friends have a home is because THEY RUINED THEIR CREDIT. Even the ones with college degrees. Our house payment is $605 a month. I could work part-time and my husband could lose his job and we would still afford it. It's all about living within your means.
December 20, 2011 at 1:34 pm
December 20, 2011 at 1:34 pm
KPMCO
I think you're very sadly mistaken. My mother had a high school diploma, was divorced, and still saved to purchase her own home in Houston. I moved to Florida, and after 10 years of saving, and waiting for the right opportunity, I have also purchased my own home. I have a bachelor's degree in English...and have worked in call centers among other places, to earn a living. Stop thinking that you have to be extremely wealthy to own a nice home. I saved a lot...up to 20% of my income...didn't buy a lot of electronics or fancy clothes, new cars, or ate out as much as my friends do. I still socialize, but in simpler ways..a video, card games, pot luck social dinners. All things are possible, but you need to prioritize and make choices to achieve your goals.
December 20, 2011 at 1:15 pm
December 20, 2011 at 1:15 pm
Brad
That is not true at all, I live in an area were housing is cheaper, I got a nice house for 70k, and payed it off really early but not spending my money on other things. It's all about priorities. If you want it enough, you will work for it and put off other things for it. In the long run, a house is cheaper then an apartment.
December 20, 2011 at 1:06 pm
December 20, 2011 at 1:06 pm
Marcus
Exactly. And somehow, we survived and even thrived. Now these yentas need to have a 3,000 square foot house with 5 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms for 1 or 2 children. They won't consider less, even though they can't afford it. Gotta keep up with the Joneses...
December 20, 2011 at 11:45 am
December 20, 2011 at 11:45 am
A wide range of ecological functions make a city infrastructure that promotes sustainable living as a shared individual and communal undertaking, and also generates new living experiences and new kinds of public spaces from its various components.
J. James R.
Feb 22, 12 5:26 pm
Builders, developers and real estate people have been telling people how to live for years....it's obvious now, more than ever, thats how things are done....people don't know what they want...
If you think it's just builders and developers telling people how to live, you're clearly missing a larger picture. Retailers are a huge factor here too. The problem with suburbia is the lack of "real job" creation.
The problem comes from the concept that many retailers sell products that more-or-less require single-unit, single-family housing units— lawnmowers, automobiles, chest freezers, full-sized appliances, furniture et cetera. The code for this word is "durable goods." And anytime you hear the government, planners or business-types talking about the increase in the purchase of durable goods or stimulating the durable goods market... they're clearly talking about suburbia.
And many of the companies that sell the tools of suburbia actively influence policy development by funding various non-profit and non-governmental organizations. We don't know who does what but there are fair examples.
Cato Insitute, a supporter of laissez-faire capitalism, is quite a staunch critic of urban planning is or has been supported by the likes of General Motors, ExxonMobile, Toyota, Visa, Wal-mart, Volkswagon, Honda, FedEx and Time Warner. None of these companies want to see functioning cities.
And we end up the paradox of...
If most of the jobs are low-wage, who's buying goods and services?
And where do the armies of wage workers live if new suburban development is too expensive?
Builders, developers and real estate people have been telling people how to live for years....it's obvious now, more than ever, thats how things are done....people don't know what they want...
If you think it's just builders and developers telling people how to live, you're clearly missing a larger picture. Retailers are a huge factor here too. The problem with suburbia is the lack of "real job" creation.
The problem comes from the concept that many retailers sell products that more-or-less require single-unit, single-family housing units— lawnmowers, automobiles, chest freezers, full-sized appliances, furniture et cetera. The code for this word is "durable goods." And anytime you hear the government, planners or business-types talking about the increase in the purchase of durable goods or stimulating the durable goods market... they're clearly talking about suburbia.
And many of the companies that sell the tools of suburbia actively influence policy development by funding various non-profit and non-governmental organizations. We don't know who does what but there are fair examples.
Cato Insitute, a supporter of laissez-faire capitalism, is quite a staunch critic of urban planning is or has been supported by the likes of General Motors, ExxonMobile, Toyota, Visa, Wal-mart, Volkswagon, Honda, FedEx and Time Warner. None of these companies want to see functioning cities.
And we end up the paradox of...
If most of the jobs are low-wage, who's buying goods and services?
And where do the armies of wage workers live if new suburban development is too expensive?
toasteroven
Feb 16, 12 11:22 am
ending the subsidies that drastically lower the true cost of many aspects of the suburban lifestyle would be a very strong incentive for many people to move into apartments and denser neighborhoods. If you want urban-style services and utilities with the luxury of low density you should have to pay a premium for it. otherwise there are ways of living more "off the grid" if you're willing to do your own maintenance and pay a little more up front for these systems.
many people do have the dream of living in a detached single-family home, and I think this should be available to people if they can afford it, but I think until the crash people were pretty delusional about how much this lifestyle actually costs (i.e. taking out loans they couldn't afford), and how much it has been costing our country.
ending the subsidies that drastically lower the true cost of many aspects of the suburban lifestyle would be a very strong incentive for many people to move into apartments and denser neighborhoods. If you want urban-style services and utilities with the luxury of low density you should have to pay a premium for it. otherwise there are ways of living more "off the grid" if you're willing to do your own maintenance and pay a little more up front for these systems.
many people do have the dream of living in a detached single-family home, and I think this should be available to people if they can afford it, but I think until the crash people were pretty delusional about how much this lifestyle actually costs (i.e. taking out loans they couldn't afford), and how much it has been costing our country.
CH: One of the other architects, Jeanne Gang, who did a project in Cicero in the exhibit, makes this great point that I never thought about in these terms. She said that you’re sort of making a casino bet when you buy a house. You’re betting that it’s going to rise in value. That was a bet that a lot of people made, and now they’re on the wrong side of that bet. But, you’re also betting about what your life is going to look like. How many people are going to inhabit that house? You’re putting money down—you’re putting all your wealth in most cases—into this structure that says, “I am going to be married with the two kids and the dog” or whatever. And the fact is that new family members come in as immigrants possibly or you get divorced or you lose your job or your kids have to move back because they can’t get jobs. So the house is insufficiently flexible to deal with the changing American family.
MB: People have looked toward changing or improving the suburbs
for a long time. You can go back to the 1970s, and academics are often
lambasted for not being sensitive about it. But the reason I’m bringing
this up is that what is different at this point in time is everything from
globalization in terms of where is production happening, what are the
jobs. When you talk about housing, you ultimately always—even if you’re
an architect—end up talking about jobs. What will secure that loan in the
future? So, flexibility comes in. But the difference now, I think, is that
what people realize… And the foreclosure crisis is an awful thing, it is
absolutely a crisis, but it does start to create a situation where people
start to imagine that what we have is not inevitable. And, in fact, it was
produced, and it was dreamed. I think, people don’t like change in housing,
and they should worry about change in housing, but what we have is also
not terribly secure. And, so, I think that’s what you’re bringing up, and
Jeanne was bringing that up quite brilliantly.
CH: One of the things I think Detroit forces us to think of is the fact that
the things we think are natural are contingent.
MB: People have looked toward changing or improving the suburbs
for a long time. You can go back to the 1970s, and academics are often
lambasted for not being sensitive about it. But the reason I’m bringing
this up is that what is different at this point in time is everything from
globalization in terms of where is production happening, what are the
jobs. When you talk about housing, you ultimately always—even if you’re
an architect—end up talking about jobs. What will secure that loan in the
future? So, flexibility comes in. But the difference now, I think, is that
what people realize… And the foreclosure crisis is an awful thing, it is
absolutely a crisis, but it does start to create a situation where people
start to imagine that what we have is not inevitable. And, in fact, it was
produced, and it was dreamed. I think, people don’t like change in housing,
and they should worry about change in housing, but what we have is also
not terribly secure. And, so, I think that’s what you’re bringing up, and
Jeanne was bringing that up quite brilliantly.
CH: One of the things I think Detroit forces us to think of is the fact that
the things we think are natural are contingent.
CH: The future of the American home and the American Dream which are sort of married together, I think. One of the things this exhibition makes you think about is the underlying financial structure and policy structure that gives rise to the American suburb and the single-family home, because we all think of it as “They grow like corn in cornfields, right?” Particularly during the housing bubble, where I was living in Chicago, you’d go eighty miles west, and they are. They’re just being built, and it’s almost like an organic process. No one said, “Oh. Let there be McMansions. Let there be sub-developments.” But actually there is a structure underneath. There is a public policy structure, particularly the mortgage interest deduction that helps produce this.
MB: […] One of the big points of the show for anyone who deals with housing issues academically is, yeah, that deduction makes basically a
huge amount of American housing public housing at some level. It’s a far
bigger expenditure on the federal level than, for example, funding for HUD
for homelessness.
TS: It’s about $80 billion or something, right?
MB: It’s about $80 billion. Low-income housing tax credits, I think, are
probably $30 billion. So, the federal government at this point in time really
does not build directly public housing any longer. It incentivizes it through
tax credits.
CH: And it incentivizes for people to purchase their own homes and take
out a lot of debt, the interest of which they can then take off against their
taxes.
MB: […] One of the big points of the show for anyone who deals with housing issues academically is, yeah, that deduction makes basically a
huge amount of American housing public housing at some level. It’s a far
bigger expenditure on the federal level than, for example, funding for HUD
for homelessness.
TS: It’s about $80 billion or something, right?
MB: It’s about $80 billion. Low-income housing tax credits, I think, are
probably $30 billion. So, the federal government at this point in time really
does not build directly public housing any longer. It incentivizes it through
tax credits.
CH: And it incentivizes for people to purchase their own homes and take
out a lot of debt, the interest of which they can then take off against their
taxes.
Hates Idiots
7th Mar
How about these in your face truths.
Government forced mandates made it legal for banks to offer mortgages to people that had no capability to pay back the loans.
The number of people artificially allowed into the housing market by these policies triggered crazy bidding wars, that I was a victim of, and artificially drove up real estate values.
Which in turn drove up rental costs which overall drove a spike in the national cost of housing.
Which resulted in a net loss of real income because wages did not keep up.
The loans the banks were legally allowed to sell to people who could not afford them had time bombs in them like adjustable rates and interest only loans that our poorly educated masses were too dumb to realize would financially destroy them.
And the biggest architect of this mess, Congressman Barney Frank of MA, is being allowed to retire and not go to prison for his part in building this mess.
How about these in your face truths.
Government forced mandates made it legal for banks to offer mortgages to people that had no capability to pay back the loans.
The number of people artificially allowed into the housing market by these policies triggered crazy bidding wars, that I was a victim of, and artificially drove up real estate values.
Which in turn drove up rental costs which overall drove a spike in the national cost of housing.
Which resulted in a net loss of real income because wages did not keep up.
The loans the banks were legally allowed to sell to people who could not afford them had time bombs in them like adjustable rates and interest only loans that our poorly educated masses were too dumb to realize would financially destroy them.
And the biggest architect of this mess, Congressman Barney Frank of MA, is being allowed to retire and not go to prison for his part in building this mess.
greybeard
03/20/12 09:52 AM
@guest #6: Agree. When you remove the Yours/Mine designation, it devolves to the:"Its yours to maintain, but mine to use" mentality. The resultant building imagery looks like a Tim Burton claymation model--and not in a good way. This is an interesting idea, but the result is more pastiche than real content.
@guest #6: Agree. When you remove the Yours/Mine designation, it devolves to the:"Its yours to maintain, but mine to use" mentality. The resultant building imagery looks like a Tim Burton claymation model--and not in a good way. This is an interesting idea, but the result is more pastiche than real content.
Much of the blame for the economic crisis has fallen on Wall Street, whose weapons of mass financial destruction helped inflate the housing bubble. A new exhibit at New York City's Museum of Modern Art, "Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream," goes further by linking the crisis to longer term trends in housing and urban planning. The exhibit calls into question the American dream of homeownership and the way it has been packaged and sold in the form of a car-dependent, single-family house in the suburbs.
Hal Werner
2 months ago
Looking forward to seeing what the teams came up with as their models. And at least at a basic level, I completely agree that creating sustained change in the way we put together cities in a psychological issue; so many conversations I hear that advocate sprawl are full of the word "should," from people who have never fully considered or experienced other arrangements. Take the "should" out of suburbanism and you get a new and very different conversation.
Looking forward to seeing what the teams came up with as their models. And at least at a basic level, I completely agree that creating sustained change in the way we put together cities in a psychological issue; so many conversations I hear that advocate sprawl are full of the word "should," from people who have never fully considered or experienced other arrangements. Take the "should" out of suburbanism and you get a new and very different conversation.
When the various speculations are viewed through the framing of The Buell Hypothesis, the American Dream is inverted from home ownership to social and economic cooperation. In this sense it's not surprising that people are dismissive of the exhibition. But if people are looking for ideas that maintain the suburban status quo, one may ask why they haven't been discovered and implemented yet? A handful of architects will not have the answers to such a great problem, especially since it involves, as The Buell Hypothesis attests, global finances and infrastructure. The projects attempt to give the viewer and reader something to think about, but ultimately it's the group at Columbia's Buell Center that sparks this more than the models, drawings, and films from the architects.
Too often public and private are positioned as opposites, as extremes that lead to nothing less than different systems. (The right-wing rhetoric that's branded President Obama as "socialist" is only the latest example.) In this schema, high public good is equated with high government spending, high public debt, and ultimately low private value; likewise high private value is equated with high profit and minimal public good. But no matter its political uses, this sort of either/or thinking is unproductive; the rise of both the corporate social responsibility movement and the non-profit social enterprise sector underscore that public good and private value not only can coexist but can also be mutually reinforcing.
So I believe the hybrid approach is the likeliest way to achieve real innovation in housing as well as in real estate development practices. What might be the role of architects in this effort? The South African architect Iain Low has described a building as a manifesto, a declaration of what is possible. (“I work within the possibility of significantly transforming reality, as opposed to reinventing it," he said.) And indeed, the five projects in Foreclosed show us the possibilities of dreaming big.
So I believe the hybrid approach is the likeliest way to achieve real innovation in housing as well as in real estate development practices. What might be the role of architects in this effort? The South African architect Iain Low has described a building as a manifesto, a declaration of what is possible. (“I work within the possibility of significantly transforming reality, as opposed to reinventing it," he said.) And indeed, the five projects in Foreclosed show us the possibilities of dreaming big.
Foreclosed is provocative and filled with many good ideas — alternatives to sprawl and auto dependency, and the mindless proliferation of detached single-family homes — but it has fallen into the trap of physical determinism — the occupational hazard of the design and planning professions. The problem is that we can’t design our way out of the foreclosure crisis, or suburban sprawl, or global climate change, or the deep class and racial divides that all these at once underscore and perpetuate. We need to stop looking for the next technological or spatial fix, because it will inevitably reflect and reproduce the entrenched economic and social inequalities that have led us to our current crisis. Design and planning must be part of the solution, but to find durable solutions we need to organize around strategies that get to the root of the problems.
Another salutary aspect of the exhibition was the designers' recognition that both old and new suburbs fail to meet the growing diversity of housing needs — e.g., extended families, granny flats, home offices, group living, etc. Both "Nature-City," designed by WORKac for a site in Oregon, and "Property with Properties," by Zago Architecture for a site in Southern California, feature units of different sizes, types and densities. Niche demand (including dispersed rural communities, and supportive and transitional housing) can be more nimbly met by entrepreneurial non-profits working with government support than by top-down housing authorities. But even so-called traditional families would benefit from having more choice with regard to housing providers — with government serving as a watchdog against discrimination and retaliation. When public housing is the only housing provider — the provider of last resort, as it often is today — government itself can become the agent of discrimination, as is the case when it imposes “zero tolerance” rules for minor drug possession — the kind of rule that often results in poor families being evicted. While Reinhold Martin wonders whether we can any longer "imagine an architecture without developers," we would argue that to substitute "government" for "developers" seems an insufficiently nuanced proposition, and that government can have more impact by promoting a diversity of public-serving private developers than by commissioning architecture itself.
On this note, we were encouraged, in Foreclosed, to see some of the design teams propose innovative forms of financing and ownership. In "Simultaneous City," which focused on the Tampa suburb of Temple Terrace, Florida, the team led by Visible Weather calls for a Real Estate Investment Trust, in which, unlike most REITs, "publicly owned local land remains a public asset, and the income derived from development is shared with citizens." In "The Garden in the Machine," for a site in Cicero, Illinois, Studio Gang Architects envisions a limited equity cooperative in which "residents own their individual spaces, but land and shared amenities are jointly owned by all, in a private trust, a kind of micro-governmental cooperative structure, where the local residents participate directly in determining the qualities of their neighborhood." These sorts of small-scale, alternative mash-ups, based on shared ownership and responsibility, can help ensure that the projects maintain a public dimension yet operate with greater flexibility than traditional public housing.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights — which the newly founded United Nations adopted in 1948 — affirms that everyone has the right to housing, among other "necessary social services." Within the framework of international law, the ultimate responsibility for the protection of human rights rests with the public sector. But if it is the responsibility of the state to ensure that housing is universally provided, it is not necessarily the role of the state to build and operate housing directly. As with food aid (including food stamps), government-run programs implement the right to food, but do not require the state to own land and farm it. Similarly, government programs could implement the right to housing by strengthening existing mandates or incentives for inclusionary zoning, collective ownership, rent subsidies and regional housing plans — none of which requires public-built housing on public-owned land.
(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
(2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.
— Article 25, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, United Nations
(2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.
— Article 25, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, United Nations
Finally, we need an open, democratic approach to long-range planning. I don’t believe it when planners and designers talk about “smart growth,” “retrofitting the suburbs,” and “transit-oriented development.” These seem to me the new mantras for professions that lack the courage to confront the real problems and challenge the dictatorship of developers. The urban planning profession fully endorsed and helped create suburban sprawl when it chose to collaborate with the homebuilding industry and accommodate itself to the highway system. It is now obediently following the market trend towards denser development without critically engaging with and supporting the widespread movements that place quality of life over growth.
HUFFPOST SUPER USER, psnyder325, Yep, I'm a Socialist. Deal., 1429 Fans
05:02 AM on 07/23/2012
We need a sea change in American attitudes before anything will change. First, does everyone really need a lawnmower ALL OF THEIR OWN?? Pooled resources would help a great deal. And why do people need so much land? We live in a patio home with a small back yard and very small front yard. It is more environmentally responsible. Then there is the trend to obscenely large houses. Does a couple with no children really NEED a 5K sf house? It is environmentally irresponsible to have such a house. Look at the wasted space and energy.
We must get past the concept of individualism and "what's here for me" and into the concept of sharing in our communities and doing what is best for all of us. The Republicans, of course, don't play well with others and want their individual "rights" regardless of how damaging it is to the community. In the end, it is unlikely that anything will be done that is intelligent until we're falling completely apart. Individualism is the curse of humanity.....and may well be the end of it.
We need a sea change in American attitudes before anything will change. First, does everyone really need a lawnmower ALL OF THEIR OWN?? Pooled resources would help a great deal. And why do people need so much land? We live in a patio home with a small back yard and very small front yard. It is more environmentally responsible. Then there is the trend to obscenely large houses. Does a couple with no children really NEED a 5K sf house? It is environmentally irresponsible to have such a house. Look at the wasted space and energy.
We must get past the concept of individualism and "what's here for me" and into the concept of sharing in our communities and doing what is best for all of us. The Republicans, of course, don't play well with others and want their individual "rights" regardless of how damaging it is to the community. In the end, it is unlikely that anything will be done that is intelligent until we're falling completely apart. Individualism is the curse of humanity.....and may well be the end of it.
HUFFPOST SUPER USER, psnyder325, Yep, I'm a Socialist. Deal., 1429 Fans
05:06 AM on 07/23/2012
I'm not sure how I see the deflation of an over-inflated housing market brought about by greedy mortgage bankers and speculators has anything whatsoever to do with Obama. If we had kept sensible regulations in place during the Reagan/Bush/Clinton/Bush years, 2008's crash wouldn't have happened, and housing would not have shot through the roof. Obama is picking up the pieces. The previous 4 presidents and previous Congresses caused the problem through being in bed with the criminal international banking cartel.
I'm not sure how I see the deflation of an over-inflated housing market brought about by greedy mortgage bankers and speculators has anything whatsoever to do with Obama. If we had kept sensible regulations in place during the Reagan/Bush/Clinton/Bush years, 2008's crash wouldn't have happened, and housing would not have shot through the roof. Obama is picking up the pieces. The previous 4 presidents and previous Congresses caused the problem through being in bed with the criminal international banking cartel.
The exhibit is at root an attempt to exploit the trauma at hand -- a foreclosure crisis that has swept through suburbs with malevolent force -- as an opportunity to reexamine the conditions that got us here. For decades, homebuilders and their financiers marketed an appealing version of the American dream, the idea that nourishing family life plays out in new single-family homes, the trophies of upward mobility. That vision has gone cancerous. We are wasting hours in traffic and dollars on gasoline. We are squandering land on individual lots that could be used as broader green space. Government is surrendering vast sums to maintain highways when it could repurpose that money toward energy-efficient mass transit.
In the mythologized version of recent American history -- which is to say, the part where the suburbs devolved from the wholesome backdrop for family life into ground zero for a devastating foreclosure crisis -- we essentially got what we asked for.
Americans demanded gleaming houses on individual squares of lawn far removed from urban centers, and the people who finance and construct real estate delivered the goods. This is how we wound up with expanding rings of suburban sprawl orbiting every metropolitan area. This is how we turned ever-larger swaths of open space into grids of look-alike homes, the inventory that came to be tinder for the foreclosure inferno. The developers, bankers, salespeople and their government enablers were merely working to satisfy a public craving.
But the real estate bubble was in fact an orgy of profiteering run by and for the benefit of special interests that stuck the public with the cleanup. Investment banks poured money into housing because mortgages had become raw materials for a lucrative business churning out mortgage-backed securities. Homebuilders carved acreage into subdivisions far in excess of demand because money was free and volume was good for share prices. Money was free because the Federal Reserve kept interest rates low while Fannie and Freddie kept guaranteeing mortgages. Land was accessible because the government expanded highways and subsidized gas prices.
Americans demanded gleaming houses on individual squares of lawn far removed from urban centers, and the people who finance and construct real estate delivered the goods. This is how we wound up with expanding rings of suburban sprawl orbiting every metropolitan area. This is how we turned ever-larger swaths of open space into grids of look-alike homes, the inventory that came to be tinder for the foreclosure inferno. The developers, bankers, salespeople and their government enablers were merely working to satisfy a public craving.
But the real estate bubble was in fact an orgy of profiteering run by and for the benefit of special interests that stuck the public with the cleanup. Investment banks poured money into housing because mortgages had become raw materials for a lucrative business churning out mortgage-backed securities. Homebuilders carved acreage into subdivisions far in excess of demand because money was free and volume was good for share prices. Money was free because the Federal Reserve kept interest rates low while Fannie and Freddie kept guaranteeing mortgages. Land was accessible because the government expanded highways and subsidized gas prices.
BL: With the second [Mt. Laurel] decision, it was one of the first states to not necessarily recognize housing as a need or as an inalienable human right, but what it did recognize was that a society or a community or a municipality has an obligation to its residents to provide low-income housing options. And so, in a way, it kind of turned the provision-of-housing argument in on itself and put that on the role of society which, in a lot of ways, is what The Buell Hypothesis argues. But the problem that New Jersey is running into—and this is an affordable housing development in Mt. Laurel—is that the infrastructure that is required to sustain that low level of density for low-income families is not really practical. That’s why COAH [Coalition on Affordable Housing] is being challenged. That’s why Mt. Laurel I and II are being challenged. That’s why a lot of this is being rethought. And I’m not saying that we should come down on one side or the other, but one thing I really enjoy about the comparison of these projects is what the issues of density mean to that debate.
See Floor 3. Yes MOMA is now exhibiting a rehousing of Foreclosed America.(see pics) As a lender I was very interested in what rehousing the "American dream" would entail. Sadly, I was very disappointed. The bottom line is that there were multiple artistic versions but they all came to turning single family home tracts into city like condensed landscapes. Their theory is that a large percentage of foreclosures in the United States are single family homes. Of course the majority are single family homes, the majority of the United States is comprised of single family homes.The data was skewed to a very pro city, anti suburb lean which I found disappointing. "Mcmansions" were not what caused foreclosures. It was loose lending coupled with the affect of a tough economy. If you are in NYC check out the MOMA and see if you disagree.
toncuz
hopefully everyone knows that Fannie and Freddie were VICTIMS of Wall Street and Republican deregulation of derivatives...NOT the cause
yeswecanjane
SheilaKhani, Added Bonus We get to help share the cost of their taxes:)
Retrofit or Redesign (40)
We think the suburbs are OK. They have problems and need to change but we don’t want to do away with them, we just want to make them better.
These totalizing impulses, common to architectural discourse, strive to encompass all possible contingencies by re-defining suburbia along the lines of dense ideal urbanities. Questions of audience aside, such gestures could be taken to be constructive. And, quite possibly, we need such gestures, the insinuation of the new (no matter how fantastic) in order to see our way to potentials hidden in the midst of what we are currently stuck with. Yet in this process, the inherent heterogeneity of suburbs become flattened. They become objects upon which total transformations are imposed.
But really big plans give rise to contradictions. Their bigness and drama and complexity are also problematic, challenging, and even disturbing because they bring to the fore the drastic steps required to address current problems. You have no choice but to send Captain Willard upriver in a boat, to sanity’s final station.
Although the landscape is vast, the failed subdivision contains houses whose square footage is inflated to the point where they seem almost to rub against one another, creating a narrow range of housing options. The team's proposal looks to create a richer mix of uses, housing types, living situations, and landscapes, rather than to remake the unbuilt section of Rosena Ranch. It looks to understand the attraction of suburbs-including their social, economic, and spatial arrangements- and creates a new form of architecture and suburbanism from that pre-existing notion.
Too often, we see such mismatches as a purely financial issue. But instead of forcing families to fit into a house, what if we rearranged the house to fit them?
This doesn’t mean bulldozing Cicero’s housing stock. Instead, it means using existing, underused properties that might be renovated to provide a better fit. In Cicero’s case, that might mean turning to the scores of abandoned factories around it.
This doesn’t mean bulldozing Cicero’s housing stock. Instead, it means using existing, underused properties that might be renovated to provide a better fit. In Cicero’s case, that might mean turning to the scores of abandoned factories around it.
JUSTIN DAVIDSON (NYMAG)
A lot of issues in just a few comment! @Jake_Wegmann: Your point that the problems facing the suburbs are not purely a design problem is right on, but that's exactly why the MoMA show tries to deal with legal, financial, ethnic, political, and cultural issues, too. And yes, the teams visited the sites they dealt with and interviewed people who live there - in the case of the Studio Gang project, the interviews are part of the exhibit.
@Cyberoid: It's true that the word "Suburb" includes places that are vastly different from each other - do you really think that makes the word so vague as to be meaningless, though? I don't think MoMA is claiming that the foreclosure crisis is over by any means - in fact, the sites in question were selected in part becuase they have high rates of foreclosure and high rates of non-foreclosed homeowners under water on their mortgages.
@Lecorbusier (I've heard of you, haven't I?) For what it's worth, I do know Ellen Dunham-Jones' excellent work on retrofitting dead malls, etc. What I said probably couldn't be done was revamping the suburbs wholesale "by rewriting laws, rationalizing markets, reforming the construction industry, and changing the culture all at once." Do you know of anywhere where such a sweeping transformation has been carried out? If so, I'd be very interested to know more about it.
6 Months Ago
@Cyberoid: It's true that the word "Suburb" includes places that are vastly different from each other - do you really think that makes the word so vague as to be meaningless, though? I don't think MoMA is claiming that the foreclosure crisis is over by any means - in fact, the sites in question were selected in part becuase they have high rates of foreclosure and high rates of non-foreclosed homeowners under water on their mortgages.
@Lecorbusier (I've heard of you, haven't I?) For what it's worth, I do know Ellen Dunham-Jones' excellent work on retrofitting dead malls, etc. What I said probably couldn't be done was revamping the suburbs wholesale "by rewriting laws, rationalizing markets, reforming the construction industry, and changing the culture all at once." Do you know of anywhere where such a sweeping transformation has been carried out? If so, I'd be very interested to know more about it.
6 Months Ago
Anonymous
Spend the money that these proposals would waste by creating impractical and ambiguous geometries on rehabbing existing city homes. In this age, the architect doesn't have to make an artistic statement to do good to a neighborhood.
2/16/2012 10:36 AM CST
2/16/2012 10:36 AM CST
As Jeanne Gang and Greg Lindsay point out in their New York Times op-ed piece, zoning codes are inimical to many of the policies that allow for redevelopment – not growth. They cite the Chicago suburb of Cicero, Illinois. Issues facing Cicero are “typical of most suburbs, including the segregation of residential, commercial and industrial facilities; prohibitions on expanding and reusing buildings for new homes and businesses; and tight restrictions on mixed-use properties. Cicero’s code also defines ‘family’ in a way that excludes the large, multigenerational groupings now common across the country.” By redefining these codes to allow for development of underutilized property, the suburbs can become a thriving community that reuses structures and reimagines them as beneficial to humanity, instead of the abandoned structures that currently exist on the outskirts of cities across the US.
He has many of his designers involved in a significant recycling of urban space. One artist’ plan is to deconstruct obsolete factories using the parts to build apartment complexes fringed by communal gardens, another artist envisions an urban grid interwoven with pockets of wilderness so that deer and foxes might roam avenues of townhouses and businesses.
Saving the suburbs might mean starting essentially from scratch.
Michael
February 22, 2012 1:57 PM
This saddens me. I will still probably check out the exhibit, but I'll definitely go in with a healthy dose of skepticism -- though of course I would have most likely gone in like that anyway. You're totally right: band aid solutions aren't going to get us anywhere, and as I've been reading for our sector projects what we really need is a relatively radical reinvention of our previous notions. One thing stressed again and again (and which you mention above) is the concept of 'bioregionalism' where not only local climate and indigenous materials are factored into design but also the idea of connecting people to place and an inherent celebration of local culture and practice. What a shame this exhibit misses the mark!
This saddens me. I will still probably check out the exhibit, but I'll definitely go in with a healthy dose of skepticism -- though of course I would have most likely gone in like that anyway. You're totally right: band aid solutions aren't going to get us anywhere, and as I've been reading for our sector projects what we really need is a relatively radical reinvention of our previous notions. One thing stressed again and again (and which you mention above) is the concept of 'bioregionalism' where not only local climate and indigenous materials are factored into design but also the idea of connecting people to place and an inherent celebration of local culture and practice. What a shame this exhibit misses the mark!
So I looked closer, reading everything I could but it seemed like "Rehousing the American dream" meant putting a band-aid on these cities and suburbs instead of rethinking the problem altogether.
Sprawl Repair
Ms. Lind correctly states that we should avoid the simplistic view of suburbia, but then asks the simplistic question of whether it's better to annihilate it or perfect it. Pragmatic solutions will include both, as well as many other approaches.
"Sprawl" might be a better word to use than "suburb." Not all suburbs are sprawl --- in fact, some suburbs are already perfect as they are, while some sprawl will unfortunately need to be annihilated. Others will require different approaches. The key is to analyze each place, ideally beginning at the regional level, and identify the needs, opportunities, and measures to be taken. Ellen Dunham-Jones said as much in the article published on this site one day before (http://goo.gl/qK5p9).
The Sprawl Repair Manual (sprawlrepair.com) (http://goo.gl/B5lCW) provides the practical solutions Ms. Lind refers to. They include techniques for analyzing (from the region to the building), planning, zoning, designing, financing, and implementing the repair of sprawl.
4 months ago
"Sprawl" might be a better word to use than "suburb." Not all suburbs are sprawl --- in fact, some suburbs are already perfect as they are, while some sprawl will unfortunately need to be annihilated. Others will require different approaches. The key is to analyze each place, ideally beginning at the regional level, and identify the needs, opportunities, and measures to be taken. Ellen Dunham-Jones said as much in the article published on this site one day before (http://goo.gl/qK5p9).
The Sprawl Repair Manual (sprawlrepair.com) (http://goo.gl/B5lCW) provides the practical solutions Ms. Lind refers to. They include techniques for analyzing (from the region to the building), planning, zoning, designing, financing, and implementing the repair of sprawl.
4 months ago
We need to stop demonizing the suburbs and start recognizing that we are all in this together. Is it better to annihilate suburbia or perfect it? Pragmatic solutions, like changing zoning to encourage density, more sustainable landscaping and agriculture, could be relatively easy to enact and would go a long way to improving the vitality of the suburbs.
This outsider perspective on the suburbs is the exhibit’s crucial flaw and inevitably influenced the architects to propose interventions in suburbia that have all the grace of a superblock in the middle of the city grid. Despite their good intentions, their efforts at sustainability and their smart alternatives to homeownership, the architects’ wrath for the suburbs has caused them to create projects that annihilate the suburbs rather than improve them.
But Foreclosed seethes with disdain for the suburbs, and the lack of an empathetic understanding of how the suburbs function and are changing, ultimately makes the exhibit look less visionary than ignorant. As an urban dweller who is deeply frustrated by the social, economic and environmental consequences of sprawl and car-centered communities, I too want to see clever ways of retrofitting these parts of the country. But saying that, I wish the exhibit had improved upon the suburbs rather than suggest transforming them beyond recognition.
Carl W. Smith
02.26.12 at 07:29
Retrofitting the American Dream in a flat world
I hate the over developed suburban wasteland, having grown up in a small town in eastern PA. Shortly after developers cut down the apple orchard at the end of my street to build more houses I escaped to art school. Ironically I grew up in a town that had a lot of history & culture — where American folk artist Edward Hicks painted the Peaceable Kingdom. In that Newtown, which is a very old American town, I learned a few things. If we combine a time for work (the lion), a time for home (the lamb) and a time for culture (the horse) we will rediscover the American Dream. Our Dream just needs a little pruning to flourish.
I agree with Ellen Dunham’s optimistic ideas for retrofitting suburbia. She touches on the idea of people having a third place to go to after the home and the workplace. We need to develop this idea. The only thing I would add to Ellen’s summary is to build equestrian centers on public land through out the American suburban landscape to add culture to the town centers. People need a place to meet and reconnect. We need to get back on the horse and rediscover our culture.
Thank you for your post
Retrofitting the American Dream in a flat world
I hate the over developed suburban wasteland, having grown up in a small town in eastern PA. Shortly after developers cut down the apple orchard at the end of my street to build more houses I escaped to art school. Ironically I grew up in a town that had a lot of history & culture — where American folk artist Edward Hicks painted the Peaceable Kingdom. In that Newtown, which is a very old American town, I learned a few things. If we combine a time for work (the lion), a time for home (the lamb) and a time for culture (the horse) we will rediscover the American Dream. Our Dream just needs a little pruning to flourish.
I agree with Ellen Dunham’s optimistic ideas for retrofitting suburbia. She touches on the idea of people having a third place to go to after the home and the workplace. We need to develop this idea. The only thing I would add to Ellen’s summary is to build equestrian centers on public land through out the American suburban landscape to add culture to the town centers. People need a place to meet and reconnect. We need to get back on the horse and rediscover our culture.
Thank you for your post
oboe
I think the more extreme viewpoints including have left people very defensive, and believing things about urbanism that give ammo the antiurbanists, and make their job of persuasion easier.
By way of a comparison: gay people have been struggling for marriage equality for decades now. Many cultural conservatives are very angry about this, and feel their way of life is under assault. It's a difficult thing to persuade them. Frequently, you'll see footage of some gay pride parade somewhere, which is repeated on a loop for the express purpose of stoking this outrage.
Do gay pride parades make arguing for gay marriage more difficult? Of course. But that's not the fundamental problem.
Same goes for environmentalism: if it weren't for that guy with dreadlocks on that college campus somewhere in the midwest who goes on about Gaia, would folks like George Will have signed on to "cap and trade" by now?
If no one ever said anything mean about suburban cul-de-sacs on GGW, do you think the Randall O'Toole's of the world would cease talking about shadowy urbanists trying to take away your car? Or UN initiatives that threaten our freedom? After all, that's where your average "man on the street" gets such nonsense, not because they read some urbanist gadfly in the comments section of an obscure blog somewhere.
C'mon. Municipalities are trying to retrofit to urbanism because the experts feel they don't have a choice, long-term. But industries (and that includes conservative political parties) that benefit from suburban sprawl will fight with every fiber of their being to prevent that from happening. Do you really think the Rush Limbaughs of the world are going to find TOD religion if the David Alperts of the world start praising ample parking?
Sure there are individuals with essentially zero influence who bad-mouth suburbia, and that may register with the very, very few people who read GGW, but in the larger debate, they're hardly even background noise.
Feb 22, 2012 11:47 am
By way of a comparison: gay people have been struggling for marriage equality for decades now. Many cultural conservatives are very angry about this, and feel their way of life is under assault. It's a difficult thing to persuade them. Frequently, you'll see footage of some gay pride parade somewhere, which is repeated on a loop for the express purpose of stoking this outrage.
Do gay pride parades make arguing for gay marriage more difficult? Of course. But that's not the fundamental problem.
Same goes for environmentalism: if it weren't for that guy with dreadlocks on that college campus somewhere in the midwest who goes on about Gaia, would folks like George Will have signed on to "cap and trade" by now?
If no one ever said anything mean about suburban cul-de-sacs on GGW, do you think the Randall O'Toole's of the world would cease talking about shadowy urbanists trying to take away your car? Or UN initiatives that threaten our freedom? After all, that's where your average "man on the street" gets such nonsense, not because they read some urbanist gadfly in the comments section of an obscure blog somewhere.
C'mon. Municipalities are trying to retrofit to urbanism because the experts feel they don't have a choice, long-term. But industries (and that includes conservative political parties) that benefit from suburban sprawl will fight with every fiber of their being to prevent that from happening. Do you really think the Rush Limbaughs of the world are going to find TOD religion if the David Alperts of the world start praising ample parking?
Sure there are individuals with essentially zero influence who bad-mouth suburbia, and that may register with the very, very few people who read GGW, but in the larger debate, they're hardly even background noise.
Feb 22, 2012 11:47 am
Tina
@oboe - Municipalities are trying to retrofit to urbanism because the experts feel they don't have a choice, long-term.
Do you mean in terms of the long view on sustainability wrt enegry and health? B/c I think part of the short term motivation for the retro-fit is economic factors; e.g. demand, attracting/retaining people by providing what the "market" indicates people want, etc.
Feb 22, 2012 12:38 pm
Do you mean in terms of the long view on sustainability wrt enegry and health? B/c I think part of the short term motivation for the retro-fit is economic factors; e.g. demand, attracting/retaining people by providing what the "market" indicates people want, etc.
Feb 22, 2012 12:38 pm
Falls Church
Municipalities are trying to retrofit to urbanism because the experts feel they don't have a choice, long-term.
I think the disconnect between the urbanists and many suburbanites is in the intensity of belief. Plenty of suburbanites think that a transformation to a more urban form would be good but think it's way off-base to say that without such a transformation, the burbs will fail. It would be similar to saying that DC cannot be successful or sustainable without radical change in its public education system. Obviously, it would be great if DC schools got a lot better but I don't see another collapse happening for DC anytime soon, with or without better schools.
It's also like saying that DC can never be successful without better governance. Frankly, some people in DC would find it insulting if you said that DC can never be successful with certain CMs as part of the Council (just like some suburbanites find some things that urbanists say to be condescending). In fact, there are many people who would have been insulted if you said that about Harry Thomas up until the day he was arrested. Once again, clearly DC would benefit from better CMs but there will be no collapse even with continued bumbling along with the current crop of CMs.
Feb 22, 2012 5:53 pm
I think the disconnect between the urbanists and many suburbanites is in the intensity of belief. Plenty of suburbanites think that a transformation to a more urban form would be good but think it's way off-base to say that without such a transformation, the burbs will fail. It would be similar to saying that DC cannot be successful or sustainable without radical change in its public education system. Obviously, it would be great if DC schools got a lot better but I don't see another collapse happening for DC anytime soon, with or without better schools.
It's also like saying that DC can never be successful without better governance. Frankly, some people in DC would find it insulting if you said that DC can never be successful with certain CMs as part of the Council (just like some suburbanites find some things that urbanists say to be condescending). In fact, there are many people who would have been insulted if you said that about Harry Thomas up until the day he was arrested. Once again, clearly DC would benefit from better CMs but there will be no collapse even with continued bumbling along with the current crop of CMs.
Feb 22, 2012 5:53 pm
22 Feb, 2012 - (@hayleyscomment)
“Is it better to annihilate suburbia or perfect it?” bit.ly/xQy57s Check out this fantastic critique of MoMA’s “Foreclosed” exhibit.
23 Feb, 2012 - (@dtdesigntheory)
Rewriting the rules of urban repair, MOS imagines an unconventional solution: http://www.moma.org/interactives/e …
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
New York is a dense area accessible to public transit, Tampa, Los Angeles, and Portland are areas full of ‘failed’ housing, and Chicago is overwhelmed with abandoned unused factories. The teams are reconfiguring what is the best way to live in the current economical conditions, so when development takes place, it doesn’t eat more land. ‘Real’ problems are being looked at as a start for models and the question of how to change these already existing structures not only economically, but physically and socially too. Michael Meredith and Hilary Sample of the design in New York feel like architecture has become to passive. Stating so, they focus on the issue of health/stress as inspiration for ideas and want to redefine the street as a social space. How do we cater to current important problems through architecture?
It’s a message that doesn’t really solve the problems of suburbia so much as simply eradicate them by decree. Studio Gang’s proposal gleefully attacks Cicero’s suburban zoning code, deleting most of it with neat red lines and replacing it with the language of “density,” “diversity,” and “a variety of living types.” Congratulations on reinventing the city. Now, what are we going to do about the suburbs?
A deep crisis like that which has hit the US has left in its wake a huge number of unfinished and half built projects. Andrew Zago has looked at this issue and, through the case of Rosena Ranch, has gone back to the outbreak of the crisis in order to try and understand how a typical suburban area could be developed in a different way. This is a highly sophisticated project, which apparently does not throw out completely what is already there but works through what Zago defines as a "relaxation of boundaries".
The idea here is that if you work on the types of streets used, the use of space between houses, the typologies involved ... you can then create new forms of space .
The idea here is that if you work on the types of streets used, the use of space between houses, the typologies involved ... you can then create new forms of space .
02 Mar, 2012 - (@e6urblab)
@MOMAtoday for Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream...suburban retrofitting after the crisis http://tinyurl.com/8x62xjp pic.twitter.com/MaUTyQ7G
In a symposium on the exhibit earlier this month put on by the Forum for Urban Design, MoMA, and the Lincoln Institute (where, full disclosure and as you can see in my bio, I also work) a panel of experts doused the well-attended exhibit with more cold water, talking about zoning and changing demographics and NIMBYism - all the challenges of reinventing more dense and less car-dependent patterns. There was a sense that in all these areas, planners and the housing markets had somehow got it wrong. In the built environment, it is a singular engineering challenge to go back and try to re-stitch things back together and get it right.
5. Studio Gang, "The Garden in the Machine"
Here, Studio Gang proposes literally deconstructing an existing factory to salvage its materials and build a new mixed-use group of buildings. I liked the image style very much.
Here, Studio Gang proposes literally deconstructing an existing factory to salvage its materials and build a new mixed-use group of buildings. I liked the image style very much.
The task at hand is retrofitting -- going back to landscapes that have turned out wrong. That was in stark contrast to another outstanding exhibit in New York right now -- The Greatest Grid: The Master Plan for Manhattan 1811 - 2011, at the Museum of the City of New York.
Anonymous
In response to - Anonymous: "...any actual success stories of 'big-box' (with 20-acre asphalt parking lot) redevelopment? I haven't seen any."
3/22/2012 12:15 PM
See Denton, TX public library - a former grocery store turned library: http://archrecord.construction.com/projects/bts/archives/libraries/06_Denton/overview.asp
Published right here, in ArchRecord back in May 2006.
3/22/2012 12:15 PM
See Denton, TX public library - a former grocery store turned library: http://archrecord.construction.com/projects/bts/archives/libraries/06_Denton/overview.asp
Published right here, in ArchRecord back in May 2006.
Anonymous
Has there been any actual success stories of 'big-box' (with 20-acre asphalt parking lot) redevelopment? I haven't seen any. My impression is that Wal-Mart would rather abandon the place to the skateboarders and the urban campers before they would sell out to Target or Kohls.
3/22/2012 12:15 PM CDT
3/22/2012 12:15 PM CDT
But during a panel on March 8 at the museum sponsored by the Forum for Urban Design, two developers, an architecture professor, and a real estate lawyer reacted soberly to the adventurous and optimistic schemes. Though the panelists agreed that the foreclosure crisis will lead to major changes in suburban development, they all thought new patterns are less likely to be brought about by a revised American dream than by economic and demographic factors. And all said it would be very difficult to change zoning laws to permit denser new development patterns, especially in existing “inner-ring” suburbs.
The main problem with the show was that the architects involved seem torn between providing sweeping visionary gestures and wanting to offer immediate answers to an immediate problem. Those who chose the latter path offer solutions that are, if anything, more dispiriting than the quasi-dystopic views of their colleagues. Studio Gang Architects’ repurposing of an old freight railway station in Cicero, Illinois into differing housing typologies where “informal entrepreneurial businesses” would flourish seems a purely urban solution paying little attention to a suburb’s innate characteristics. After all, the problem the suburbs face is not a lack of housing but a surfeit of it. Foreclosed seems less an attempt to save the suburbs than a chance to put them out of their misery for good.
The displays include placards with statistics that show how housing in five different suburban communities has become financially unsustainable and environmentally unsound. Wall mounted texts feature excerpts from an imagined conversation between Socrates and one of his students-which takes place in a traffic jam-about how to change dominant cultural narratives that disparage public housing and public transportation.
Architectural models offer stylized solutions to suburban ills. Suburbs accessible by proposed high-speed rail corridors are retrofitted with high-density developments, which in some cases are stripped of streets. Instead of oversized single-family suburban houses narrowly tailored for the nuclear family, the show provides a variety of housing models for people in different groupings, such as empty nesters and extended families.
Architectural models offer stylized solutions to suburban ills. Suburbs accessible by proposed high-speed rail corridors are retrofitted with high-density developments, which in some cases are stripped of streets. Instead of oversized single-family suburban houses narrowly tailored for the nuclear family, the show provides a variety of housing models for people in different groupings, such as empty nesters and extended families.
Elly
I was going to mention urban farming in Detroit! I'm fascinated by this development. I think it brings real hope to blighted areas, especially those areas which have been historically "food deserts".
The resulting projects, for actual American suburbs, are predictably varied in their practicality and architectural flair. A proposal for an Oregon community designed around a compost mountain by the New York firm WORKac seemed especially daring. Chicago's Jeanne Gang proposed the retrofitting of a derelict factory, and used it to piggyback an argument for better design and smarter financing options on the opinion page of The New York Times. Taken together, the projects would seem to suggest that the American suburbs should look a lot more like Europe, or really Holland. That is, they should be more dense, less dependent on the car, more flexible, and more environmentally friendly.
04 Jun, 2012 - (@MichaelTG09)
Love that this vision of a future city is basically a remix of classic townhouse design. Lets focus on reuse/repurpose. http://www.moma.org/interactives/e …
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/keizer/
My favorite of the projects that presented an interesting concept as well as creative design was the proposal by Stuido Gang Architects, a Chicago-based practice. I admit however that I’m a little biased to projects that have adaptive reuse of shipping containers, which this project did. Their concept, however, was the one I found to be the most lively and sustainable of the group. All of the projects however presented innovative solutions for urban housing and public spaces.
The show’s other four schemes offered equally suggestive architectural solutions for new construction (one, by Studio Gang, even inserted new housing into the shell of a derelict factory) but none addressed how to deal with existing neighborhoods where foreclosures are rampant — the house on the brink, as it were, to steal Suh’s metaphor. In the end that is the harder question.
Enock_Zamora
I went to the 'slash and burn' chamber of commerce in the (8) district in Denver last night in the 'redevelopment' on Welton St.. The Renewal agency now say they are 'reformed'. What a concept.
Role of the Museum (61)
24 May, 2011 - (@AIAFloridaSW)
RT @metropolismag: MoMA kicks off Foreclosed, bringing the #architect, curator, and historian together. http://bit.ly/kCEJcY #architecture
Early this May, MoMA launched the second iteration of its Issues in Contemporary Architecture series, Foreclosed. Directed by Barry Bergdoll, Philip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture and Design, the project is an on-going experiment that expands the role of the museum, and the curator, beyond the collection and display of ideas and artifacts. This new approach is more pro-active, it curates the very production of architecture and design.
In an effort to harness the ideas of the creative community to provoke change, the Whitney Independent Study Program and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) have embarked on curatorial projects that deconstruct “foreclosure” in markedly different ways. Essentially, both ask for a new, creative perspective on how to fill the vacant, unused and struggling spaces produced by the financial crisis.
Where the Whitney ISP/Kitchen exhibition and discussion aimed to be open-ended, so as to allow for interdisciplinary connections at all scales, MoMA grounded itself in real sites where architecture as a specific discipline can alter an environment and thus change the course of an economic downward spiral. The exhibition, as the title suggests, will interrogate and, one hopes, reframe the “American Dream” that has shaped our flawed housing policies and design preferences. It remains to be seen if the plans imagined by assembled firms will go farther than MoMA’s walls, but the show has the potential to popularize innovative and economically sustainable design themes.
With so many windows seemingly slamming shut, is it possible that art museums might be the last hope for civil discourse in America? As Robin Cembalest recently wrote in ARTnews, “experts from outside the art world are converging to collaborate on projects that extend far beyond the galleries—and beyond conventional definitions of art.” Call it common sense or outlandish mission creep, museums as “think tanks” is fast becoming a reality, and perhaps a necessity.
James Russell
There is another angle to this… Here in the UK, museums in competition for public funding are having to increase ‘footfall’, and the most obvious way to do that is to make exhibits more relevant to people’s lives. Museums are having to reach out into wider society. A new museum, M-Shed, in my hometown of Bristol, is dedicated to sharing with people their own history and the history of their families, workplaces and neighbourhoods. Politics, particularly in relation to trans-Atlantic slavery and modern activism is an integral part of the museum.
If, as Samuel Johnson famously said, “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel,” are the fine arts the last refuge of a humanist liberal? Whereas art museums once confined themselves to collecting and presenting for the edification and education of the masses, some institutions now see that education extending beyond the typical boundaries of art. "If the 20th century was primarily about collecting, I believe the 21st is about programming," MoMA director Glenn Lowry says in Cembalest’s piece. "Our goal is not so much to be the change agent, but rather, to create the kind of conversation that might lead at some future date to change by addressing critically important problems that engage specialists within the field as well as a more general public." A recent program at the MoMA titled "Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream" seems out of place in a modern art museum, but in response to the U.S. foreclosure crisis of the past few years, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon just doesn’t seem that relevant, at least directly. Lowry, and others hosting similar forums, claim not to be “change agents,” but the very act of promoting the “conversation” in a civil manner is a refreshing change.
Bahij Chancey
Having worked in museums for a large part of my life I do agree that they serve as an excellent platform to engage people’s minds in new and relevant social ideas. However, I would not say that they are the only outlet, or that they are even the best. Museum environments can often be colder and more sterile than some of their community counterparts, not entirely fostering room for discourse so much as a contemplation. It seems to me that it is in America’s community centers, art spaces and concert halls that people feel more comfortable to come together in civil discussion.
Bob Duggan
Thanks, Neal, for the links to your presentations. Clearly you’re riding the crest of what seems to be a new wave of civic and civil involvement of museums in America. I’m a little behind on this trend and am now feeling a bit deluged, but excited, by the prospect.
And thanks, too, Bahij for commenting. It’s always great to hear from people in the field. I’m a little saddened by your “museum environments can often be colder and more sterile than some of their community counterparts” comment. I think that’s true in many cases, but I also think that it’s more of an indication of museums doing something wrong. It would seem to me that museums full of human creativity should be the complete opposite of cold and sterile, at least if the content is presented correctly.
Also, as you say, “community centers, art spaces and concert halls” should also offer forums for discourse, but in our non-ideal world and American society right now, those centers, spaces, and halls are struggling to survive even more so than museums. In my native Philadelphia, community centers close frequently and the local orchestra is filing for bankruptcy, while the museums continue to plug along.
Thanks, everyone, for commenting on this post about, well, commenting!
—Bob
And thanks, too, Bahij for commenting. It’s always great to hear from people in the field. I’m a little saddened by your “museum environments can often be colder and more sterile than some of their community counterparts” comment. I think that’s true in many cases, but I also think that it’s more of an indication of museums doing something wrong. It would seem to me that museums full of human creativity should be the complete opposite of cold and sterile, at least if the content is presented correctly.
Also, as you say, “community centers, art spaces and concert halls” should also offer forums for discourse, but in our non-ideal world and American society right now, those centers, spaces, and halls are struggling to survive even more so than museums. In my native Philadelphia, community centers close frequently and the local orchestra is filing for bankruptcy, while the museums continue to plug along.
Thanks, everyone, for commenting on this post about, well, commenting!
—Bob
Neal Stimler
My scholarly practice is devoted to speaking about the important roles that museums play in fostering democracy and civic engagement.
At the 2010 Museum Computer Network conference, I presented, “Fostering A Democratic Museum Culture” (http://mcn2010.pbworks.com/w/p.... This lecture defines museums as community centers that inspire citizens work for peace and human rights. Follow this link for the Prezi presentation (http://prezi.com/sy9yptkaskxo/....
My Ignite Smithsonian lecture, “Renewing American Democracy Through Museums & Digital Culture,” (http://www.ustream.tv/recorded... continued to address these themes in dialogue with museum and library leaders who are committed to public service in our digital culture (http://smithsonian-webstrategy....
Museums, libraries and archives are at the very core of a free society. Digital technology, when used democratically, enables cultural institutions to serve the public as they assemble, share, and interpret experiences across time and space.
At the 2010 Museum Computer Network conference, I presented, “Fostering A Democratic Museum Culture” (http://mcn2010.pbworks.com/w/p.... This lecture defines museums as community centers that inspire citizens work for peace and human rights. Follow this link for the Prezi presentation (http://prezi.com/sy9yptkaskxo/....
My Ignite Smithsonian lecture, “Renewing American Democracy Through Museums & Digital Culture,” (http://www.ustream.tv/recorded... continued to address these themes in dialogue with museum and library leaders who are committed to public service in our digital culture (http://smithsonian-webstrategy....
Museums, libraries and archives are at the very core of a free society. Digital technology, when used democratically, enables cultural institutions to serve the public as they assemble, share, and interpret experiences across time and space.
A biologist, an urbanist, an economist, and a sewage expert walk into a museum. And they say, “Let’s get out of here and go fix some problems.”
This conversation, in so many words, has been occurring simultaneously at several New York museums, where experts from outside the art world are converging to collaborate on projects that extend far beyond the galleries—and beyond conventional definitions of art.
This conversation, in so many words, has been occurring simultaneously at several New York museums, where experts from outside the art world are converging to collaborate on projects that extend far beyond the galleries—and beyond conventional definitions of art.
This spring, the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim, and the New Museum launched multidisciplinary, multisite, goal-oriented programs to take on such issues as housing, the mortgage crisis, and waste management, to name a few.
While these projects might seem far afield from museums’ traditional mission—to preserve, study, and show their collections—directors say they reflect a logical evolution of their founders’ intentions.
While these projects might seem far afield from museums’ traditional mission—to preserve, study, and show their collections—directors say they reflect a logical evolution of their founders’ intentions.
At MoMA, experts in urban planning, housing policy, ecology, landscape design, engineering, and the social sciences will brainstorm on issues affecting homeowners as part of “Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream.” For the first phase in the 14-month initiative, supervised by architecture and design curator Barry Bergdoll, five teams—each charged with a particular mega-region—will create proposals reflecting “new and inventive thinking about the relationship between land, housing, infrastructure, urban form,” and what the idea of “public space” even means. The workshops will be followed by a symposium and then an exhibition of proposals, opening in January.
“If the 20th century was primarily about collecting, I believe the 21st is about programming,” he says. “This project is not about collecting anything. It’s about engaging in serious research that results in vibrant public programs.” The focus is the process, not the immediate outcome, Lowry stresses. “Our goal is not so much to be the change agent,” he says, “but rather, to create the kind of conversation that might lead at some future date to change by addressing critically important problems that engage specialists within the field as well as a more general public.”
Since 2007, when I ventured out of the academy to take the reins of the Department of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art, we have traversed an unexpected set of economic, social and environmental challenges in which the centrality of the design professions has become manifestly clear, even as larger forces — in which designers are too often complicit — act to marginalize the disciplines of architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning, design and the fine arts. Having worked side-by-side with diverse professionals, I am more than ever convinced that a cooperative, multidisciplinary approach is fundamental to the future vitality of the field — and essential if designers are to contribute to solving the enormous problems of our day. At MoMA we have been trying to discover meaningful positions and prospects even as practitioners have been jolted into discussion of just where the moral compass should be set.
From the start, I gave myself the mandate of making the museum a platform for architecture as it is practiced now, a platform where the public and professionals alike could confront the process of design thinking rather than merely observe the end results. The display of beautiful buildings divorced from the contextual framework of their genesis is an old art museum paradigm — one that runs ever the risk of reducing works of architecture to so many consumer or media objects, no matter the intent of their makers or clients.
In these exhibitions museum visitors were shown a profile of the architect who functions not simply as an artist who can give brilliant form to briefs written by others but more broadly as an interdisciplinary artistic and intellectual entrepreneur. In avoiding monographic displays, we are determined to promote not individual architects, but rather architecture, landscape, and design as such. We also aim to foreground the full gravitas of the central role of designers in creating and maintaining our public realm — which is more crucial than ever in a period in which the public posting of private wish lists on social media sites often passes as a form of public discourse.
Some observers have been bewildered by this new use of the museum not as a sanctuary for continually re-launching a battle in a war I believe won long ago — namely the status of architecture as art — but rather as a public forum for advocacy. But this is not really a new program for the museum. The Museum of Modern Art opened its doors to the public in November 1929, just days after the big stock market crash, and it came of age in the Great Depression. From the first its agenda was multifold. Most architectural histories have preferred to emphasize the aesthetic manifesto of Philip Johnson and Henry-Russell Hitchcock’s seminal International Style exhibition of 1932; but in fact the most sustained activity of the architecture department’s first decade consisted of exhibitions and programs advocating for better public housing. Exhibitions such as America Can't Have Housing, of 1934, and Architecture in Government Housing, of 1936, had direct impacts on the creation of the New York City Housing Authority in 1934, and on the passage of the Federal Housing Act of 1937, with significant credit due to the activism of the young Catherine Bauer, who contributed to both shows, and the advocacy of Lewis Mumford.
Bergdoll is not alone in his quest to have his institution spur new thinking in urban planning by engaging in it. Recently, museums have been considering cities and their challenges in exhibitions, festivals and symposia. And they want to make a difference, inspired perhaps by artists with similar concerns and by the seismic jolt delivered to their own neighborhoods as development dried up around them following the recent mortgage crisis. As they do so, museums are running into some challenges themselves, particularly in determining the difference between public programming (within the institution) and community outreach (activism). “
The nonprofit’s creation of affordable live/work spaces has attracted artists, further stimulating growth and development. Now, a world-renowned arts organization has validated HANDS vision. The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) has selected Orange; the only one of the five cities chosen that is on the east coast, to be part of “Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream,” an exhibition opening in January 2012 that examines possibilities for American cities and suburbs.
Early next year, MoMA’s Foreclosed exhibition will take on major issues in suburbia that have been under-examined for decades—themes that were explored through two other notable exhibits at The Museum of Modern Art in the past: 1973′s Another Chance for Housing: Low-Rise Alternatives presented a housing prototype designed to combine the best aspects of suburban and urban living, while the 1944 traveling exhibition Look at Your Neighborhood advocated for public spaces within suburbia.
MoMA has historically used its position of influence to call attention to issues in suburbia and housing. Collaborating with government agencies, as well as with architects, the Museum has framed arguments on new ways of living. In this tradition, Foreclosed, which is co-organized by MoMA and Columbia University’s Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture, will present five architectural teams’ re-imaginings of the American suburb.
MoMA has historically used its position of influence to call attention to issues in suburbia and housing. Collaborating with government agencies, as well as with architects, the Museum has framed arguments on new ways of living. In this tradition, Foreclosed, which is co-organized by MoMA and Columbia University’s Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture, will present five architectural teams’ re-imaginings of the American suburb.
Jennifer Chung · Birkbeck, University of London
The intertwined modern relations between museums and capitalism is probably mostly the governments' fault across the globe. The versatility of the name of art provided endless potential for private company to back a show or even an institution. Fronting for things has become basic survival skills for modern museums (need not to mention those privately owned mega museum brands). When the states traded glorious fiscal reports and balance sheets with the greater good of humanity, museums were like being exposed to a new kind of lethal virus.... 'mutation' is the key for survival, either museums look the other way and suck it up or close its doors.
The only way to fight this would be to have mainstream media to spread article and discussion like this piece, so people would actually paid more attention and begin to question things.
November 21, 2011 at 9:58pm
The only way to fight this would be to have mainstream media to spread article and discussion like this piece, so people would actually paid more attention and begin to question things.
November 21, 2011 at 9:58pm
Laetitia Wolff · Founder at ExpoTENtial
Finally a strong, well-written and critical voice about the phenomenon of institutionalized urban interventions, as the newest coolest curatorial activity (of which I'm guiltily part of), but again the question of where all these ideas and interventions are going is what I'm most interested in exploring. Please join us on Glasshouse about this very topic... (http://glasshouseconversations.org/how-do-we-encourage-design-action-do-tanks-vs-think-tanks-to-improve-our-cities/)
November 14, 2011 at 10:52pm
November 14, 2011 at 10:52pm
The critical problem for museums’ efforts to activate socially engaged practice is how to displace the work from its original context without denaturing it. Social art and urban interventions are different from static art forms like painting and sculpture—at least in their materialized, pre-social versions. To be adequately experienced and to realize their intentions, they have to act in the world and be put to good use.
Early in the game, Barry Bergdoll’s activist exhibition and urban research streak at the Museum of Modern Art’s architecture department, alongside former curator of contemporary architecture Andres Lepik, were especially successful at making arguments for sustainability and social practice within the field—without the help of any car companies.
How do we parse socially engaged art and urban interventions when they are simultaneously museum programming and automobile branding? Business investment and corporate philanthropy have long been important to the Americanway of life, but the placement of company names in the public realm has also come to embody the powerlessness of ordinary citizens to exercise control over public processes. The capture of these practices by elite cultural institutions threatens to empty them of their socially engaged function and turn them into a sideshow. At the same time, museums have the capacity to provide much-needed access to resources for this type of work and apply it usefully to their own communities. One only needs to look back on MoMA’s legendary postwar exhibitions on housing and modern architectureto see the power of this kind of involvement.
This fall, BMW funded a Guggenheim lab on the Lower East Side that will travel—along with a lot of forward-thinking programs and events—to nine cities around the world for the next six years. Earlier this year, Audi funded the New Museum’s Festival Ideas for the New City on the Bowery which the museum plans on staging every other year. And in May, Volkswagen announced a two-year partnership with MoMA to fund online educational programming, on-site “labs,” and an exhibition of socially conscious international work at PS1.
Major museums andcultural institutions are jumping on the social activism bandwagon as never before, launching urban research projects, participatory art festivals, and engaged urbanist exhibitions that were once the primary engagement of only the most committed nonprofits and independent producers as tools of social action. In organizing these shows, curators are embracing an idea in the vanguard of contemporary art and design, and getting German luxury car companies to foot the bills. What’s going on here, and who’s really the beneficiary?
Major museums andcultural institutions are jumping on the social activism bandwagon as never before, launching urban research projects, participatory art festivals, and engaged urbanist exhibitions that were once the primary engagement of only the most committed nonprofits and independent producers as tools of social action. In organizing these shows, curators are embracing an idea in the vanguard of contemporary art and design, and getting German luxury car companies to foot the bills. What’s going on here, and who’s really the beneficiary?
JUSTIN DAVIDSON (NYMAG)
A lot of issues in just a few comment! @Jake_Wegmann: Your point that the problems facing the suburbs are not purely a design problem is right on, but that's exactly why the MoMA show tries to deal with legal, financial, ethnic, political, and cultural issues, too. And yes, the teams visited the sites they dealt with and interviewed people who live there - in the case of the Studio Gang project, the interviews are part of the exhibit.
@Cyberoid: It's true that the word "Suburb" includes places that are vastly different from each other - do you really think that makes the word so vague as to be meaningless, though? I don't think MoMA is claiming that the foreclosure crisis is over by any means - in fact, the sites in question were selected in part becuase they have high rates of foreclosure and high rates of non-foreclosed homeowners under water on their mortgages.
@Lecorbusier (I've heard of you, haven't I?) For what it's worth, I do know Ellen Dunham-Jones' excellent work on retrofitting dead malls, etc. What I said probably couldn't be done was revamping the suburbs wholesale "by rewriting laws, rationalizing markets, reforming the construction industry, and changing the culture all at once." Do you know of anywhere where such a sweeping transformation has been carried out? If so, I'd be very interested to know more about it.
6 Months Ago
@Cyberoid: It's true that the word "Suburb" includes places that are vastly different from each other - do you really think that makes the word so vague as to be meaningless, though? I don't think MoMA is claiming that the foreclosure crisis is over by any means - in fact, the sites in question were selected in part becuase they have high rates of foreclosure and high rates of non-foreclosed homeowners under water on their mortgages.
@Lecorbusier (I've heard of you, haven't I?) For what it's worth, I do know Ellen Dunham-Jones' excellent work on retrofitting dead malls, etc. What I said probably couldn't be done was revamping the suburbs wholesale "by rewriting laws, rationalizing markets, reforming the construction industry, and changing the culture all at once." Do you know of anywhere where such a sweeping transformation has been carried out? If so, I'd be very interested to know more about it.
6 Months Ago
CYBEROID
I heard this exhibition announced on Pasadena, CA NPR station KPCC. The announcer was reading a press release from MOMA that began, something about pioneering design "in the wake of the foreclosure crisis."
We are not in a wake following a concluded foreclosure crisis -- we are in a foreclosure crisis! For MOMA to pass this off as the creative residue of a situation now resolved is not only stupidly Pollyanna, it is disingenuous and spreads false hope that the worst is behind us. No, the worst is ahead of us. More, many more homeowners are underwater or nearly so and as the economy continues basically moribund, the situation will only get worse. That is, if no one does anything dramatic to help homeowners as much as the bankers. Two Administrations of supposedly different ideologies have conspired to let the banks off the hook and throw the deadbeats -- the newly poor -- out of their homes.
MOMA's characterization of the exhibition as post facto is blatantly ignorant of the situation as it is. MOMA should be made to address the realities of home loss, not its own fantasy of what may have occurred.
BTW, the ridiculous solutions to the suburban crisis proposed in the exhibition are not clever, they are insulting to the people who made it possible: the foreclosed. Really in poor taste.
6 Months Ago
We are not in a wake following a concluded foreclosure crisis -- we are in a foreclosure crisis! For MOMA to pass this off as the creative residue of a situation now resolved is not only stupidly Pollyanna, it is disingenuous and spreads false hope that the worst is behind us. No, the worst is ahead of us. More, many more homeowners are underwater or nearly so and as the economy continues basically moribund, the situation will only get worse. That is, if no one does anything dramatic to help homeowners as much as the bankers. Two Administrations of supposedly different ideologies have conspired to let the banks off the hook and throw the deadbeats -- the newly poor -- out of their homes.
MOMA's characterization of the exhibition as post facto is blatantly ignorant of the situation as it is. MOMA should be made to address the realities of home loss, not its own fantasy of what may have occurred.
BTW, the ridiculous solutions to the suburban crisis proposed in the exhibition are not clever, they are insulting to the people who made it possible: the foreclosed. Really in poor taste.
6 Months Ago
Now visitors can wander into a single gallery on the museum’s third floor and encounter inventive solutions to formidable problems they may have thought little about. Bergdoll has used the museum’s clout to create a glass think tank, a place where the public can keep an eye on experts at work.
13 Feb, 2012 - (@dinet)
At MoMA, curators and architects seek a way out of the cul-de-sac http://ow.ly/926hW #architecture
Anonymous
Once again, I applaud MOMA reaching out to Architects for thoughtful investigations. One hopes that someday actionable ideas come out of this brainstorming. The argument that the housing industry is not serving the needs of Americans is valid, but not much in this show is any better. Like "Home Delivery" and "Small Scale: Big Change", earlier MOMA investigations, these aesthetic fantasies are appealing to look at but largely out of touch.
2/13/2012 3:45 PM CST
2/13/2012 3:45 PM CST
Anonymous
ya'll have to remember this is in an ART Museum, not a laboratory. I've seen sillier and less artistic exhibits at the MoMA
2/22/2012 1:02 PM CST
2/22/2012 1:02 PM CST
This vision of the Museum as a proactive institution in which exhibitions are used for advocacy-related purposes relates back to MoMA's founding mission of "creating a dialogue between the established and the experimental, the past and the present, in an environment that is responsive to the issues of modern and contemporary art."
15 Feb, 2012 - (@DomusWeb)
The new #MoMA#architectureexhibition #Foreclosedcontinues the museum's exploration of issues in contemporary living http://bit.ly/A5NXF6
15 Feb, 2012 - (@NewsArch )
The new #MoMA#architectureexhibition #Foreclosedcontinues the museum's exploration of issues.. http://bit.ly/A5NXF6 @DomusWeb▄▀ví @cihru
In the end, it is not a curator or the designer who will determine if design projects are successful or not. It is the public who will be the final judge, based on what the design achieves.
For architecture to reach its full potential the public must be involved, inviting designers to be a part of their conversations and solutions in addressing social needs. But before this happens, the public must first understand the newly-emerging role of design. And it is here that this show wastes so much possibility and a timely opportunity.
For architecture to reach its full potential the public must be involved, inviting designers to be a part of their conversations and solutions in addressing social needs. But before this happens, the public must first understand the newly-emerging role of design. And it is here that this show wastes so much possibility and a timely opportunity.
Lately, an increasing number of museums are giving their art-for-art's-sake mantras a bit of a rest and behaving more like think tanks. I'm all for this. Pure experience is great, but museum's are ultimately about a balance of things.
Here's a great case in point. The Museum of Modern Art recently opened a new and ambitious exhibit, "Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream." Last summer, MoMA invited some of the best architects, urban planners, ecologists, engineers and landscape designers to be in residence at MoMA P.S. 1. Their task? To reimagine housing and transportation infrastructures, particularly in the suburbs and areas plagued by foreclosure. The exhibit, which features models and animations, is also accompanied by a strong line up of events and a public blog. MoMA has made itself a center of dialogue on an important subject for a set period of time.
Here's a great case in point. The Museum of Modern Art recently opened a new and ambitious exhibit, "Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream." Last summer, MoMA invited some of the best architects, urban planners, ecologists, engineers and landscape designers to be in residence at MoMA P.S. 1. Their task? To reimagine housing and transportation infrastructures, particularly in the suburbs and areas plagued by foreclosure. The exhibit, which features models and animations, is also accompanied by a strong line up of events and a public blog. MoMA has made itself a center of dialogue on an important subject for a set period of time.
Moreover, this project redistributes various tasks in away which leads towards new forms of intervention (but while the teams include experts from various fields, team leadership is always taken up by an architectural studio) in a project which radically alters the role of a cultural institution.
Like the Rising Currents show, the Foreclosed exhibition put MoMA in an activist role, actually commissioning speculative solutions, developed through a workshop process. Bergdoll, who organized the project with Reinhold Martin, Director of Columbia University's Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture, isolated five geographical areas in the U.S., from Florida to California, where the banking mortgage crisis of 2007–08 led to stalled projects and swaths of publicly held land now available for development. For each of the five sites—identified based on Buell Center research—Bergdoll and Martin assigned a team, led by architects and including experts in finance, housing, planning, and infrastructure. Each team created proposals meant to provoke new ways of thinking about housing and dense community living: Bergdoll wants to engage the public in understanding “how architects think.”
OpinionFromAustralia
Mar 7th 2012, 05:07
Isn't the museum of Modern Art a place for Art?
I don't know if i'm missing something, but any art gallery/museum i've been too rarely lets reality to get in the way of weird and wonderfula rt (especailly if it's of the 'modern' genre).
Was this exhibition meant to showcase real options for architectural redesign of these places or was it's objective to do art?
I'm confused...
Isn't the museum of Modern Art a place for Art?
I don't know if i'm missing something, but any art gallery/museum i've been too rarely lets reality to get in the way of weird and wonderfula rt (especailly if it's of the 'modern' genre).
Was this exhibition meant to showcase real options for architectural redesign of these places or was it's objective to do art?
I'm confused...
As the architectural critic Ada Louise Huxtable wrote, "The exhibition marks the return of the museum to an activist position." Huxtable was writing 39 years ago, on the occasion of MoMA's most recent show on housing, 1973's Another Chance for Housing: Low-Rise Alternatives. With further discussions planned to connect Foreclosed with current New York City-based housing initiatives, the activist potential for MoMA remains.
n an earlier era, the connection between the museum's exhibitions and housing policy was more direct: Catherine Bauer, a key contributor to MoMA's first architectural shows in the early 1930s, co-authored the Housing Act of 1937, and then continued to collaborate on MoMA housing exhibitions from her position within the newly created United States Housing Authority, the predecessor to HUD.
Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream recently opened at the Museum of Modern Art, featuring new housing design proposals for five suburban sites across the country. But if you spend too much time staring at the show's fancy architectural models or sleek renderings, you may miss the curators' point. The physical exhibition and even its title are "decoys" at the center of a series of open workshops and symposia, designed to provoke public discussion on the future of housing in the United States. As MoMA curator Barry Bergdoll put it, "Gone is the idea of an exhibition that opens and closes in the galleries."
07 Mar, 2012 - (@lubar)
"Foreclosed" (at MOMA): Art museums can do serious political/economic/technology shows - why can't history museums?? http://j.mp/A8afgQ
Bergdoll has defined his curatorship as restoring architecture to its proper place at the center of national concerns. He recognizes that its best practitioners never separate aesthetics from problem solving; they seamlessly interweave both.
I say keep trying.
I say keep trying.
13 Mar, 2012 - (@amandakhurley)
"There's something almost colonialist about this exhibition:" Felix Salmon on MoMA's Foreclosed, http://www.architectmagazine.com/exhibitions/dr …
GRRR
MAR 14, 2012 8:40 AM EDT
I don’t know how you can say that the housing crisis was mostly a suburban thing. In downtown Portland all of the condo projects that were completed between 2007 and 2009 were subsequently turned into apartments or turned over to banks. Unsold units in bank possession were auctioned off or otherwise sold at a 40% discount. This reversed the trend of the prior decade of apartment buildings being converted into condos. Look around and the cranes are building new apartment buildings, not condos.
To the point of suburban architectural solutions to making housing affordable. You know that museum-curated shows are always ‘think big or don’t come’. When was the last time you saw a curated show present pragmatic proposals that could be installed in real life, the next day?
Real life solutions are already being played out in the burbs of Portland, and undoubtedly in hundreds of other burbs in the nation.
Orenco Station is supposed to be a New Urbanism project, although its growth has been driven by the big-box strip mall (a blend between the traditional strip mall and the single lot big box store).
A twist on Jane Jacobs romanticism connected to mass transit rail is discerned from stop after stop along the TriMet MAX, with tracts of townhomes and pocket parks within 1000′ of a MAX stop.
Not two weeks ago, the Portland Home Show unveiled the IKEA House. A collaboration between IKEA and a local company – Ideabox – that designs and builds prefab structures. It turns out, the solution to making housing affordable is to downsize the McMansion and make it practical inside.
In any case, the solution is either to expand suburbia outward or increase density — move out or move up.
I don’t know how you can say that the housing crisis was mostly a suburban thing. In downtown Portland all of the condo projects that were completed between 2007 and 2009 were subsequently turned into apartments or turned over to banks. Unsold units in bank possession were auctioned off or otherwise sold at a 40% discount. This reversed the trend of the prior decade of apartment buildings being converted into condos. Look around and the cranes are building new apartment buildings, not condos.
To the point of suburban architectural solutions to making housing affordable. You know that museum-curated shows are always ‘think big or don’t come’. When was the last time you saw a curated show present pragmatic proposals that could be installed in real life, the next day?
Real life solutions are already being played out in the burbs of Portland, and undoubtedly in hundreds of other burbs in the nation.
Orenco Station is supposed to be a New Urbanism project, although its growth has been driven by the big-box strip mall (a blend between the traditional strip mall and the single lot big box store).
A twist on Jane Jacobs romanticism connected to mass transit rail is discerned from stop after stop along the TriMet MAX, with tracts of townhomes and pocket parks within 1000′ of a MAX stop.
Not two weeks ago, the Portland Home Show unveiled the IKEA House. A collaboration between IKEA and a local company – Ideabox – that designs and builds prefab structures. It turns out, the solution to making housing affordable is to downsize the McMansion and make it practical inside.
In any case, the solution is either to expand suburbia outward or increase density — move out or move up.
Among the questions on the table is that of the role of architecture (and architecture within the museum) in the search for workable solutions, to which the stock answer within the field is something about synthetic problem solving and visionary thought leadership. The first step may simply be the difficult and contentious public identification of where the problems actually lie in order to move beyond top/bottom and toward throughout/within, a step architects and the MoMA have taken before. In 1934, the museum exhibited America Can’t Have Housing aimed at “show[ing] why America needs housing and yet is so backward at filling this need.”[1] That was several architectural lifetimes ago and the specifics of the housing problem were different, but it seems much of the conversation was the same. In the museum’s Bulletin, Carol Aronovici (chairman of the committee responsible for that exhibition) refers to the rationalized plans of Modernism when he writes, “Impatient with the confusion of our cities and unable to find a solution which would provide for the essential human needs, many of these innovators have presented radical schemes for city planning as fantastic as they are inconsistent with the structure of modern society.” He continues, “This is perhaps not the fault of these innovators, but rather of the social order under which our cities have grown up…We cannot hope to rebuild our cities without changing our social and economic structure…”
SV: Does this MoMA place have some sort of tax subsidy? Does it?
AU: They probably don't pay taxes because it's a nonprofit institution.
SV: That's a form of subsidy, isn't it?
AU: They probably don't pay taxes because it's a nonprofit institution.
SV: That's a form of subsidy, isn't it?
SV: What is MoMA doing putting on such an obviously political exhibit? What are they doing?
AU: The Museum of Modern Art has a tradition of putting on---
Sandra Smith [blonde]: I was going to say, artists are never political.
SV: It's always the elite telling the rest of us how we should live, isn't it?
AU: No, it's---
SV: Always.
AU: No, in fact, the state of California is enacting zoning policies to make suburbs more dense. You know, and the Wall Street Journal just pointed out last week that they are trying to, instead of having four houses per acre, they're going to have twenty houses per acre.
AU: The Museum of Modern Art has a tradition of putting on---
Sandra Smith [blonde]: I was going to say, artists are never political.
SV: It's always the elite telling the rest of us how we should live, isn't it?
AU: No, it's---
SV: Always.
AU: No, in fact, the state of California is enacting zoning policies to make suburbs more dense. You know, and the Wall Street Journal just pointed out last week that they are trying to, instead of having four houses per acre, they're going to have twenty houses per acre.
15 May, 2012 - (@namhenderson)
@metropolismagon MoMA: Foreclosed "struck me as yet another poster child for The MoMA Problem" http://bit.ly/L4Ikby #REITs
22 May, 2012 - (@theoncominghope )
Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream, in which I ramble on about MoMa and architecture: http://theoncominghope.blogspot.com/2012/05/art-as …#architecture#moma
shtrum
JUNE 1, 2012 • 10:09 AM
shtrum said…
At the risk of playing devil’s advocate, MOMA is only doing what MOMA does. But blaming them for popular culture is like blaming Lady Gaga for bologna sandwiches.
If architects want to know why only 2% of housing is designed by architects, they only need look in a mirror. A $200+/sf mirror.
Did i mention i was playing devil’s advocate? :)
shtrum said…
At the risk of playing devil’s advocate, MOMA is only doing what MOMA does. But blaming them for popular culture is like blaming Lady Gaga for bologna sandwiches.
If architects want to know why only 2% of housing is designed by architects, they only need look in a mirror. A $200+/sf mirror.
Did i mention i was playing devil’s advocate? :)
MOMA, you did more damage than good with this show and you continue to widen the gap between architects and the American public. You probably delayed the needed discussion on what to do with the American suburbs by decades. We should know better, we should have learned by now. After all, you’re not called the Museum of Modern Architecture, or the Museum of Modern Solutions. You’re a Modern Museum of Art, and regardless of the issues you choose to take on, or the title of your exhibits, the final product is always art. There’s nothing wrong with that in and of itself and there’s nothing wrong with art, unless of course you pitch the exhibit as “inventive solutions for the future of American Suburbs”. We propose that you change the show’s title to “Foreclosed: Artistic Impressions of Rehousing the American Dream.” Or maybe you’ve got some other ideas -let us know, we’ll be the ones in the bar tipping back Negronis.
MOMA, we love you. Really, we do. We are card carrying members of the Museum of Modern Art and we diligently pay you a visit each and every time we’re in Manhattan. You’ve been a fixture on our Modern List from the start and we’re constantly sending family, friends and colleagues your way. We have no intention of changing any of this. But you did it again. We were just there and we saw the train wreck with our own eyes. You took a critical issue of social and architectural importance and turned it into a theoretical art project. The last time you did this was with the Prefab Housing Exhibit (July-October 2008) which announced prefabricated architectural solutions to real housing issues; but really it was just an art project masquerading as something purposeful. It took three Negronis, two Compari & sodas, and a shrimp cocktail at the MOMA bar to doctor the wounds from that show.
Big Daddy
JUNE 7, 2012 · 8:01 PM
I live in the wrong part of the world to offer first hand critique of Foreclosed, but this criticism seems unqualified. MoMA is an art museum, and will provide inventive solutions based in the arts, surely! That is what i would expect to see at MoMA, and would be disappointed otherwise. I dont think they promised ‘practical’ solutions. Bit like going to a Michelin star restaurant and criticising them because they dont serve Big Macs.
I live in the wrong part of the world to offer first hand critique of Foreclosed, but this criticism seems unqualified. MoMA is an art museum, and will provide inventive solutions based in the arts, surely! That is what i would expect to see at MoMA, and would be disappointed otherwise. I dont think they promised ‘practical’ solutions. Bit like going to a Michelin star restaurant and criticising them because they dont serve Big Macs.
Last weekend I was able to see three exhibitions at the MoMA. Each of the exhibits had a different focus, but related to the museum’s dedication to reinventing perceptions of art and bringing complex ideas to the public.
Think of Foreclosed, then, as a highly controlled laboratory experiment, a mapping of constraints and a documentation of erasures. It represents one contribution that a university and a museum can make together, as participants in the public sphere, or the multivalent space in which public opinion — and "common sense" — is formed and contested. Whether it contributes to anything like a shift in the dominant paradigm remains to be seen. Thus far, indications are that it has touched a nerve. Whether that translates merely into a nervous reaction or into strategies for structural transformation from below, from above, and from the sides — this is our mutual challenge to take up in this discussion, and beyond.
In the forward to the exhibition’s catalogue, MoMA director Glenn Lowry says it is fitting that the museum should present the new ideas, pointing out that 80 years ago, the museum’s “‘Modern Architecture; International Exhibition’ not only promoted the aesthetic principles of the International Style but advocated housing reform in the slums of New York and other cities as the effects of the worldwide economic depression began to make themselves profoundly felt.” Sound strangely familiar? The show runs until August 13.
Brian Loughlin (BL): I want to thank the Museum for reengaging the issue of housing after what has been a long and notable absence. I think we can argue that also absent, from this never-ending conversation about the public’s role in the provision of housing to its citizens—as it continues in media and budget hearings and courtrooms and in community meetings— have been the contributions of academic institutions like the Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture. In fact, I would go so far as to say that in large part, Architecture (with a big A) has pulled back from the discourse on social housing in this country since the proclaimed death of modern architecture with the fall of Yamasaki’s buildings in ’72. Even the Congress for New Urbanism, coauthors of this fine document here, through their involvement with HOPE VI, have inserted themselves into the void where traditional public housing and modern architecture reportedly failed, by quietly steering its supposed cure. But, they’ve sought to do so without the appearance of Architecture (again, big A) or authorship, relying instead on the stylistics of nostalgia and the will of the public as apparently expressed in community charrettes.
Scale (53)
“New paradigms of architecture, and regional and transportation planning could well be the silver lining in the crisis of home ownership,” Mr. Bergdoll said in a statement.
Gabriel
May 29, 2011
Artist
Torrance, CA
Sounds like a worthy project, and
local. I like it. Mr. Zago, if the MoMA blog you're going to maintain has an RSS feed, you can load it into your profile and post the news to USA.org automatically.
Artist
Torrance, CA
Sounds like a worthy project, and
local. I like it. Mr. Zago, if the MoMA blog you're going to maintain has an RSS feed, you can load it into your profile and post the news to USA.org automatically.
However, unlike Rising Currents, Foreclosed addresses an issue at a national, as opposed to local, scale.
FORECLOSED: BETWEEN CRISIS AND POSSIBILITY
In Foreclosed: Between Crisis and Possibility, a group exhibition and series of public programs curated by Whitney Independent Study Program (ISP) Curatorial Fellows Jennifer Burris, Sofía Olascoaga, Sadia Shirazi and Gaia Tedone, “between” is the operative word. Well, that and “foreclosed.” Using foreclosure mainly as a point of departure, the show and discussions posit multiple approaches to looking at and utilizing the forgotten spaces that embody the aftershocks of a declining economy and ask how artists, architects and planners grapple with a culture of crisis.
“City as Stage,” a conversation between GSAPP Professor Emeritus and planner Peter Marcuse, urban planner/architect/artist Damon Rich, Director and Chief Curator of the Sheila C. Johnson Design Center Radhika Subramaniam and artist Tania Bruguera, moderated by Sadia Shirazi, was held at The Kitchen on June 11th. The afternoon began with a screening of Beau Geste by Yto Barrada. In Beau Geste, Barrada patches a malignant hole in a palm tree in a vacant lot in Tangier, trying to thwart a developer who gouged it in hopes of killing the tree, thus allowing him to build up the lot. This guerilla-style urban intervention set the tone for the ensuing discussion on several levels: the scale was small, the action direct, and its consequence indeterminate.
In Foreclosed: Between Crisis and Possibility, a group exhibition and series of public programs curated by Whitney Independent Study Program (ISP) Curatorial Fellows Jennifer Burris, Sofía Olascoaga, Sadia Shirazi and Gaia Tedone, “between” is the operative word. Well, that and “foreclosed.” Using foreclosure mainly as a point of departure, the show and discussions posit multiple approaches to looking at and utilizing the forgotten spaces that embody the aftershocks of a declining economy and ask how artists, architects and planners grapple with a culture of crisis.
“City as Stage,” a conversation between GSAPP Professor Emeritus and planner Peter Marcuse, urban planner/architect/artist Damon Rich, Director and Chief Curator of the Sheila C. Johnson Design Center Radhika Subramaniam and artist Tania Bruguera, moderated by Sadia Shirazi, was held at The Kitchen on June 11th. The afternoon began with a screening of Beau Geste by Yto Barrada. In Beau Geste, Barrada patches a malignant hole in a palm tree in a vacant lot in Tangier, trying to thwart a developer who gouged it in hopes of killing the tree, thus allowing him to build up the lot. This guerilla-style urban intervention set the tone for the ensuing discussion on several levels: the scale was small, the action direct, and its consequence indeterminate.
carolgregor, 104 Fans
04:39 PM on 08/10/2011
The challenge now is not in our ability to solve problems but in our core values as fellow human beings. The American Dream is gone as we knew it. Homes have become unhealthy physically, spiritually and soulfully. Our families are broken, medications are excessive and stress has filled our lives. Homes used to be our sacred space but today it is the cause of of distress.
How did this happen?
After a career in home design and building I became acutely aware of the pressure to have bigger and bigger homes. At the same time we have lost millions of acres of land to sprawl and the reports are in that sprawl causes heart attack and stroke because people are not moving enough. On top of this, our water is disappearing and our air is heavy because corporate builders are profit driven and have no concern for the health of the homeowner. Joined with unethical bankers, the US homeowner has poorly built expensive homes. 1/4 of homes are under water financially as poorly built ones depreciate faster than people can afford to maintain.
There are a couple of solutions that can recapture our dream. By taking personal responsibility in what we purchase we can regain control. In home design and building, choose smaller, better built homes. Buy on an existing grid and use local builders and materials. Smaller, infill homes will immediately change the quality of life we experience and we recapture the sacred core of our homesteads.
The challenge now is not in our ability to solve problems but in our core values as fellow human beings. The American Dream is gone as we knew it. Homes have become unhealthy physically, spiritually and soulfully. Our families are broken, medications are excessive and stress has filled our lives. Homes used to be our sacred space but today it is the cause of of distress.
How did this happen?
After a career in home design and building I became acutely aware of the pressure to have bigger and bigger homes. At the same time we have lost millions of acres of land to sprawl and the reports are in that sprawl causes heart attack and stroke because people are not moving enough. On top of this, our water is disappearing and our air is heavy because corporate builders are profit driven and have no concern for the health of the homeowner. Joined with unethical bankers, the US homeowner has poorly built expensive homes. 1/4 of homes are under water financially as poorly built ones depreciate faster than people can afford to maintain.
There are a couple of solutions that can recapture our dream. By taking personal responsibility in what we purchase we can regain control. In home design and building, choose smaller, better built homes. Buy on an existing grid and use local builders and materials. Smaller, infill homes will immediately change the quality of life we experience and we recapture the sacred core of our homesteads.
31 Aug, 2011 - (@ArtspaceWare)
Counting down to PST.... One of the most intriguing large-scale exhibs... http://bit.ly/puo6uq
NEARLY 100 ARCHITECTURE aficionados crowded into the steamy third-floor rooms of MoMA/PS1 last June to hear five architect teams discuss their latest projects. Their mandate: solve the country’s housing crisis.
“Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream,” an ongoing series of workshops that will culminate in an exhibition at MoMA in February, aims to do nothing less than provide new models for how metropolitan areas-specifically large suburbs in five areas around the country-might be improved. “The projects are not meant to provide solutions to immediate site,” says Barry Bergdoll, MoMA’s chief curator of architecture and design. “They are meant to provide ideas for fundamental change.”
“Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream,” an ongoing series of workshops that will culminate in an exhibition at MoMA in February, aims to do nothing less than provide new models for how metropolitan areas-specifically large suburbs in five areas around the country-might be improved. “The projects are not meant to provide solutions to immediate site,” says Barry Bergdoll, MoMA’s chief curator of architecture and design. “They are meant to provide ideas for fundamental change.”
Bergdoll and Martin describe their directive to the teams as "not to redesign the house, but to redesign the dream."
All five teams have responded to this directive to some degree by proposing social and infrastructural systems that attempt, on a large scale, to align with the new cultural desires and economic realities of American suburban living. Amale Andraos and Dan Wood of WORK Architecture Company, working on SalemKeizer, Oregon, propose a contemporary update on the notion of a garden city, addressing a range of ecological issues. Hilary Sample and Michael Meredith of MOS, analyzing the Oranges, New Jersey, explore the potential of suburban streets to offer a new kind of civic space in a less car-dependent future. Jeanne Gang of Studio Gang, focusing on Cicero, Illinois, seeks a new flexibility in housing that will accommodate the rapidly shifting immigrant populations in the suburbs outside Chicago. Andrew Zago of Zago Architecture, studying Rialto, California, subverts the strict hierarchies of property boundaries that have traditionally structured suburban space. And Michael Bell of Visible Weather, examining Temple Terrace, Florida, considers the relationship between relatively homogenous Florida suburbs and the more diverse and less prosperous neighboring urban communities.
All five teams have responded to this directive to some degree by proposing social and infrastructural systems that attempt, on a large scale, to align with the new cultural desires and economic realities of American suburban living. Amale Andraos and Dan Wood of WORK Architecture Company, working on SalemKeizer, Oregon, propose a contemporary update on the notion of a garden city, addressing a range of ecological issues. Hilary Sample and Michael Meredith of MOS, analyzing the Oranges, New Jersey, explore the potential of suburban streets to offer a new kind of civic space in a less car-dependent future. Jeanne Gang of Studio Gang, focusing on Cicero, Illinois, seeks a new flexibility in housing that will accommodate the rapidly shifting immigrant populations in the suburbs outside Chicago. Andrew Zago of Zago Architecture, studying Rialto, California, subverts the strict hierarchies of property boundaries that have traditionally structured suburban space. And Michael Bell of Visible Weather, examining Temple Terrace, Florida, considers the relationship between relatively homogenous Florida suburbs and the more diverse and less prosperous neighboring urban communities.
The different teams worked to design site-specific plans with input from local communities, but what unified them was the way they aimed to make their sites at once both self-sufficient and better connected to their broader metropolitan regions. To that end, the different models included infrastructure such as light rail, co-generation electrical plants, recycling centers, and gardens to enable people to grow their own food. Some plans included light industrial facilities and workspaces adjacent to residential areas so people would not have to endure long automobile commutes to get to work.
Alexander J Felson
MARCH 21, 2012, 12:40 P.M.
First, I really appreciate the commentary from both KB (12/15) and DK (03/07) regarding the rewilding concepts in relation to suburbanization. I would like to respond first to DK’s point of building dense and compact cities and leaving the “hinterland and wilderness as intact as possible” is the ideal and I certainly do not disagree with this position. That said this is not what is taking place on the ground. Urbanization is continuing to spread into the hinterlands here in the US, in China, India, and Brazil and around the globe. The proposal here is to consider the potential for these exurban developments to adopt an ecological mandate.The focus on the MOMA exhibit and analysis is also very specific and thus the proposal needs to be seen in its context. We were specifically tasked with looking at foreclosure housing projects and how as designers and scientists we might bring federal funding to address some of the issues faced. Thus the site was selected for us, and due to its proximity to the San Bernardino National Forest and the ecologically intact conditions of the surrounding context including the Lytle Creek Wash, we saw the notion of creating a neighborhood focused in part on ecological management as an opportunity for collaboration between developers, the federal government and future homeowners.A third factor to consider is climate change and global warming. The earth is changing in part through large-scale anthropogenic causes. These are creating pressures and constraints on the hinterland ecosystems and organisms. Already, there are discussions of how to foster species migration as their ranges shift north. This is an area that scientists are keenly interested in the role they might play. Consider the species introductions, assisted migrations and other efforts scientists are already participating with the goal of enhancing ecosystems. In other words, just leaving the hinterlands out there “undisturbed” by the built environment does not mean they remain undisturbed, and to maintain ecosystems and organisms human interventions will likely be an important component. Consider John Foley’s diagram of the changing landscape conditions – where is the “hinterlands” in his diagram?Finally, Rewilding (and this goes back to KB’s comments) is a radical proposal and one that is debated amongst ecologist. Much of the issue arises from the concern over human – wildlife conflict that would likely ensue if we were to reintroduce large carnivores etc. to the US. At the same time, most ecologists would agree that top down predation would benefit ecosystem health and lead to greater diversity of species. Thus the issue is one of public acceptance. As a result, getting this concept out there through a variety of venues (given that Rewilding is in the “marketing” stage) should mostly benefit the cause. It is a much more radical concept than simply allowing people to manage biological systems at the urban fringe and is intended to create debate and discussion.The MoMA exhibit is pervaded by architectural discourse of the suburb and could use this layer of integration of knowledge into new suburban forms. The architect and their modes of working and analysis were prioritized and sites open to large development were sites for new visions. Still, the rewilding concept is part of the exhibit, which means that tens of thousands of museumgoers visiting the exhibit will have the opportunity to reflect on what role people can play in managing ecosystems in their neighborhoods, and on the potential value of rewilding as a concept to consider for promoting ecosystem function.
First, I really appreciate the commentary from both KB (12/15) and DK (03/07) regarding the rewilding concepts in relation to suburbanization. I would like to respond first to DK’s point of building dense and compact cities and leaving the “hinterland and wilderness as intact as possible” is the ideal and I certainly do not disagree with this position. That said this is not what is taking place on the ground. Urbanization is continuing to spread into the hinterlands here in the US, in China, India, and Brazil and around the globe. The proposal here is to consider the potential for these exurban developments to adopt an ecological mandate.The focus on the MOMA exhibit and analysis is also very specific and thus the proposal needs to be seen in its context. We were specifically tasked with looking at foreclosure housing projects and how as designers and scientists we might bring federal funding to address some of the issues faced. Thus the site was selected for us, and due to its proximity to the San Bernardino National Forest and the ecologically intact conditions of the surrounding context including the Lytle Creek Wash, we saw the notion of creating a neighborhood focused in part on ecological management as an opportunity for collaboration between developers, the federal government and future homeowners.A third factor to consider is climate change and global warming. The earth is changing in part through large-scale anthropogenic causes. These are creating pressures and constraints on the hinterland ecosystems and organisms. Already, there are discussions of how to foster species migration as their ranges shift north. This is an area that scientists are keenly interested in the role they might play. Consider the species introductions, assisted migrations and other efforts scientists are already participating with the goal of enhancing ecosystems. In other words, just leaving the hinterlands out there “undisturbed” by the built environment does not mean they remain undisturbed, and to maintain ecosystems and organisms human interventions will likely be an important component. Consider John Foley’s diagram of the changing landscape conditions – where is the “hinterlands” in his diagram?Finally, Rewilding (and this goes back to KB’s comments) is a radical proposal and one that is debated amongst ecologist. Much of the issue arises from the concern over human – wildlife conflict that would likely ensue if we were to reintroduce large carnivores etc. to the US. At the same time, most ecologists would agree that top down predation would benefit ecosystem health and lead to greater diversity of species. Thus the issue is one of public acceptance. As a result, getting this concept out there through a variety of venues (given that Rewilding is in the “marketing” stage) should mostly benefit the cause. It is a much more radical concept than simply allowing people to manage biological systems at the urban fringe and is intended to create debate and discussion.The MoMA exhibit is pervaded by architectural discourse of the suburb and could use this layer of integration of knowledge into new suburban forms. The architect and their modes of working and analysis were prioritized and sites open to large development were sites for new visions. Still, the rewilding concept is part of the exhibit, which means that tens of thousands of museumgoers visiting the exhibit will have the opportunity to reflect on what role people can play in managing ecosystems in their neighborhoods, and on the potential value of rewilding as a concept to consider for promoting ecosystem function.
The imposition of professional, taxonomical knowledge obscures the complex social, spatial, economic, and cultural aspects of these territories. The realities of the suburbs—their spatial and cultural resiliencies, their persistence (not to mention formal mechanisms of governance)—suggest that big plans cannot rule the day. Foreclosed can thus be contextualized in the history of urban renewal, slum clearance, public housing, and other such large-scale, top-down housing policies that have failed. History seems to demonstrate that micro-transformations, house by house, lot by lot, bottom-up renewal, will most likely define the limits of suburban change [8].
But really big plans give rise to contradictions. Their bigness and drama and complexity are also problematic, challenging, and even disturbing because they bring to the fore the drastic steps required to address current problems. You have no choice but to send Captain Willard upriver in a boat, to sanity’s final station.
To be clear, the mission was not to solve the current foreclosure crisis [4]. Instead, the teams were charged with catalyzing, rethinking, and conversing about it. And they were asked to do this on a massive conceptual scale. Given the enormity of the task, it’s understandable if the architectural results are big. How could they not be?
30 Jan, 2012 - (@DesignerTweetz)
"Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Ma... http://bit.ly/wQrDCr
This exhibition features proposals for the future of cities by Studio Gang, MOS, WORKac, Visible Weather and Zago Architecture. All conceptualized large-scale proposals for specific regions in the nation. The nature of the task inherently requires a top-down approach, which immediately leads to issues in terms of feasibility. Therefore, it is necessary to view these projects less so as solutions and more as catalysts of change. Spatially, I expect to see extensive transportation infrastructures and dense high-rise apartments. With the expertise of interdisciplinary teams, I am interested to see the proposed governmental and environmental policies.
Although the landscape is vast, the failed subdivision contains houses whose square footage is inflated to the point where they seem almost to rub against one another, creating a narrow range of housing options. The team's proposal looks to create a richer mix of uses, housing types, living situations, and landscapes, rather than to remake the unbuilt section of Rosena Ranch. It looks to understand the attraction of suburbs-including their social, economic, and spatial arrangements- and creates a new form of architecture and suburbanism from that pre-existing notion.
Anonymous
It happened that I went to the show with a medical doctor working in Orange area in NJ and he says that the towns are patients suffering from obesity, but the architects’ prescription is to keep eating less bad food with some stomach relief pills. The renderings are colorful and the models are shiny, but it’s far from sophistication or intellectuality. Representations are just busy. A long shot. Seemingly many experts have worked together for this disappointing presentation. Seemingly overwhelmed by the scale of national dead end. Are these really the first-class architects in America? Hello?
2/21/2012 3:38 PM CST
2/21/2012 3:38 PM CST
jla-x
Feb 23, 12 12:07 pm
Sub-urban and suburban are also two very different things. I would argue that sub-urban is not bad. A good example of this is in some parts of Brooklyn, Queens, and Nassau county NY. The density is greater than the typical suburban environment, and there is a small business walkable street scape that flanks a mix of multi and single family housing in many of these neighborhoods. There is also access to public transit in and out of the city. There is a mix of home owners and renters, and the opportunity to own a house and rent out the top floor. There is a sense of community and a feeling of being in a small town within a city. The film "Do the Right Thing" by Spike Lee so clearly expresses this. Another issue is density. More density is not the solution alone. We need to find an appropriate balance of density, production, and economy so that development can be in some sort of sustainable balance. I think that sub-urban form has the greatest potential for a sustainable development because there is enough space to support a mix of agriculture, industry,small business, housing, park space, etc...as well as enough density to support local businesses with regard to employees and consumers. Cities like manhattan will never be able to become hybrid typologies because things like urban agriculture and production will be far too expensive due to crazy high land prices. The only problem with the sub-urban typology is that it sometimes becomes gentrified over time as we see in brooklyn or the opposite happens where it becomes a ghetto due to the home values going down as density goes up like in Jamaica Queens (balance is always a thin line). On the other hand, suburban development lends itself to exploitation by corporate interests as James R. clearly articulates. The American dream of owning a single family home is not going away. It is a part of the American culture that dates back hundreds of years. We need to find a solution to the problem without ignoring the cultural mentality that led to it. This is why ideas like the ones in the MoMA exhibit never work. I believe that we need to study examples that already work like Astoria, and go from there.
Sub-urban and suburban are also two very different things. I would argue that sub-urban is not bad. A good example of this is in some parts of Brooklyn, Queens, and Nassau county NY. The density is greater than the typical suburban environment, and there is a small business walkable street scape that flanks a mix of multi and single family housing in many of these neighborhoods. There is also access to public transit in and out of the city. There is a mix of home owners and renters, and the opportunity to own a house and rent out the top floor. There is a sense of community and a feeling of being in a small town within a city. The film "Do the Right Thing" by Spike Lee so clearly expresses this. Another issue is density. More density is not the solution alone. We need to find an appropriate balance of density, production, and economy so that development can be in some sort of sustainable balance. I think that sub-urban form has the greatest potential for a sustainable development because there is enough space to support a mix of agriculture, industry,small business, housing, park space, etc...as well as enough density to support local businesses with regard to employees and consumers. Cities like manhattan will never be able to become hybrid typologies because things like urban agriculture and production will be far too expensive due to crazy high land prices. The only problem with the sub-urban typology is that it sometimes becomes gentrified over time as we see in brooklyn or the opposite happens where it becomes a ghetto due to the home values going down as density goes up like in Jamaica Queens (balance is always a thin line). On the other hand, suburban development lends itself to exploitation by corporate interests as James R. clearly articulates. The American dream of owning a single family home is not going away. It is a part of the American culture that dates back hundreds of years. We need to find a solution to the problem without ignoring the cultural mentality that led to it. This is why ideas like the ones in the MoMA exhibit never work. I believe that we need to study examples that already work like Astoria, and go from there.
jla-x
Feb 16, 12 11:27 am
Why does innovation from Architects always have to come in the form of telling people how to live their lives?
You hit the nail on the head. This goes back the the FLW broad acre city idea, that we can reinvent society in totality to fit a certain utopian vision. The problem is that every architect wants to invent the big cure not the gradual remedy, because the glory lies in being Jonas Salk not the guy who invented Robatusin. The problem with any utopian model is that it usually works in theory, but is completely unrealisable due to the given societal constraints with regard to culture and economy. I have been arguing on threads here that we need to become developers and offer realistic alternatives to crap suburbia. Once again, architects are thinking of top down solutions to what can only be achieved with bottom up models. We live in a free market society whether we like it or not. We need to create demand by building better stuff. "if you build it they will come" We can't just dictate our solutions and hope for society to demand our service. The suburban model is not going away because it is deeply part of the american culture. Rather than get rid of it, lets start by building more sustainable and enriching suburaban communities that are affordable. Look at the way the auto industry copes with these constraints...Sure a small electric car that weighs 1000 lbs. may be the best solution, but they recognise that society will not change so quick, so they focus on hybrid suv's and 4 door sedans. We need to build the "civic hybrid" equivelent of architecture right now (transitionary projects) not the electric smart car, because unfortunatly many people out there still have steel testicles hanging from the back of their pick-up trucks. If we can't even do that, how the hell are we going to do anything more radical. While I wish society was easy to change and would love to see such grand projects, it just ain't gonna happen yet.
Why does innovation from Architects always have to come in the form of telling people how to live their lives?
You hit the nail on the head. This goes back the the FLW broad acre city idea, that we can reinvent society in totality to fit a certain utopian vision. The problem is that every architect wants to invent the big cure not the gradual remedy, because the glory lies in being Jonas Salk not the guy who invented Robatusin. The problem with any utopian model is that it usually works in theory, but is completely unrealisable due to the given societal constraints with regard to culture and economy. I have been arguing on threads here that we need to become developers and offer realistic alternatives to crap suburbia. Once again, architects are thinking of top down solutions to what can only be achieved with bottom up models. We live in a free market society whether we like it or not. We need to create demand by building better stuff. "if you build it they will come" We can't just dictate our solutions and hope for society to demand our service. The suburban model is not going away because it is deeply part of the american culture. Rather than get rid of it, lets start by building more sustainable and enriching suburaban communities that are affordable. Look at the way the auto industry copes with these constraints...Sure a small electric car that weighs 1000 lbs. may be the best solution, but they recognise that society will not change so quick, so they focus on hybrid suv's and 4 door sedans. We need to build the "civic hybrid" equivelent of architecture right now (transitionary projects) not the electric smart car, because unfortunatly many people out there still have steel testicles hanging from the back of their pick-up trucks. If we can't even do that, how the hell are we going to do anything more radical. While I wish society was easy to change and would love to see such grand projects, it just ain't gonna happen yet.
Laurie Manfra
2. I feel the reviewer missed the mark this time. The design teams for Foreclosed are young architects (hardly deserving of the term “starchitects,” since they have comparatively built far less than today’s typical starchitect.) I visited the open studios and lectures that were held at P.S.1 over the past year and a half. The program is meant to be thought-provoking and exploratory, as opposed to concrete in its proposed solutions. I was impressed by the amount of data compiled by the teams (in their efforts to document the megaregions) and the thoughtfulness evident in their evolving research. The exhibition is meant to inspire people with new ideas, and new approaches to familiar problems. Obviously, architects can’t solve the foreclosure problem (that’s our banking system’s responsibility), but they can document patterns of potential future growth for these massive regions, which the teams certainly accomplished by last August during the open studios. The purpose of the excerise is to imagine new housing opportunities in regions where two large cities share resources and transport systems. Mr. Bell doesn’t mention this fact. If the teams were working in small neighborhoods and failed to engage the community, his criticisms would ring true. But these are large-scale regions with massive populations.
February 22, 2012, @ 12:50 p.m.
February 22, 2012, @ 12:50 p.m.
One of the best of these was (ironically) another MoMA show, “Small Scale, Big Change,” presented just last year. Curator Andres Lepik selected projects in which the architects maintained a sustained relationship with the communities they served. The projects were developed and carried out with the involvement of the communities, not invented in a museum for distant “beneficiaries”. Rather than being esoteric ideas proposed for whole “mega-regions” of the country, these projects were site-specific and actually built, in cooperation with the people who benefited.
LP: What have we learned about the suburban ideal from the collapse of its American model? Is it sustainable, transferable to emerging economies?
Ricky Burdett (RB): You just have to look at what’s happened to cities, and unfortunately that’s exactly what’s happening. Most cities are suffering from middle-aged spread. They become really wide, and their footprint is becoming larger and larger. And as was said by many of the speakers in this piece, it’s because the car is there and everyone aspires to it. It’s fantastic that the MoMA, this august institution, instead of doing Deconstructivism or “Edible Minimalism” or whatever, is dealing with this stuff. But you can’t talk about this issue of cities and foreclosure and all that unless you link jobs and housing.
Ricky Burdett (RB): You just have to look at what’s happened to cities, and unfortunately that’s exactly what’s happening. Most cities are suffering from middle-aged spread. They become really wide, and their footprint is becoming larger and larger. And as was said by many of the speakers in this piece, it’s because the car is there and everyone aspires to it. It’s fantastic that the MoMA, this august institution, instead of doing Deconstructivism or “Edible Minimalism” or whatever, is dealing with this stuff. But you can’t talk about this issue of cities and foreclosure and all that unless you link jobs and housing.
Lawrence Pollard (LP) : That ideal of your own house and its own garden with room for the car isn’t just American. It may have started there, but it’s what people aspire to in China or in Brazil, in Africa. And if it’s gone bust in the US, can it, should it, survive in the rest of the world?
Allison Tao
3. Designers and architects should be actively engaging the public’s opinions and ideas in order to creatively solve problems whether they are working in small villages or massive cities.
June 15, 2012, @ 12:11 p.m.
June 15, 2012, @ 12:11 p.m.
Nora
February 26, 2012 9:04 AM
Interesting to see that you are raising bioregionalism here. And I am glad to see Stefanie addressing the issue of connectedness. I wonder if we can see this more effectively in a class full of Interiors people, than we would see in Architecture. This is an area that has been addressed for decades by ID though I would like to see it crossing the scale spectrum. Bioregionalism addresses connectedness. Interiors (sometimes) addresses it. Shaun will be discussing it in tomorrow's class at the planning scale. Is Architecture out of the picture?
Interesting to see that you are raising bioregionalism here. And I am glad to see Stefanie addressing the issue of connectedness. I wonder if we can see this more effectively in a class full of Interiors people, than we would see in Architecture. This is an area that has been addressed for decades by ID though I would like to see it crossing the scale spectrum. Bioregionalism addresses connectedness. Interiors (sometimes) addresses it. Shaun will be discussing it in tomorrow's class at the planning scale. Is Architecture out of the picture?
Falls Church
Municipalities are trying to retrofit to urbanism because the experts feel they don't have a choice, long-term.
I think the disconnect between the urbanists and many suburbanites is in the intensity of belief. Plenty of suburbanites think that a transformation to a more urban form would be good but think it's way off-base to say that without such a transformation, the burbs will fail. It would be similar to saying that DC cannot be successful or sustainable without radical change in its public education system. Obviously, it would be great if DC schools got a lot better but I don't see another collapse happening for DC anytime soon, with or without better schools.
It's also like saying that DC can never be successful without better governance. Frankly, some people in DC would find it insulting if you said that DC can never be successful with certain CMs as part of the Council (just like some suburbanites find some things that urbanists say to be condescending). In fact, there are many people who would have been insulted if you said that about Harry Thomas up until the day he was arrested. Once again, clearly DC would benefit from better CMs but there will be no collapse even with continued bumbling along with the current crop of CMs.
Feb 22, 2012 5:53 pm
I think the disconnect between the urbanists and many suburbanites is in the intensity of belief. Plenty of suburbanites think that a transformation to a more urban form would be good but think it's way off-base to say that without such a transformation, the burbs will fail. It would be similar to saying that DC cannot be successful or sustainable without radical change in its public education system. Obviously, it would be great if DC schools got a lot better but I don't see another collapse happening for DC anytime soon, with or without better schools.
It's also like saying that DC can never be successful without better governance. Frankly, some people in DC would find it insulting if you said that DC can never be successful with certain CMs as part of the Council (just like some suburbanites find some things that urbanists say to be condescending). In fact, there are many people who would have been insulted if you said that about Harry Thomas up until the day he was arrested. Once again, clearly DC would benefit from better CMs but there will be no collapse even with continued bumbling along with the current crop of CMs.
Feb 22, 2012 5:53 pm
CH: The other question is whether we’ll see the market begin to produce smaller homes in the wake of this crisis, whether there’s going to be a lesson learned there, or if we’re just going to start the old Wurlitzer up again and try to dance like we did in the last decade?
MB: I personally think that the people that invest in housing will be fearful of investing in the old versions of housing and they’re going to look for a new product to invest in.
MB: I personally think that the people that invest in housing will be fearful of investing in the old versions of housing and they’re going to look for a new product to invest in.
TS: The mortgage deduction incentivizes buying the biggest lot you can and putting the biggest, 3,000-square-foot house that you can on it. Bob is right. If we’re going to move to a future where that’s not what the model is—it’s maybe scaled down a little bit more, maybe more demure—then, we should reincentivize the way the tax cut—
Bob Herbert (BH): What’s going to inevitably happen is that the American Dream is going to get redefined if it survives. But we’re moving ahead into a landscape where standards of living in general in this country are just going to be lower, and then I assume that housing becomes an integral part of that. And it seems to me that more people are going to rent. It seems to me that houses are going to have to be smaller. They’re going to have to at some point become more affordable, I assume. So, the question becomes what does that look like ten, fifteen years from now?
Thomas Schaller (TS): Are you envisioning a resuburbanization of America in the next twenty or thirty years? At its peak, houses got gluttonous and big, and the physical footprints that those houses were sitting on got really big. So, I’m wondering if it’s going to be smaller plots? Smaller homes? A little bit of both?
CH: Increased density?
MB: All five projects in the show deal with density, and they also deal with trying to find housing that is probably more financially and size-wise appropriate to its user, but also that would use dramatically less energy to basically dramatically lower carrying costs. But I think many of the people, including ourselves, we were looking at ways to take underutilized property, publicly held or publicly controlled, and increase density around infrastructure because the public has already paid for all of that infrastructure and isn’t using it.
CH: Increased density?
MB: All five projects in the show deal with density, and they also deal with trying to find housing that is probably more financially and size-wise appropriate to its user, but also that would use dramatically less energy to basically dramatically lower carrying costs. But I think many of the people, including ourselves, we were looking at ways to take underutilized property, publicly held or publicly controlled, and increase density around infrastructure because the public has already paid for all of that infrastructure and isn’t using it.
Each project touches on the complexities that come with changing entire tracts of land into new enterprises. They also reveal how massive, and potentially myopic, new ideas can be.
The economic and demographic factors at hand may seem emense but I am not sure that a revised American Dream could not have an equally great influence. Guy Horton of author on Archinect comments that he does not believe architects have the power to dictate a solution to the crisis, ” To them, this is further evidence of the irrelevance of what architects have to offer in terms of solving real problems. “ I am afraid to say that manny others feel the same that architects are along for the ride as much as anyone else, architects are not problem solvers. Really? Of anyone who has been trained day in and day out to make something out of nothing. To merge the gap between reality and imaginary we are the innovators those with visions of a different future. Yes we may not be able to single handedly solve major issues but we are in a great position to express our thoughts on a global scale. I think we are selling ourselves short over humbling our potential to make an impact on the future. ” In architecture we have become inured to the special effects of formal bigness and dramatic constructs. “ but isnt this not a perception stemming form those ideas burried in the American dream. This maybe exactly where we need to start initiating a shift, why BIG, why More? In the end the architects apart of the workshop are just adding to something already dead. This unsustainable template has been passed down as a ritual and we are blind to its presence.
In February, an exhibition of architectural models, videos and descriptions of their ideas opened at the Museum of Modern Art. There was an open panel discussion held on March 8 for the architects to answer questions and discuss how they truely felt about the future of these developements. When all was said and done there were six unique projects but what caught the attention of most was the shear scale of their proposals. This emphasized that the issue at hand was much greater than maybe what was first conceptualized , that to propose a incremental shift within this suburban framework would not be dramatic enough to change the course of time, or is it. Although neighborhoods look like a grain of sand on a map “…they are the result of processes that took hundreds of years to evolve.” Does this really call for the need of a grand proposal? Yes it is true that it would be very difficult to change zoning laws to permit denser new development patterns but is there not an inate power nestled in a simple architectural infill.
But despite this prejudice against development, the proposals in the show are basically mini-cities, to be developed as single projects at vast expense. There’s precious little scope for organic growth in this exhibit: Instead, all residents have to fit into a preconceived plan where the costs are front-loaded and where financing seems to magically appear whenever the municipality wants it. Meanwhile, the existing residents of the suburbs in question, the ones still underwater on their American Dream houses, are barely considered in these plans.
lapin229
Mar 5th 2012, 14:55
Architects (some) have always had an over-evolved sense of their own importance. At least Paulo Soleri had style, these guys are recycling stuff we did in the 70's, just not as well. The big design solutions and Urban planning of the past don't work for the future. The next step will be devolution, self sustaining, smaller, less susceptible to economic changes and power failures. I think you call them villages in europe. We don't have that concept in the USA. The curator screwed the pooch on this one, there's lot of interesting alternate work out there.
Architects (some) have always had an over-evolved sense of their own importance. At least Paulo Soleri had style, these guys are recycling stuff we did in the 70's, just not as well. The big design solutions and Urban planning of the past don't work for the future. The next step will be devolution, self sustaining, smaller, less susceptible to economic changes and power failures. I think you call them villages in europe. We don't have that concept in the USA. The curator screwed the pooch on this one, there's lot of interesting alternate work out there.
N. Waters, Ontario, Canada
3/3/2012 13:31
More grandiose plans....which will entail the usual results.....after the motivators have been paid.
More grandiose plans....which will entail the usual results.....after the motivators have been paid.
Gone are the 1,500 square feet or larger single family homes with large backyards and wide spaces between properties; all five proposals call for much more density, shared spaces, and retail and dining options often inside the communities. In essence, what the design teams are trying to do is replicate some of the best features of urban living and transport them to the suburbs.
JWS
133 days ago
And just where would all the WalMart junkies store their junk?
And just where would all the WalMart junkies store their junk?
Michael Bell, in the video above, makes the very good point that architecture and architects are largely absent from the suburbs. But I guess that I was really looking for something much lower-cost than the mega projects that the teams in the MoMA show came up with. Certainly lower in up-front cost, anyway. The foreclosure crisis was caused by people borrowing enormous sums of money and then finding themselves unable to pay it back. The last thing we want to do is risk repeating that all over again.
Of course large-scale, system-wide, policy-based approaches to the crisis of foreclosure and housing affordability should require and enable local participatory processes, community input, and context specificity.
In rather simplistic terms, one can categorize that conflict with a series of dichotomies: public/private, large/small, national/local, and most popularly top-down/bottom-up. In many ways, American Suburbia has long been the locus of this conflict. It is, after all, the birthplace of NIMBYism, which requires at minimum the imagined territory of a backyard.
And yet, they must not think too big, as the ghost towns of China and the zombie subdivisions of the Southeast and Intermountain West attest. Not everyplace can be like New York, and enjoy its good fortune and staggering wealth. But in terms of its grid and planning for growth, it may be the perfect example of Goldilocks planning – not too far-reaching, not insufficient, but impressively, just right.
The American Grid
Think big, but don't lose site of the small stuff. Some 1.5 million people are accommodated on an island just 33 square miles in size. And all these people work their way around blocks just 200 feet wide.
While it's easy to get caught up in mega-arterials and mega-buildings for the mega-cities of the future, we have to remember what we're designing for: a person that's approximately 2 feet wide and 6 feet tall. The urbanism of Manhattan, the "goldilocks" of urbanism, is simultaneously grand and intricate. Its cohesiveness exists because it was designed at all scales big and small.
While it's easy to get caught up in mega-arterials and mega-buildings for the mega-cities of the future, we have to remember what we're designing for: a person that's approximately 2 feet wide and 6 feet tall. The urbanism of Manhattan, the "goldilocks" of urbanism, is simultaneously grand and intricate. Its cohesiveness exists because it was designed at all scales big and small.
The displays include placards with statistics that show how housing in five different suburban communities has become financially unsustainable and environmentally unsound. Wall mounted texts feature excerpts from an imagined conversation between Socrates and one of his students-which takes place in a traffic jam-about how to change dominant cultural narratives that disparage public housing and public transportation.
Architectural models offer stylized solutions to suburban ills. Suburbs accessible by proposed high-speed rail corridors are retrofitted with high-density developments, which in some cases are stripped of streets. Instead of oversized single-family suburban houses narrowly tailored for the nuclear family, the show provides a variety of housing models for people in different groupings, such as empty nesters and extended families.
Architectural models offer stylized solutions to suburban ills. Suburbs accessible by proposed high-speed rail corridors are retrofitted with high-density developments, which in some cases are stripped of streets. Instead of oversized single-family suburban houses narrowly tailored for the nuclear family, the show provides a variety of housing models for people in different groupings, such as empty nesters and extended families.
Architecture projects are a highly effective medium through which to contemplate possible futures for cities. There are many ways to imagine housing different than it is now – from the way it is financed to how it is designed to how it is combined with or separated from other spaces in which other activities occur. These possibilities all imply systemic change at urban, regional, national, or international levels. Changing the cultural narratives behind the private house leads to changing the house itself, which inevitably changes the city (and the suburbs).
Then we took a 14 acre site and developed half of 14 acres as housing. So essentially we have a 7 acre building. It sounds large to some people. There are many 7 acre buildings the United States.
Justin
MAY 29, 2012 • 7:42 AM
I saw this back when it graced Arch Daily at some point. Larger issues aside, the MOS project is unequivocally bad. It reminds me more a gridded version of elevated highways that dissected our cities in the 60′s. This typical created a “good” and “bad” side. Formally, the language of the complexes are imposing and completely unnatural to their contexts.
Otherwise, I’m of complete agreement that MoMA did more harm than good here.
I saw this back when it graced Arch Daily at some point. Larger issues aside, the MOS project is unequivocally bad. It reminds me more a gridded version of elevated highways that dissected our cities in the 60′s. This typical created a “good” and “bad” side. Formally, the language of the complexes are imposing and completely unnatural to their contexts.
Otherwise, I’m of complete agreement that MoMA did more harm than good here.
The large scale of these projects, their abstract white renderings, and even their titles suggest that the best way to support ailing suburbs is to transform them into cities. Is there a way to develop suburbs as suburbs, a way to build less densely but also responsibly?
That is a daunting challenge, a generational challenge. So it is helpful to recall that mantra from the startup world: Think big, start small. Thinking big will allow us to reimagine the possibilities of the house, the neighborhood, the city. Starting small will allow us to devise the nimble strategies that can begin to tangibly test the elements of a big vision on a more human-centered scale. Rather than aiming for a wholesale transformation of housing infrastructure, we can start right now to undertake shorter-term community-serving propositions that meaningfully advance the larger vision.
These are just a few examples of thinking big/starting small. Central to all is the belief that design matters. For decades now, we have waged a battle between Architecture (high design) and architecture (social design). But as with public and private, this is a false debate. Ultimately good design must be aesthetically engaging, economically viable, environmentally responsive and socially just. There is no either/or. If we are to meet the goal of housing for all, good design must be part of the process. This is why Foreclosed is compelling; regardless of the criticism they've inspired, all of the projects grappled with the power of good design to reshape housing. And yet they all neglected one final quality of good design: the ability to be actionable. Let's pair them with more agile, smaller-scale innovative processes, as a first step in realizing their big-scale visions.
The exhibit speaks to the importance of design for those places that are looking to reinvent themselves for the financial markets and human needs of the future. It also reminds that local solutions and visions are crucial and that national leaders need to be looking locally for ideas and to help identify what, if any, silver linings may exist.
HUFFPOST SUPER USER, psnyder325, Yep, I'm a Socialist. Deal., 1429 Fans
05:02 AM on 07/23/2012
We need a sea change in American attitudes before anything will change. First, does everyone really need a lawnmower ALL OF THEIR OWN?? Pooled resources would help a great deal. And why do people need so much land? We live in a patio home with a small back yard and very small front yard. It is more environmentally responsible. Then there is the trend to obscenely large houses. Does a couple with no children really NEED a 5K sf house? It is environmentally irresponsible to have such a house. Look at the wasted space and energy.
We must get past the concept of individualism and "what's here for me" and into the concept of sharing in our communities and doing what is best for all of us. The Republicans, of course, don't play well with others and want their individual "rights" regardless of how damaging it is to the community. In the end, it is unlikely that anything will be done that is intelligent until we're falling completely apart. Individualism is the curse of humanity.....and may well be the end of it.
We need a sea change in American attitudes before anything will change. First, does everyone really need a lawnmower ALL OF THEIR OWN?? Pooled resources would help a great deal. And why do people need so much land? We live in a patio home with a small back yard and very small front yard. It is more environmentally responsible. Then there is the trend to obscenely large houses. Does a couple with no children really NEED a 5K sf house? It is environmentally irresponsible to have such a house. Look at the wasted space and energy.
We must get past the concept of individualism and "what's here for me" and into the concept of sharing in our communities and doing what is best for all of us. The Republicans, of course, don't play well with others and want their individual "rights" regardless of how damaging it is to the community. In the end, it is unlikely that anything will be done that is intelligent until we're falling completely apart. Individualism is the curse of humanity.....and may well be the end of it.
MJ: While we didn’t fall prey to the siren song of large-scale master plans, our fine-grain plans have sometimes also proven to be small-bore. And although we’ve done much better in recent years, fine architecture has been far more the exception than the rule. And that’s where this project serves as a wonderful provocation. It reminds us not to allow the urgency of the crisis and the need for immediate solutions to blind us to the larger opportunities the crisis presents to us.
Silliness & Seriousness (54)
CYBEROID
I heard this exhibition announced on Pasadena, CA NPR station KPCC. The announcer was reading a press release from MOMA that began, something about pioneering design "in the wake of the foreclosure crisis."
We are not in a wake following a concluded foreclosure crisis -- we are in a foreclosure crisis! For MOMA to pass this off as the creative residue of a situation now resolved is not only stupidly Pollyanna, it is disingenuous and spreads false hope that the worst is behind us. No, the worst is ahead of us. More, many more homeowners are underwater or nearly so and as the economy continues basically moribund, the situation will only get worse. That is, if no one does anything dramatic to help homeowners as much as the bankers. Two Administrations of supposedly different ideologies have conspired to let the banks off the hook and throw the deadbeats -- the newly poor -- out of their homes.
MOMA's characterization of the exhibition as post facto is blatantly ignorant of the situation as it is. MOMA should be made to address the realities of home loss, not its own fantasy of what may have occurred.
BTW, the ridiculous solutions to the suburban crisis proposed in the exhibition are not clever, they are insulting to the people who made it possible: the foreclosed. Really in poor taste.
6 Months Ago
We are not in a wake following a concluded foreclosure crisis -- we are in a foreclosure crisis! For MOMA to pass this off as the creative residue of a situation now resolved is not only stupidly Pollyanna, it is disingenuous and spreads false hope that the worst is behind us. No, the worst is ahead of us. More, many more homeowners are underwater or nearly so and as the economy continues basically moribund, the situation will only get worse. That is, if no one does anything dramatic to help homeowners as much as the bankers. Two Administrations of supposedly different ideologies have conspired to let the banks off the hook and throw the deadbeats -- the newly poor -- out of their homes.
MOMA's characterization of the exhibition as post facto is blatantly ignorant of the situation as it is. MOMA should be made to address the realities of home loss, not its own fantasy of what may have occurred.
BTW, the ridiculous solutions to the suburban crisis proposed in the exhibition are not clever, they are insulting to the people who made it possible: the foreclosed. Really in poor taste.
6 Months Ago
Some ideas in the show sit on the border between bold and silly. You might be skeptical of the wisdom of introducing African elephants to a Southern California subdivision, as Andrew Zago has proposed. Maybe you doubt that Hilary Sample and Michael Meredith’s notion of filling in the streets of downtown Orange, New Jersey, with apartment buildings would strengthen the community. Or you wonder how much enthusiasm residents of Keizer, Oregon, could muster for living atop the smelly compost-to-methane-fuel plant that Amale Andraos and Dan Wood would build there. Fair questions, all.
Anonymous
With the thick black glasses and the silly design, Andrew Zago could be the next Daniel Libeskind. (And that's not a good thing.)
2/16/2012 6:31 PM CST
2/16/2012 6:31 PM CST
Anonymous
How do things like this keep getting published? It seriously degrades the integrity of the profession of architecture when the public sees projects like this and assumes that since these firms are well known, this is what every architect is striving towards. No wonder we are becoming increasingly marginalized.
2/16/2012 11:43 AM CST
2/16/2012 11:43 AM CST
Anonymous
These proposals are shockingly superficial. They are all rooted in slick but meaningless graphics that bear no relationship to the human condition they are intended to adress. There's a huge gap between the abstraction of misguided and untested "theories" and the reality of "shelter".
2/15/2012 4:48 PM CST
2/15/2012 4:48 PM CST
I can assure you that the typical American family threatened with eviction and foreclosure is not fantasizing about the sort of solutions proposed by these very delusional and self-indulgent architects. They would laugh at Andrew Zago's childish scheme of deformed and cartoonish boxes. And they'd be right to do so. The work is ridiculous. - The regimented and joyless schemes proposed here seem more like the slums of the future rather than the solution to the problem as posed.
2/15/2012 3:18 PM CST
2/15/2012 3:18 PM CST
Anonymous
wtf -- I want to know what mindbending chemicals these people are on to design this utter crap and expect people to joyfully live in it.
2/15/2012 1:56 PM CST
2/15/2012 1:56 PM CST
Anonymous
WORCac's creation of open space seems admirable. However, the design of the homes looks like something out of Jacques Tati's film, 'Play Time'. The architecture in that film was bad then. It looks even more ridiculous now.
2/15/2012 6:14 AM CST
2/15/2012 6:14 AM CST
Anonymous
This is what architecture would be like if there weren't all those pesky humans running around.
2/14/2012 12:27 PM CST
2/14/2012 12:27 PM CST
Anonymous
Unfortunately, Jeanne Gang's work represents little more than architectural gimmicks. It is a shame that she continues to misdirect her talents.
2/14/2012 12:21 PM CST
2/14/2012 12:21 PM CST
Anonymous
This is a terrific question for the design community but “Academics” are not equipped to address it because by definition they are insulated from the market forces that drive these questions.
Their design responses always seem to find answers in central planning socialism (or communism) where the lord in charge decrees how the little people shall live. In the context of the greatest economy on earth, these solutions always vary from amusing and trendy to useless. Ironically and predictably, the housing solutions generated by real world socialists and communists are among the worst on the planet!
Two years ago I outlined a grant project to design and build "the next American Home" using an award winning, very expensive, AE design and development team that no market rate home owner could ever afford. My local region's weather, utility rates, standard of living, aesthetic sensibilities and real estate market would all form the basis for this project. Once constructed, it would be leased and its overall performance measured over years – including elements like comfort, pride of ownership and livability in addition to the boring engineering stuff like energy performance.
The goal would be to offer a platform for the next generation of America’s homebuilders to reference when that industry recovers. I will not give away all the beans because I may resurrect it someday but needless to say, even in this economy I became too busy to fuss around with it.
2/13/2012 4:12 PM CST
Their design responses always seem to find answers in central planning socialism (or communism) where the lord in charge decrees how the little people shall live. In the context of the greatest economy on earth, these solutions always vary from amusing and trendy to useless. Ironically and predictably, the housing solutions generated by real world socialists and communists are among the worst on the planet!
Two years ago I outlined a grant project to design and build "the next American Home" using an award winning, very expensive, AE design and development team that no market rate home owner could ever afford. My local region's weather, utility rates, standard of living, aesthetic sensibilities and real estate market would all form the basis for this project. Once constructed, it would be leased and its overall performance measured over years – including elements like comfort, pride of ownership and livability in addition to the boring engineering stuff like energy performance.
The goal would be to offer a platform for the next generation of America’s homebuilders to reference when that industry recovers. I will not give away all the beans because I may resurrect it someday but needless to say, even in this economy I became too busy to fuss around with it.
2/13/2012 4:12 PM CST
Anonymous
Navel gazing is not the starting point for the housing of tomorrow. Did any of these people bother to ask the target audience what their needs are? Unless 4 year olds are getting mortgages these days, it's hard to believe that Andrew Zago's cartoon-like foolishness would find buyers.
2/18/2012 7:30 AM CST
2/18/2012 7:30 AM CST
Anonymous
It happened that I went to the show with a medical doctor working in Orange area in NJ and he says that the towns are patients suffering from obesity, but the architects’ prescription is to keep eating less bad food with some stomach relief pills. The renderings are colorful and the models are shiny, but it’s far from sophistication or intellectuality. Representations are just busy. A long shot. Seemingly many experts have worked together for this disappointing presentation. Seemingly overwhelmed by the scale of national dead end. Are these really the first-class architects in America? Hello?
2/21/2012 3:38 PM CST
2/21/2012 3:38 PM CST
Anonymous
ya'll have to remember this is in an ART Museum, not a laboratory. I've seen sillier and less artistic exhibits at the MoMA
2/22/2012 1:02 PM CST
2/22/2012 1:02 PM CST
Anonymous
Note to MoMA .... Please FORECLOSE on this silly exhibition. It is unworthy of the Museum.
2/22/2012 3:25 PM CST
2/22/2012 3:25 PM CST
Anonymous
What are the public to make of MOS' artery-choking planning, or of Andrew Zago's utterly pretentious drawings. Mounting exhibitions of preposterous work does the whole profession a disservice.
2/23/2012 6:01 PM CST
2/23/2012 6:01 PM CST
Anonymous
As long as the architectural media continues its wrong-headed fascination with "speculation" conducted in a vacuum, we'll continue to see vapid presentations like these. The best architecture has always come from a clear examination of real problems. Post-facto selection of only the particular information that suits the pre-conceived thesis is best left in the pretentious world of psuedo intellectuals where it belongs. Just don't foist this nonsense on the public who deserve better.
2/29/2012 9:03 AM CST
2/29/2012 9:03 AM CST
Anonymous
Americans have ALWAYS wanted to live in communities centered on a community composting plant. Thank you to WORKac for realizing this strongly held desire.
3/2/2012 10:18 AM CST
3/2/2012 10:18 AM CST
According to New York Magazine, Some of the concepts posited by these visionaries are fanciful and even silly; others are bold but intriguing - Bergdoll asked the team, when ideas seemed exceedingly far fetched, to ask practical questions about energy consumption, fire codes, zoning laws, etc. that they would need to consider to make their projects feasible in real time.
These fanciful responses seem most ignorant of a basic cause of the foreclosure crisis: With cheap money, we simply overbuilt the country. Even without building new homes, we are still probably a few years away from reaching a point of real demand that will drive the housing market. The problem in The Oranges isn’t that it needs new housing or buildings—The Oranges lost almost 10 percent of their population between 2000 and 2010—but rather that it needs people with jobs. Unfortunately none of Foreclosed’s projects propose ways of removing housing, an incredibly difficult but important task that has stymied communities from Detroit to Phoenix.
But Foreclosed seethes with disdain for the suburbs, and the lack of an empathetic understanding of how the suburbs function and are changing, ultimately makes the exhibit look less visionary than ignorant. As an urban dweller who is deeply frustrated by the social, economic and environmental consequences of sprawl and car-centered communities, I too want to see clever ways of retrofitting these parts of the country. But saying that, I wish the exhibit had improved upon the suburbs rather than suggest transforming them beyond recognition.
21 Feb, 2012 - (@jsf)
On-target @dianalindindexreview of the suburban annihilation in MoMA's "less visionary than ignorant" Foreclosed show. http://americancity.org/buzz/entry/337 …
When the CNN reporter working on this report took the ideas to the people on the street in Orange, NJ, one person remarked, “Sounds like something from the Jetsons.” How right they are!
That’s the idea, good patrons. Free markets don’t just mean liberty. They also mean progress. They mean development that turns unseen worlds out of science fiction into reality.
That’s the idea, good patrons. Free markets don’t just mean liberty. They also mean progress. They mean development that turns unseen worlds out of science fiction into reality.
The basic idea is stirring: “Temple Terrace’s residents could spend 30 percent of the $700 million they collectively earn annually and remain within HUD housing-cost guidelines,” write Visible Weather’s Michael Bell and Eunjeong Seong, “but the disaggregated way in which housing monies are spent means that they are spent on a very low-level commodity.”
But there’s the rub: If you try to get 10,000 people to live together in a single development, you’re cutting against the very impulses that drive people out of the city and into the suburbs in the first place.
But there’s the rub: If you try to get 10,000 people to live together in a single development, you’re cutting against the very impulses that drive people out of the city and into the suburbs in the first place.
In conclusion, these five projects open up debates concerning a process of change, and offer some sophisticated and informed ideas about future development and new values. They understand the need for radical change and offer answers which are linked to contemporary realities, including demographic changes, new social structures and advanced economic models. But on their own, perhaps, they have not succeeded in creating a different "Dream" or a new collective idea centered on real radical change. Despite this, it is to be hoped that the progress that these projects represent is not lost in the future when we finally overcome the crisis and, as in 1973, the need for structural change is no longer seen as a priority.
It is thus extremely important that this exhibition and its accompanying research are taking place during an ongoing crisis. This has created the necessary sense of urgency which has been transmitted into the ideas themselves. As we are still suffering from the effects of the crisis, these projects put themselves forward as possible post-crisis realities, but also as ways of overcoming the crisis itself.
At the same time, however, these projects also suffer from this sense of urgency. They do not, in fact, discuss one key question, which is central to contemporary architectural debate and is concerned with the instruments which are available to architectural practitioners. The open question is this: why should the solution to all problems always be the same one: the building of new architecture? Nobody here has really moved towards other and more radical solutions, which move beyond the very idea of an architectural project.
At the same time, however, these projects also suffer from this sense of urgency. They do not, in fact, discuss one key question, which is central to contemporary architectural debate and is concerned with the instruments which are available to architectural practitioners. The open question is this: why should the solution to all problems always be the same one: the building of new architecture? Nobody here has really moved towards other and more radical solutions, which move beyond the very idea of an architectural project.
Anonymous
People need to understand the point of these projects. A good article was written on this topic in Metropolis. The 1st point to make is that these are largely political and social problems that have to be tackled in that realm in order for architects to even have the ability to address them. For example, Americans can't keep electing people who don't believe in sustainability and who are beholden to oil companies if they want to solve these problems. Architects can't overcome the weight of political and legal restrictions holding them back without help from American voters. There need to be subsidies for green tech, mass transit, sustainable development, etc. These architects know enough about these issues to know this is the case. I have no problem with utopian solutions in this case, because the point of the projects are to reinforce what first needs to be done in order to get anywhere on these issues. Therefore mass transit is critical, even though it's nearly impossible in our current political climate. Does that means architects should abandon proposing ideas that make mass transit central to their designs? No. The point of projects like this is to reinforce what the model needs to be. Once people understand what the model needs to be, they can vote accordingly for people that will allow architects to move the country in that direction. People who are overly critical of utopian proposals are missing the forest for the trees. Utopian proposals have a critical role to play in making sure everyone is facing up to reality in terms of what our goals should be. If we cut architects off at the legs and force them to only propose ideas that work for today's developers, then we get nowhere and in reality architects aren't doing their jobs. They're just legitimizing bad developers and their values.
3/23/2012 1:52 PM CDT
3/23/2012 1:52 PM CDT
A plan for Cicero, a suburb of Chicago, may be the most reasonable of the bunch (pictured top). Studio Gang Architects try to accommodate Cicero's influx of Hispanic families. The suburb's old bungalows are replaced by stacks of flats and spaces that can be shared among families. The most enthralling site, however, is the one imagined by WORKac for Keizer, a suburb of Oregon. A high-rise is a stack of individual, peak-roofed houses—a bland suburban form becomes a building block for a fantastical tower. A small mountain has a path that spirals down its slope, passing flats tucked neatly into the hillside. One wonders, however, whether the inhabitants of this hill will relish the scent of compost burning in the mountain's interior. Similarly, residents enjoying a grass-covered roof might be unsettled by the immediate proximity of a grizzly bear, as displayed in the architects' model.
The suburbs may be in need of change, but surely not the changes proposed here.
The suburbs may be in need of change, but surely not the changes proposed here.
Andrew Zago imagines building Rosena Ranch with shared outdoor space and many types of homes, so that families of different incomes and sizes could be neighbours. Mr Zago's plan has the benefit of beautiful design—buildings are shaded by intricate, coloured lattices. Yet even this plan, sadly, indulges in the ridiculous. A design for an adjacent zoo of elephants and lions might be forgiven if Mr Zago did not also welcome wildlife into the development itself. He suggests watering holes and feeders to attract not just birds and wild sheep but mountain lions and coyotes. A child's jaunt on a tricycle might become quite exciting.
A design for a suburb near Tampa, Florida is much less dangerous and slightly less silly. The suburb, which never had a town centre, suggested building one at a busy intersection. This sounds quite sensible. But the architects at Visible Weather scrap this plan and propose instead a 225-acre site along a commercial strip north of town. The result is a complex of offices for city bureaucrats and start-ups, with homes on the top floor. Part of suburbia's challenge is creating a sense of community while still preserving privacy.
Still reeling from this display, your correspondent rounded a corner to the main room of the exhibition. The gallery presents a new vision for each of the five suburbs. The first project is for the Oranges, in New Jersey. The curators' decision to lead with this design is unwise, particularly as its only proper place is the dustbin. MOS, an architecture firm based in New York, came to the astounding conclusion that the roads of the Oranges should be filled with new buildings. The monolithic new structures would have walls that zig and zag, making it impossible to see if someone was lurking behind a corner. With no conventional streets, there are only narrow paths for bicyclists and walkers. Heaven help residents if a fire ever broke out. Perhaps the firefighters could use scooters?
EVERY exhibition aspires to make a strong impression. “Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream” at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) manages to bowl over the visitor within the first 15 seconds. Unfortunately, the impression is one of intermingled bemusement and nausea. For this viewer, the feeling has yet to subside.
The exhibition is disappointing largely because its premise is so fascinating. Barry Bergdoll, MoMA's chief curator of architecture and design, and Reinhold Martin, director of Columbia University's Buell Centre, set out to explore five struggling suburbs. These pockets of the American landscape are in the midst of a transformation. Yes, they were ravaged by the housing crisis, but they were changing even before the recession. Suburban poverty rose by 53% from 2000 to 2010, compared with a 26% jump in cities. In many suburbs, white, nuclear families have been replaced by multigenerational Hispanic ones. The old car culture has become unsustainable, as petrol guzzles a greater share of families' budgets and the need for exercise becomes ever more apparent. All this begs for new types of transport and housing. MoMA wisely seized the chance to imagine a new future for the suburbs. The result, unfortunately, is absurd.
The exhibition is disappointing largely because its premise is so fascinating. Barry Bergdoll, MoMA's chief curator of architecture and design, and Reinhold Martin, director of Columbia University's Buell Centre, set out to explore five struggling suburbs. These pockets of the American landscape are in the midst of a transformation. Yes, they were ravaged by the housing crisis, but they were changing even before the recession. Suburban poverty rose by 53% from 2000 to 2010, compared with a 26% jump in cities. In many suburbs, white, nuclear families have been replaced by multigenerational Hispanic ones. The old car culture has become unsustainable, as petrol guzzles a greater share of families' budgets and the need for exercise becomes ever more apparent. All this begs for new types of transport and housing. MoMA wisely seized the chance to imagine a new future for the suburbs. The result, unfortunately, is absurd.
After this, however, Nature-City has some clever tricks up its sleeves. A water tower housed at the top of an apartment block cascades down as an indoors waterfall. Buildings are equipped with cut-outs and internal parks to encourage animal migration. The strangest structure might be an enormous dome that uses methane from the city’s waste to heat public swimming pools. As an update on Ebenezer Howard’s Garden City, it’s playful, utopian, and probably a nice place to live.
Cecilia, Glasgow
3/3/2012 14:40
It looks like the place where the cartoon charachters "The Jetsons" lived in space! Futuristic and lifeless.
It looks like the place where the cartoon charachters "The Jetsons" lived in space! Futuristic and lifeless.
sore eyes in CA, USA
3/3/2012 13:00
Instead of spending all this ridiculous time and money on space-age housing concepts, why not solve the REAL problem, and put the American workforce, BACK TO WORK !!
Instead of spending all this ridiculous time and money on space-age housing concepts, why not solve the REAL problem, and put the American workforce, BACK TO WORK !!
A new exhibit at the New York Museum of Modern Art seeks to rethink suburban living and the design of the communities themselves. Taking unique and sometimes radical approaches, five design teams each took a community ravaged by the housing crisis and came up with their own architectural and artistic solution to improve the affected areas and introduce more density, retail stores and sustainable practices. The results need to be seen to be believed, as they provide a completely new and interesting way to look at American housing.
“Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream” (through July 30, 2012) presents conjectural designs for five representative but quite different suburban places where defaults have been especially numerous. There are no mile-high farming machines or magically floating street grids among these concepts. They are serious proposals with recognizable components—more and less radical, but readily buildable. If, that is, there might be a mass market for them.
It’s a moment of refreshing whimsy from an exhibition that envisions what’s possible when politicians offer only pitiful nostrums.
13 Mar, 2012 - (@landpolicy)
Like the forum we co-sponsored on MoMA's Foreclosed exhibit, Bloomberg's James Russell http://bloom.bg/xojIY2 likes the whimsy/provocation
rjchicago
MAR 14, 2012 3:27 PM EDT
Felix:
Please see my post in Architect Mag online. Being an architect I am just amazed there were no practical solutions to the myasmatic real estate industry of today. This is a multivariate problem with NO utopian solutions. And I remain saddened that my bretheren in architecture would publish such utter non-sense. Sheesh!!!
Felix:
Please see my post in Architect Mag online. Being an architect I am just amazed there were no practical solutions to the myasmatic real estate industry of today. This is a multivariate problem with NO utopian solutions. And I remain saddened that my bretheren in architecture would publish such utter non-sense. Sheesh!!!
4. WORKac, “Nature-City”
(Another GSAPP-related firm) I didn't look at the text for this one as thoroughly as I should have, but I blame this on the craziness of the visual material. I'm not totally sure what's going on, but it seems pretty cool. The ensemble of weird shapes makes me think of Koolhaas, specifically of “City of the Captive Globe,” while the main site model really begged for having a model train going around it. I can't say that the project made sense, but it was fun to look at.
(Another GSAPP-related firm) I didn't look at the text for this one as thoroughly as I should have, but I blame this on the craziness of the visual material. I'm not totally sure what's going on, but it seems pretty cool. The ensemble of weird shapes makes me think of Koolhaas, specifically of “City of the Captive Globe,” while the main site model really begged for having a model train going around it. I can't say that the project made sense, but it was fun to look at.
Overall, I was surprised and amused by the similarities between our (student) proposals and these (professional) proposals; many of the ideas and intentions were the same, leading me to wonder if these ideas are architectural "fads" that circulate almost subconsciously here in the city.
Anonymous
03/19/12 04:22 PM
@guest #6: This is either the work of a naif or a genius. I'm afraid I don't have the architectural sophistication myself to determine which.
@guest #6: This is either the work of a naif or a genius. I'm afraid I don't have the architectural sophistication myself to determine which.
Anonymous
03/19/12 01:21 PM
@guest #3: From what I can tell a gyspsy curse was put on Pomona a long time ago. That city just can't get it togther. Ontario an Rancho are more likely the job centers.
@guest #3: From what I can tell a gyspsy curse was put on Pomona a long time ago. That city just can't get it togther. Ontario an Rancho are more likely the job centers.
Anonymous
03/19/12 12:18 PM
is this what exurbia looks like an meth?
is this what exurbia looks like an meth?
Anonymous
All this silly non-sense thinking that we are gonna change years and years of development centered around a mode of transit in a compressed amount of time - utter foolishness. The market will determine what happens - gubmit policy and high minded utopian ideals will not.
3/21/2012 5:00 PM CDT
3/21/2012 5:00 PM CDT
Anonymous
Does this mean that those unrealistic, ill-informed and silly schemes in the Foreclosed exhibition won't find a willing sponsor?
3/21/2012 1:02 PM CDT
3/21/2012 1:02 PM CDT
The really cool part of this project is not thinking about the house in holistic terms, but in terms of separate functional rooms (the kitchen, bedroom, washroom etc). Here, the idea is for families to indicate what kind of spaces they need, and make these spaces interchangable, making some spaces, like living rooms, multi-family household sections, which keeping other rooms separate. Its a bit radical with a touch of crazy, but hey, some of the best ideas are.
Some ideas might seem quite odd for some people, but, in general, they all have practical sense and innovatory view on the problem I stated above.
This exhibition highlights the marriage of utility and aesthetics. It strives to promote five distinct prototypical solutions to the current ills of the foreclosure market, and brings them into the context of artistic expression as a tangible, visual, and thought-provoking platform. The solutions all revolve around one central theory: the Buell Hypothesis, which suggests that if you change the dream, you change the city. It challenges modern day conceptions of “The American Dream,” advocating for denser, more sustainable, more affordable, and more livable communities rather than the rampant single-family units scattered across America’s expanse today. The work of a dream team cast of academics, urban planners, designers, ecologists, and architects (including urban economist Edward Glaser, author of Triumph of the City), the legitimate and highly professional exhibit expresses hope for impoverished communities and developing metropolises alike.
Grahampuba
MAY 29, 2012 • 6:30 AM
Usually the eye roll comes at a roof garden with mature trees on the 93rd floor, but waterfalls..? Other thoughts would have been; are those Petri dish? are we plebs bacteria colonizing on your culture? I’d like to think i would have come to the same conclusion but I think i would have not made it past the waterfall Voltron skyscraper without cursing enough to be shown the door.
Usually the eye roll comes at a roof garden with mature trees on the 93rd floor, but waterfalls..? Other thoughts would have been; are those Petri dish? are we plebs bacteria colonizing on your culture? I’d like to think i would have come to the same conclusion but I think i would have not made it past the waterfall Voltron skyscraper without cursing enough to be shown the door.
Therein lies the problem. Since cities began to rapidly expand more than a century ago, urban thinkers have proposed transit-oriented, neighborhood-based development as the antidote, packaged in architectural wrapping appropriate to innovative thinking of the time. Obviously, we’re missing something. The strongest piece on this exhibit wall is a deceptively simple ad campaign. The actual buildings of Foreclosed range from whimsical to indecipherable; a few might be at home in Manhattan or downtown Chicago, but none would be adopted by a suburban developer today. While we lament the lack of popular design sophistication, visitors flock to the model with blinking lights and tiny people, and miss the more important underlying ideas. We architects are left talking with ourselves, once again.
Marc Jahr (MJ): I think it’s also important to note that I’m neither an architect nor a city planner. My background is as a community and tenant organizer and as an affordable housing finance practitioner. And clearly those are the lenses I look at the world through because I’ve come to realize that if you can’t finance it, you can’t build it. And if it doesn’t resonate with neighborhood residents, if they’re not involved in some way in the planning and implementation of the initiative, then the odds of it being durable are going to be slim. I suppose that’s why I took mild umbrage at Andrew Zago’s comment—Andrew, where are you?—as part of Foreclosed, his team focused upon Rialto, California, that the pedagogical lesson is that with all the value other disciplines bring to urbanism, new urban projects should be not only architect-led but architecture-led. I think that approach can lead to playful, intriguing, but problematic architectural plans.
Sustainability (94)
Andrés Duany
5. “Zago vehemently attacked Dunham-Jones and New Urbanism for not having produced a single piece of ‘significant’ architecture, asking when they would give up in failure.”
Andrew Zago has achieved a new level of ignorance regarding the New Urbanism. I searched the net for a picture of him and was surprised to find that he does not look quite as slack-jawed stupid as he sounds, even though appearance is apparently how he judges substance.
Now (LORD grant me patience!), “significant” architecture is not really how New Urbanists keep score. We do so in many other ways: how many cars not bought; how many vehicle miles reduced; how much transit supported; how much carbon not spewed into the atmosphere; how many children and old folk walk to their daily needs; how much infrastructure cost saved; how much less expended on the delivery of municipal services; how many HOPE VI houses cherished by their residents; how much real estate value created; how many total acres under design (either as New Urbanist communities or through form-based codes); how many downtowns revitalized; how much choice available regionally to those whom suburbia does not serve well; and so on.
But Architect Zago keeps score by other means — like securing the good opinion of about a half-dozen critics in Los Angeles and New York. Indeed, he operates in a world so marginal that I need to be reminded of its existence, monthly, by Metropolis.
That his statement was thoroughly engaged by Director Martin, rather than being ignored as the antics of a simpleton, shows what kind of emissions pass for discourse in academia these days.
But let’s have a look at it from Architect Zago’s point of view. It turns out that even by the tight little standards of his world, and within just one little project (Seaside), there might be as much “significant” architecture as Architect Zago himself might hope to achieve in a lifetime. Seaside has Steve Holl’s first large building. Machado/Silvetti’s first large building. The first buildings (at least three each, and darn good, too) of Deborah Berke, Alex Gorlin, and Walter Chatham. The only building of Roger Ferri. The first building of Leon Krier. The only American house by Aldo Rossi. A wonderfully melancholic house by Sam Mockbee. Clever and charming pavilions by Michael McDonough, Stuart Cohen and Jersey Devil. A national AIA award-winning and gorgeous church by Scott Merrill. And those are only some of the modernism by the “names,” not all the best buildings.
Architect Zago is doubly ignorant: first of what New Urbanism intends to achieve on its own terms, and then of what it has achieved even on his terms.
Am I to understand that he teaches somewhere?
May 26, 2011, @ 2:49 pm
Andrew Zago has achieved a new level of ignorance regarding the New Urbanism. I searched the net for a picture of him and was surprised to find that he does not look quite as slack-jawed stupid as he sounds, even though appearance is apparently how he judges substance.
Now (LORD grant me patience!), “significant” architecture is not really how New Urbanists keep score. We do so in many other ways: how many cars not bought; how many vehicle miles reduced; how much transit supported; how much carbon not spewed into the atmosphere; how many children and old folk walk to their daily needs; how much infrastructure cost saved; how much less expended on the delivery of municipal services; how many HOPE VI houses cherished by their residents; how much real estate value created; how many total acres under design (either as New Urbanist communities or through form-based codes); how many downtowns revitalized; how much choice available regionally to those whom suburbia does not serve well; and so on.
But Architect Zago keeps score by other means — like securing the good opinion of about a half-dozen critics in Los Angeles and New York. Indeed, he operates in a world so marginal that I need to be reminded of its existence, monthly, by Metropolis.
That his statement was thoroughly engaged by Director Martin, rather than being ignored as the antics of a simpleton, shows what kind of emissions pass for discourse in academia these days.
But let’s have a look at it from Architect Zago’s point of view. It turns out that even by the tight little standards of his world, and within just one little project (Seaside), there might be as much “significant” architecture as Architect Zago himself might hope to achieve in a lifetime. Seaside has Steve Holl’s first large building. Machado/Silvetti’s first large building. The first buildings (at least three each, and darn good, too) of Deborah Berke, Alex Gorlin, and Walter Chatham. The only building of Roger Ferri. The first building of Leon Krier. The only American house by Aldo Rossi. A wonderfully melancholic house by Sam Mockbee. Clever and charming pavilions by Michael McDonough, Stuart Cohen and Jersey Devil. A national AIA award-winning and gorgeous church by Scott Merrill. And those are only some of the modernism by the “names,” not all the best buildings.
Architect Zago is doubly ignorant: first of what New Urbanism intends to achieve on its own terms, and then of what it has achieved even on his terms.
Am I to understand that he teaches somewhere?
May 26, 2011, @ 2:49 pm
Michael Galileo
JUNE 23, 2011, 4:22 P.M.
Unfortunately, it was a house of cards that could not be sustained because the country wasn’t paying close enough attention. We were building up debt with no R&D for our future. We got involved in expensive wars, and put off stem cell research and genetic engineering. We just sell the world fast food and entertainment now.I actually saw the crash coming, and managed to take advantage of the greed and chaos to find myself as the dust settles in very comfortable digs. I was 15 feet away from John Paulson at a gala last summer and was tempted to speak to him and mention that he and I were the only 2 that I know of that came out ahead from the whole mess. I decided to wait….
Unfortunately, it was a house of cards that could not be sustained because the country wasn’t paying close enough attention. We were building up debt with no R&D for our future. We got involved in expensive wars, and put off stem cell research and genetic engineering. We just sell the world fast food and entertainment now.I actually saw the crash coming, and managed to take advantage of the greed and chaos to find myself as the dust settles in very comfortable digs. I was 15 feet away from John Paulson at a gala last summer and was tempted to speak to him and mention that he and I were the only 2 that I know of that came out ahead from the whole mess. I decided to wait….
NJP1
06:52 AM on 08/10/2011
There is much made of the American Dream, can someone define what this American Dream is, or was, and reassure us all that it is not based on infinite consumption of finite resources? There seems to be no other way of realising that ‘dream’. We must pump more oil, find more gas, rip our planet apart to find the stuff we must have in order to perpetuate some kind of illusion into an infinity that is constantly receding. Politicians scream :’vote for me, and you can have it all when I get elected’ so the gullible masses decide which candidate offers the best sounding lies. Then find that they still can’t have what they want, because the previous incumbent ‘left such a mess’ that getting the economy straight puts back the good times for another few years. So the myth of the American Dream goes on, always that illusive future awaiting everyone that was, I fear, the creation of postwar admen: that if you always bought the newest car and bigger house further out, you would always have the means to drag 2 tons of steel 20 miles to buy your groceries, or propel yourself at 500mph to sit on beach 2000 miles away for 2 weeks. Unfortunately the ‘means’ isn’t there anymore, The dream was built on an infinity of cheap oil and the dream is turning into a nightmare because oil is now too expensive to use for dream making. http://www.yourmedievalfuture.com/
There is much made of the American Dream, can someone define what this American Dream is, or was, and reassure us all that it is not based on infinite consumption of finite resources? There seems to be no other way of realising that ‘dream’. We must pump more oil, find more gas, rip our planet apart to find the stuff we must have in order to perpetuate some kind of illusion into an infinity that is constantly receding. Politicians scream :’vote for me, and you can have it all when I get elected’ so the gullible masses decide which candidate offers the best sounding lies. Then find that they still can’t have what they want, because the previous incumbent ‘left such a mess’ that getting the economy straight puts back the good times for another few years. So the myth of the American Dream goes on, always that illusive future awaiting everyone that was, I fear, the creation of postwar admen: that if you always bought the newest car and bigger house further out, you would always have the means to drag 2 tons of steel 20 miles to buy your groceries, or propel yourself at 500mph to sit on beach 2000 miles away for 2 weeks. Unfortunately the ‘means’ isn’t there anymore, The dream was built on an infinity of cheap oil and the dream is turning into a nightmare because oil is now too expensive to use for dream making. http://www.yourmedievalfuture.com/
carolgregor, 104 Fans
04:39 PM on 08/10/2011
The challenge now is not in our ability to solve problems but in our core values as fellow human beings. The American Dream is gone as we knew it. Homes have become unhealthy physically, spiritually and soulfully. Our families are broken, medications are excessive and stress has filled our lives. Homes used to be our sacred space but today it is the cause of of distress.
How did this happen?
After a career in home design and building I became acutely aware of the pressure to have bigger and bigger homes. At the same time we have lost millions of acres of land to sprawl and the reports are in that sprawl causes heart attack and stroke because people are not moving enough. On top of this, our water is disappearing and our air is heavy because corporate builders are profit driven and have no concern for the health of the homeowner. Joined with unethical bankers, the US homeowner has poorly built expensive homes. 1/4 of homes are under water financially as poorly built ones depreciate faster than people can afford to maintain.
There are a couple of solutions that can recapture our dream. By taking personal responsibility in what we purchase we can regain control. In home design and building, choose smaller, better built homes. Buy on an existing grid and use local builders and materials. Smaller, infill homes will immediately change the quality of life we experience and we recapture the sacred core of our homesteads.
The challenge now is not in our ability to solve problems but in our core values as fellow human beings. The American Dream is gone as we knew it. Homes have become unhealthy physically, spiritually and soulfully. Our families are broken, medications are excessive and stress has filled our lives. Homes used to be our sacred space but today it is the cause of of distress.
How did this happen?
After a career in home design and building I became acutely aware of the pressure to have bigger and bigger homes. At the same time we have lost millions of acres of land to sprawl and the reports are in that sprawl causes heart attack and stroke because people are not moving enough. On top of this, our water is disappearing and our air is heavy because corporate builders are profit driven and have no concern for the health of the homeowner. Joined with unethical bankers, the US homeowner has poorly built expensive homes. 1/4 of homes are under water financially as poorly built ones depreciate faster than people can afford to maintain.
There are a couple of solutions that can recapture our dream. By taking personal responsibility in what we purchase we can regain control. In home design and building, choose smaller, better built homes. Buy on an existing grid and use local builders and materials. Smaller, infill homes will immediately change the quality of life we experience and we recapture the sacred core of our homesteads.
Carol Gregor
AUGUST 17, 2011, 4:01 P.M.
I am afraid design has lost touch with the sacred. Solutions that do not revere our connection and dependence on nature are Band-Aids. Foreclosure is the result of a capitalist business model on two fronts. First, homes are built on inexpensive land that require infrastructure. Less expensive than infill, the market is sold a bigger is better value, demeaning the essence of design itself. Inexpensive, huge homes have destroyed millions of acres of farmland and aquifers and are ready to do so again after the recession is over regardless of what you do at MoMA. These homes are expensive and are deteriorating rapidly. Second, a failed industry at the core is not in a position to repair itself without a new revolutionary system approach only slightly identified in LEED and the Green Building initiative.
There must be a return to the building practices from the past that had one core leader in the design and delivery process. Trained as an engineer, these master builders were schooled in a natural, sacred geometric methodology that was philosophical and practical. The difference between this and our existing 3 tiered architect, engineer and builder approach is innate conflict.
A building is a sacred thing, manifest from nature and in accordance with her underlying principles. Until we regain this relationship, any attempts to solve our nightmare of expensive, cheap, environmentally dysfunctional buildings will be superficial. A much deeper view of the problem is the challenge and the work is philosophical,spiritual,professional and health related.
I am afraid design has lost touch with the sacred. Solutions that do not revere our connection and dependence on nature are Band-Aids. Foreclosure is the result of a capitalist business model on two fronts. First, homes are built on inexpensive land that require infrastructure. Less expensive than infill, the market is sold a bigger is better value, demeaning the essence of design itself. Inexpensive, huge homes have destroyed millions of acres of farmland and aquifers and are ready to do so again after the recession is over regardless of what you do at MoMA. These homes are expensive and are deteriorating rapidly. Second, a failed industry at the core is not in a position to repair itself without a new revolutionary system approach only slightly identified in LEED and the Green Building initiative.
There must be a return to the building practices from the past that had one core leader in the design and delivery process. Trained as an engineer, these master builders were schooled in a natural, sacred geometric methodology that was philosophical and practical. The difference between this and our existing 3 tiered architect, engineer and builder approach is innate conflict.
A building is a sacred thing, manifest from nature and in accordance with her underlying principles. Until we regain this relationship, any attempts to solve our nightmare of expensive, cheap, environmentally dysfunctional buildings will be superficial. A much deeper view of the problem is the challenge and the work is philosophical,spiritual,professional and health related.
The End of the Starchitect
In 2007, the overlapping worlds of architecture and design, much like the worlds of politics and finance and thus of building and spatial development more generally, were very much persuaded that the old laws of cycles and periods had definitively yielded to new models of uninterrupted growth and limitless possibilities — and perhaps even the transcendence of the cyclical and sometimes violent swings of economic growth and building demand. That mood now seems hard to recapture. The neologism "starchitect" has lost much of its luster; indeed, it seems increasingly clear that the term did little service even to the handful of design talents whose works were thus lauded according to some superficial criteria of relevance largely to affluent citizens of the G20 countries. In any case, it is no longer a viable role model for future designers, given that the subprime mortgage crisis and economic crash have been accompanied by an equally impressive crash of new commissions for expensive private houses and showy museum additions, the building types that sustained the starchitect portfolio.
In 2007, the overlapping worlds of architecture and design, much like the worlds of politics and finance and thus of building and spatial development more generally, were very much persuaded that the old laws of cycles and periods had definitively yielded to new models of uninterrupted growth and limitless possibilities — and perhaps even the transcendence of the cyclical and sometimes violent swings of economic growth and building demand. That mood now seems hard to recapture. The neologism "starchitect" has lost much of its luster; indeed, it seems increasingly clear that the term did little service even to the handful of design talents whose works were thus lauded according to some superficial criteria of relevance largely to affluent citizens of the G20 countries. In any case, it is no longer a viable role model for future designers, given that the subprime mortgage crisis and economic crash have been accompanied by an equally impressive crash of new commissions for expensive private houses and showy museum additions, the building types that sustained the starchitect portfolio.
I am not among those who believe that we are currently experiencing a temporary downturn; nor that we need simply to wait it out. I am no economist, political scientist or financial analyst. But it is now abundantly clear — to any who follow the information revealed by each new excavation of our assumptions brought on by the global financial crisis — that there were ample signs that the old euphoria was untethered to reality long before the band ceased to play, that many of the causes are structural rather than ephemeral. We are living through a paradigm shift as fundamental as that launched in the early 1980s, when the Reagan and Thatcher revolutions in the English-speaking world set in motion the dual doctrines of the unregulated market and the winnowing of government’s role in large-scale planning for the public good (even as the public sector has continued to grow); and with the accelerated march of globalization that followed the thawing of the Cold War, these privatizing doctrines have become international. What is certain is that we need to be thinking of new ways of intervening in the world rather than waiting for things to return to a "normalcy" that has receded into history — and this is nowhere truer than in architecture and design.
Well, here we are, eight years after the increasing value of our houses was supposed to make up for decades of declining wages and growing debt. More than $7.8 trillion in middle-class home equity was erased by the crash at the end of Bush’s two terms, 30 percent of homeowners now owe more than their houses are worth, and many of our suburbs are a checkerboard of occupied and empty houses. And that has made many long-standing critics of the American suburb — who see it as environmentally toxic, energy wasteful and just too expensive (especially because it’s paid for by taxing the cities) — call for another major rethink of the way we house our dream.
The project focused on developing 2.2 miles of boulevard in Temple Terrace with housing, government offices and retail spaces. An interesting thing to note is that Temple Terrace is expected to have a 40% population gain within the next ten years, and the suburb has been trying to stop growth. Taking a radically different approach, Bell has developed a plan that can serve as an economic model to sustain growth and allow the suburb to enjoy prosperity. Plus, the model will help the region transition from a 4.5 people/acre site into a functioning 40 people/acre. The planned complex has attributes of a city and will be quite energy efficient as a way to provide an alternative solution to attract people. We loved how the architecture is designed for experiences to overlap as a person within his courtyard has a certain amount of privacy, yet can open the doors to view people in their offices lower in the complex or communicate with their other neighbors flanking their residence.
George Vallone
JANUARY 8, 2012, 7:24 A.M.
This is important work but keep the focus on energy demand reduction. Affordable Housing that is inexpensive to build but costs too much to operate is a cruel joke on the residents. Encourage Mass Wall enclosure technology (using light weight Autoclaved Aerated Concrete is the best starting point), then ERV (Energy Recovery Ventilation), and then alternative energies (solar HW and Geo-Thermal)make economic sense because you don’t need to produce that much.
This is important work but keep the focus on energy demand reduction. Affordable Housing that is inexpensive to build but costs too much to operate is a cruel joke on the residents. Encourage Mass Wall enclosure technology (using light weight Autoclaved Aerated Concrete is the best starting point), then ERV (Energy Recovery Ventilation), and then alternative energies (solar HW and Geo-Thermal)make economic sense because you don’t need to produce that much.
Bergdoll and Martin describe their directive to the teams as "not to redesign the house, but to redesign the dream."
All five teams have responded to this directive to some degree by proposing social and infrastructural systems that attempt, on a large scale, to align with the new cultural desires and economic realities of American suburban living. Amale Andraos and Dan Wood of WORK Architecture Company, working on SalemKeizer, Oregon, propose a contemporary update on the notion of a garden city, addressing a range of ecological issues. Hilary Sample and Michael Meredith of MOS, analyzing the Oranges, New Jersey, explore the potential of suburban streets to offer a new kind of civic space in a less car-dependent future. Jeanne Gang of Studio Gang, focusing on Cicero, Illinois, seeks a new flexibility in housing that will accommodate the rapidly shifting immigrant populations in the suburbs outside Chicago. Andrew Zago of Zago Architecture, studying Rialto, California, subverts the strict hierarchies of property boundaries that have traditionally structured suburban space. And Michael Bell of Visible Weather, examining Temple Terrace, Florida, considers the relationship between relatively homogenous Florida suburbs and the more diverse and less prosperous neighboring urban communities.
All five teams have responded to this directive to some degree by proposing social and infrastructural systems that attempt, on a large scale, to align with the new cultural desires and economic realities of American suburban living. Amale Andraos and Dan Wood of WORK Architecture Company, working on SalemKeizer, Oregon, propose a contemporary update on the notion of a garden city, addressing a range of ecological issues. Hilary Sample and Michael Meredith of MOS, analyzing the Oranges, New Jersey, explore the potential of suburban streets to offer a new kind of civic space in a less car-dependent future. Jeanne Gang of Studio Gang, focusing on Cicero, Illinois, seeks a new flexibility in housing that will accommodate the rapidly shifting immigrant populations in the suburbs outside Chicago. Andrew Zago of Zago Architecture, studying Rialto, California, subverts the strict hierarchies of property boundaries that have traditionally structured suburban space. And Michael Bell of Visible Weather, examining Temple Terrace, Florida, considers the relationship between relatively homogenous Florida suburbs and the more diverse and less prosperous neighboring urban communities.
Ariel Wilchek · Art Director at VP+C
carbon emissions for a good cause!
November 14, 2011 at 9:27am
November 14, 2011 at 9:27am
The different teams worked to design site-specific plans with input from local communities, but what unified them was the way they aimed to make their sites at once both self-sufficient and better connected to their broader metropolitan regions. To that end, the different models included infrastructure such as light rail, co-generation electrical plants, recycling centers, and gardens to enable people to grow their own food. Some plans included light industrial facilities and workspaces adjacent to residential areas so people would not have to endure long automobile commutes to get to work.
Foreclosed calls into question the American Dream of home ownership and the way it was packaged and sold in the form of a single-family house in the suburbs. It ties the current foreclosure crisis to unsustainable trends in housing and planning that go back to the days of Frank Lloyd Wright and his Broadacre City. The exhibition also demonstrates how prevailing models for suburban development are not only environmentally unsustainable, but also financially unsound.
tony
December 4, 2011 at 18:57
This seems an ill-considered proposal.. it is a “griddy” proposal of redundant elements that fail to communicate formally or conceptually. A tower with artificial waterfall generating power
is neutralised by the need for electricity to pump water into the tower.[which does not have enough volume to feed any substantial amount of water back to the development}. The park looks like a urban wasteland waiting to happen no program feeds into the park, it is just another discontinuous element of “green space”. It is fine to propose these sustainable ideas but where are the numbers and technology to support it.
2nd year Architectural project…at best
This seems an ill-considered proposal.. it is a “griddy” proposal of redundant elements that fail to communicate formally or conceptually. A tower with artificial waterfall generating power
is neutralised by the need for electricity to pump water into the tower.[which does not have enough volume to feed any substantial amount of water back to the development}. The park looks like a urban wasteland waiting to happen no program feeds into the park, it is just another discontinuous element of “green space”. It is fine to propose these sustainable ideas but where are the numbers and technology to support it.
2nd year Architectural project…at best
Implicit in the notion of reverse engineering is that the subsequent iteration of the target construct is superior to its predecessor. The method utilized over the course of the development of Visible Weather’s contribution to the Foreclosed exhibition was oriented in the application of multidisciplinary techniques within a consolidated process that balanced notions of generation and analytics in its outcome. Grounded in the integration of the design, financial, and regulatory disciplines, the method provided a mechanism for testing and analyzing design interventions. The utility was not only that any given massing and program could be tested for its financial and regulatory feasibility, but that optimal combinations of variables could be developed to keep the vision of the designer within the bounds of reality and subject to its highest utility. In this regard, the rhetoric of sustainability could be applied to a much broader notion of the built environment, one which was inclusive of financial and environmental values.
DoNotWorry
The end is not near. Still a good idea to have a home that is paid off and a solid garden. Those who survived the Depression best were not the best little suck ups, but were the most independent of corporate jobs. True then, true now.
December 20, 2011 at 6:35 pm
December 20, 2011 at 6:35 pm
Mona in Tulsa
Be smart; buy land out in the country, grow and raise your own food and go off-grid as soon as possible...the end is very near!
December 20, 2011 at 5:17 pm
December 20, 2011 at 5:17 pm
Laughing Cow
It is very apparent that you are uneducated on the DEVASTATING effect of the suburban model in todays society.
It affected gender roles and pollution sky-rocketed because they through these homes up with NO regard to solar orientation and etc. It increased dependency on the car and was a nightmare for the family that had one car... which was almost everyone...
Not only that it also decreased the amount of diversity in a given area which has added to more social problems in our communities
December 20, 2011 at 1:18 pm
It affected gender roles and pollution sky-rocketed because they through these homes up with NO regard to solar orientation and etc. It increased dependency on the car and was a nightmare for the family that had one car... which was almost everyone...
Not only that it also decreased the amount of diversity in a given area which has added to more social problems in our communities
December 20, 2011 at 1:18 pm
Something has to change, said Barry Bergdoll, MoMA's curator for architecture and design, or we will "roll the suburban carpet across all the open land that is left."
"It's just irresponsible to have a model that encourages moving out onto green fields and leaving behind decaying rings of an ever-fattening tree," he said. "I'm interested in not just letting the path of least resistance exist. It's cheaper for a developer to build on virgin territory, but it's not cheaper for people to live on it or get to it."
"It's just irresponsible to have a model that encourages moving out onto green fields and leaving behind decaying rings of an ever-fattening tree," he said. "I'm interested in not just letting the path of least resistance exist. It's cheaper for a developer to build on virgin territory, but it's not cheaper for people to live on it or get to it."
The concept builds on the knowledge that large predators are often instrumental in maintaining the structure, resilience, and diversity of ecosystems through initiating “top-down” ecological (trophic) interactions. In turn, they require resources, including nesting and foraging areas and water sources along with large cores of protected landscape and connectivity to insure long-term viability. This re-wilding would be achieved by employing the zoological park as a suburban amenity. In a collaborative endeavor between the developer and federal government, the government would finance habitat links to the suburb, and in return the development would incorporate knuckles with intensified habitat zones and productive ecosystems, providing jobs, public amenities, and regional habitat resources.
I was seeking ways of bridging ecological knowledge with suburban design, shifting the paradigm of these exurban sites from one that disregards the surrounding environment to one that takes advantage of the adjacent conditions and the process of suburbanization. This includes the material flows, construction activities, and potential for human management of ecosystems over time. It is inevitable that we will continue to develop and build houses. Can we develop new practices that improve the social, economic, and ecological function of these communities? For example, federal funding could be combined with private development practices to create a new suburban model based around the fostering of ecosystem benefits rather than disregarding these values and reacting to consequences.
Doug Kelbaugh
MARCH 7, 2012, 3:40 P.M.
Following up on KB’s Dec. 15 comment and the article:Ecological principles may not be mutually exclusive with human habitat, but that is not the key issue.The most sustainable approach is to make the human built environment as dense, livable and compact, while leaving the hinterland and wilderness as intact as possible – not the agonizing compromise of low density settlements on the periphery of cities. This suburbanized nature, even with rewilding, is neither feasible or sustainable for the 7 B people on the planet – or any number close to that.
Let’s build good, tight cities and leave as much untouched habitat as possible for other plant and animal species. Introducing green design into the urban environment is fine, but not the crux of the ecological benefits of urbanism.
I sense the MOMA exhibit missed the point to a large extent.
Following up on KB’s Dec. 15 comment and the article:Ecological principles may not be mutually exclusive with human habitat, but that is not the key issue.The most sustainable approach is to make the human built environment as dense, livable and compact, while leaving the hinterland and wilderness as intact as possible – not the agonizing compromise of low density settlements on the periphery of cities. This suburbanized nature, even with rewilding, is neither feasible or sustainable for the 7 B people on the planet – or any number close to that.
Let’s build good, tight cities and leave as much untouched habitat as possible for other plant and animal species. Introducing green design into the urban environment is fine, but not the crux of the ecological benefits of urbanism.
I sense the MOMA exhibit missed the point to a large extent.
Alexander J Felson
MARCH 21, 2012, 12:40 P.M.
First, I really appreciate the commentary from both KB (12/15) and DK (03/07) regarding the rewilding concepts in relation to suburbanization. I would like to respond first to DK’s point of building dense and compact cities and leaving the “hinterland and wilderness as intact as possible” is the ideal and I certainly do not disagree with this position. That said this is not what is taking place on the ground. Urbanization is continuing to spread into the hinterlands here in the US, in China, India, and Brazil and around the globe. The proposal here is to consider the potential for these exurban developments to adopt an ecological mandate.The focus on the MOMA exhibit and analysis is also very specific and thus the proposal needs to be seen in its context. We were specifically tasked with looking at foreclosure housing projects and how as designers and scientists we might bring federal funding to address some of the issues faced. Thus the site was selected for us, and due to its proximity to the San Bernardino National Forest and the ecologically intact conditions of the surrounding context including the Lytle Creek Wash, we saw the notion of creating a neighborhood focused in part on ecological management as an opportunity for collaboration between developers, the federal government and future homeowners.A third factor to consider is climate change and global warming. The earth is changing in part through large-scale anthropogenic causes. These are creating pressures and constraints on the hinterland ecosystems and organisms. Already, there are discussions of how to foster species migration as their ranges shift north. This is an area that scientists are keenly interested in the role they might play. Consider the species introductions, assisted migrations and other efforts scientists are already participating with the goal of enhancing ecosystems. In other words, just leaving the hinterlands out there “undisturbed” by the built environment does not mean they remain undisturbed, and to maintain ecosystems and organisms human interventions will likely be an important component. Consider John Foley’s diagram of the changing landscape conditions – where is the “hinterlands” in his diagram?Finally, Rewilding (and this goes back to KB’s comments) is a radical proposal and one that is debated amongst ecologist. Much of the issue arises from the concern over human – wildlife conflict that would likely ensue if we were to reintroduce large carnivores etc. to the US. At the same time, most ecologists would agree that top down predation would benefit ecosystem health and lead to greater diversity of species. Thus the issue is one of public acceptance. As a result, getting this concept out there through a variety of venues (given that Rewilding is in the “marketing” stage) should mostly benefit the cause. It is a much more radical concept than simply allowing people to manage biological systems at the urban fringe and is intended to create debate and discussion.The MoMA exhibit is pervaded by architectural discourse of the suburb and could use this layer of integration of knowledge into new suburban forms. The architect and their modes of working and analysis were prioritized and sites open to large development were sites for new visions. Still, the rewilding concept is part of the exhibit, which means that tens of thousands of museumgoers visiting the exhibit will have the opportunity to reflect on what role people can play in managing ecosystems in their neighborhoods, and on the potential value of rewilding as a concept to consider for promoting ecosystem function.
First, I really appreciate the commentary from both KB (12/15) and DK (03/07) regarding the rewilding concepts in relation to suburbanization. I would like to respond first to DK’s point of building dense and compact cities and leaving the “hinterland and wilderness as intact as possible” is the ideal and I certainly do not disagree with this position. That said this is not what is taking place on the ground. Urbanization is continuing to spread into the hinterlands here in the US, in China, India, and Brazil and around the globe. The proposal here is to consider the potential for these exurban developments to adopt an ecological mandate.The focus on the MOMA exhibit and analysis is also very specific and thus the proposal needs to be seen in its context. We were specifically tasked with looking at foreclosure housing projects and how as designers and scientists we might bring federal funding to address some of the issues faced. Thus the site was selected for us, and due to its proximity to the San Bernardino National Forest and the ecologically intact conditions of the surrounding context including the Lytle Creek Wash, we saw the notion of creating a neighborhood focused in part on ecological management as an opportunity for collaboration between developers, the federal government and future homeowners.A third factor to consider is climate change and global warming. The earth is changing in part through large-scale anthropogenic causes. These are creating pressures and constraints on the hinterland ecosystems and organisms. Already, there are discussions of how to foster species migration as their ranges shift north. This is an area that scientists are keenly interested in the role they might play. Consider the species introductions, assisted migrations and other efforts scientists are already participating with the goal of enhancing ecosystems. In other words, just leaving the hinterlands out there “undisturbed” by the built environment does not mean they remain undisturbed, and to maintain ecosystems and organisms human interventions will likely be an important component. Consider John Foley’s diagram of the changing landscape conditions – where is the “hinterlands” in his diagram?Finally, Rewilding (and this goes back to KB’s comments) is a radical proposal and one that is debated amongst ecologist. Much of the issue arises from the concern over human – wildlife conflict that would likely ensue if we were to reintroduce large carnivores etc. to the US. At the same time, most ecologists would agree that top down predation would benefit ecosystem health and lead to greater diversity of species. Thus the issue is one of public acceptance. As a result, getting this concept out there through a variety of venues (given that Rewilding is in the “marketing” stage) should mostly benefit the cause. It is a much more radical concept than simply allowing people to manage biological systems at the urban fringe and is intended to create debate and discussion.The MoMA exhibit is pervaded by architectural discourse of the suburb and could use this layer of integration of knowledge into new suburban forms. The architect and their modes of working and analysis were prioritized and sites open to large development were sites for new visions. Still, the rewilding concept is part of the exhibit, which means that tens of thousands of museumgoers visiting the exhibit will have the opportunity to reflect on what role people can play in managing ecosystems in their neighborhoods, and on the potential value of rewilding as a concept to consider for promoting ecosystem function.
Here are thoughts from Alexander Felson, a member of Andrew Zago’s team.
What is most interesting, and hauntingly familiar, is the ecologist’s critique of the final proposal:
“However, in the course of the translation of these strategies into a design aesthetic, a sustained process for facilitating input from the ecologist was never fully developed or attempted, with mixed results in the extent to which the architect was able to effectively capture the ecological concepts. Consequently, while the final proposal of misregistration provides a compelling aesthetic, its actual ecological functionality remains open to question.”
We see this time and again, where some sort of abstract design aesthetic is forced onto the landscape, marginalizing or worse yet, ignoring the basic tenants of ecology, and then championed in the name of ‘sustainability’. Once again, it goes to show that many architects (and landscape architects) talk a good talk about ecological issues but rarely understand the science and almost certainly don’t know how to fully integrate sound ecological principles into their work. The two are not mutually exclusive.
What is most interesting, and hauntingly familiar, is the ecologist’s critique of the final proposal:
“However, in the course of the translation of these strategies into a design aesthetic, a sustained process for facilitating input from the ecologist was never fully developed or attempted, with mixed results in the extent to which the architect was able to effectively capture the ecological concepts. Consequently, while the final proposal of misregistration provides a compelling aesthetic, its actual ecological functionality remains open to question.”
We see this time and again, where some sort of abstract design aesthetic is forced onto the landscape, marginalizing or worse yet, ignoring the basic tenants of ecology, and then championed in the name of ‘sustainability’. Once again, it goes to show that many architects (and landscape architects) talk a good talk about ecological issues but rarely understand the science and almost certainly don’t know how to fully integrate sound ecological principles into their work. The two are not mutually exclusive.
One of the entries (“misregistration’) includes the concept of ‘rewilding’ what’s left of suburbia. Rewilding is the idea that we should set aside vast amounts of unproductive land to allow large predators to reinhabitat North America. This idea has a lot of merit, given that large predators are a keystone species regulating the health and resiliency of our ecosystems. This idea makes a lot of sense given the population shift toward urban areas and the need to safeguard ecosystem services (healthy soils, clean air, fresh water, food production, flood control, etc.) for future generations.
The team discovered that the town's stately bungalows of the 20th Century were being cut up into various smaller apartments for multiple residents. This casual yet effective process helped create affordable housing with easy transit access to Chicago that was within the grasp of first generation immigrants.
In addition, the team also discovered the importance of organic brownfield remediation in Cicero, even if it meant the land would remain underdeveloped. Through commonplace planting, the toxic industrial sites scattered across the residential fabric would change into safer cleaner zones for future community use. Finally, within certain regions of each parcel, the once zoned industrial land could be converted into a dense collection of affordable modular beds, baths, and public space by using the existing industrial structures and materials on each site such as truss frames and brick partition walls. The new clusters would become and important blend of adaptive reuse and new construction that utilized a sizable amount of Cicero's historical past while creating a new 21st century anchor that can accommodate thousands immediately adjacent to one of Chicago's commuter rail corridors.
In addition, the team also discovered the importance of organic brownfield remediation in Cicero, even if it meant the land would remain underdeveloped. Through commonplace planting, the toxic industrial sites scattered across the residential fabric would change into safer cleaner zones for future community use. Finally, within certain regions of each parcel, the once zoned industrial land could be converted into a dense collection of affordable modular beds, baths, and public space by using the existing industrial structures and materials on each site such as truss frames and brick partition walls. The new clusters would become and important blend of adaptive reuse and new construction that utilized a sizable amount of Cicero's historical past while creating a new 21st century anchor that can accommodate thousands immediately adjacent to one of Chicago's commuter rail corridors.
Reinventing British urbanist Ebenezer Howard's classic term "Town-Country," WORKac's proposal Nature City integrates a wide variety of housing types-across a range of affordability-with publicly accessible nature, including ecological infrastructure, sky gardens, urban farms, and large swaths of restored native habitats. Bringing a higher density and more sustainable living to the metropolitan edge, where the greatest development pressures have long existed, the proposal also provides larger economic growth for the city and the site.
A wide range of ecological functions make a city infrastructure that promotes sustainable living as a shared individual and communal undertaking, and also generates new living experiences and new kinds of public spaces from its various components.
Anonymous
So much spin and hate on the “Architectural Record”? It looks like student Occupiers have broadened their opinions to include architecture/planning!! I actually feel sorry for them and agree with those who believe that even misplaced, but uncorrupted, passion is better than apathy. But your view of our future is sadly UnAmerican and something that will handicap your life until you wise up.
“Anti Socialists”, “healthy cities” – hilarious! “Eggheady liberal architects”!? LOL Oh how you flatter yourselves! Inexperienced, academic, myopic, global warming eco hustlers who don’t understand the environment, fossil fuels/energy economy, national defense, US economy, our history or American Exceptionalism means that you are incapable of comprehending our future, which robs you of any basis for design. …so as a result we get vanity nonsense like this. ..and wishes for socialism as Athens burns in the wake of spastic entitlement class withdrawal.
Americans were not “given” anything; planning is not a socialist activity in the United States; and the diversity of planning across the country varies from tragic to excellent – something some writing here are obviously unaware of, living in a generation of under-educated, arrogant skepticism of forces you don’t understand.
Market forces drive change, a natural process arrogant socialists have no patience for. You are confused and angry because of the lies you tell yourselves and the turmoil that results. For example: there is no place for over-priced boutique wind/solar power (creates a job killing prosperity tax); oil is cheap and plentiful for hundreds of years; electric cars have already been rejected by the market; human controlled global weather is nonsense (global warming); landfills are a business like any other; recycling is, with few exceptions, just more manufacturing; and you have been betrayed by those who have taught you much of your lives. No matter what eco fantasy world you want to inhabit, everything I’ve written is dead on and there’s not a thing your hatful confusion can do about it.
Take some comfort in knowing that, for better or worse, you are not wise enough to begin to understand our future.
2/14/2012 11:29 AM CST
“Anti Socialists”, “healthy cities” – hilarious! “Eggheady liberal architects”!? LOL Oh how you flatter yourselves! Inexperienced, academic, myopic, global warming eco hustlers who don’t understand the environment, fossil fuels/energy economy, national defense, US economy, our history or American Exceptionalism means that you are incapable of comprehending our future, which robs you of any basis for design. …so as a result we get vanity nonsense like this. ..and wishes for socialism as Athens burns in the wake of spastic entitlement class withdrawal.
Americans were not “given” anything; planning is not a socialist activity in the United States; and the diversity of planning across the country varies from tragic to excellent – something some writing here are obviously unaware of, living in a generation of under-educated, arrogant skepticism of forces you don’t understand.
Market forces drive change, a natural process arrogant socialists have no patience for. You are confused and angry because of the lies you tell yourselves and the turmoil that results. For example: there is no place for over-priced boutique wind/solar power (creates a job killing prosperity tax); oil is cheap and plentiful for hundreds of years; electric cars have already been rejected by the market; human controlled global weather is nonsense (global warming); landfills are a business like any other; recycling is, with few exceptions, just more manufacturing; and you have been betrayed by those who have taught you much of your lives. No matter what eco fantasy world you want to inhabit, everything I’ve written is dead on and there’s not a thing your hatful confusion can do about it.
Take some comfort in knowing that, for better or worse, you are not wise enough to begin to understand our future.
2/14/2012 11:29 AM CST
Barry Bergdoll, the museum’s chief curator of architecture and design, describes the proposals as portents of a “more sustainable, more equitable future, filled with optimism for places where that is often in short supply."
jla-x
Feb 23, 12 12:07 pm
Sub-urban and suburban are also two very different things. I would argue that sub-urban is not bad. A good example of this is in some parts of Brooklyn, Queens, and Nassau county NY. The density is greater than the typical suburban environment, and there is a small business walkable street scape that flanks a mix of multi and single family housing in many of these neighborhoods. There is also access to public transit in and out of the city. There is a mix of home owners and renters, and the opportunity to own a house and rent out the top floor. There is a sense of community and a feeling of being in a small town within a city. The film "Do the Right Thing" by Spike Lee so clearly expresses this. Another issue is density. More density is not the solution alone. We need to find an appropriate balance of density, production, and economy so that development can be in some sort of sustainable balance. I think that sub-urban form has the greatest potential for a sustainable development because there is enough space to support a mix of agriculture, industry,small business, housing, park space, etc...as well as enough density to support local businesses with regard to employees and consumers. Cities like manhattan will never be able to become hybrid typologies because things like urban agriculture and production will be far too expensive due to crazy high land prices. The only problem with the sub-urban typology is that it sometimes becomes gentrified over time as we see in brooklyn or the opposite happens where it becomes a ghetto due to the home values going down as density goes up like in Jamaica Queens (balance is always a thin line). On the other hand, suburban development lends itself to exploitation by corporate interests as James R. clearly articulates. The American dream of owning a single family home is not going away. It is a part of the American culture that dates back hundreds of years. We need to find a solution to the problem without ignoring the cultural mentality that led to it. This is why ideas like the ones in the MoMA exhibit never work. I believe that we need to study examples that already work like Astoria, and go from there.
Sub-urban and suburban are also two very different things. I would argue that sub-urban is not bad. A good example of this is in some parts of Brooklyn, Queens, and Nassau county NY. The density is greater than the typical suburban environment, and there is a small business walkable street scape that flanks a mix of multi and single family housing in many of these neighborhoods. There is also access to public transit in and out of the city. There is a mix of home owners and renters, and the opportunity to own a house and rent out the top floor. There is a sense of community and a feeling of being in a small town within a city. The film "Do the Right Thing" by Spike Lee so clearly expresses this. Another issue is density. More density is not the solution alone. We need to find an appropriate balance of density, production, and economy so that development can be in some sort of sustainable balance. I think that sub-urban form has the greatest potential for a sustainable development because there is enough space to support a mix of agriculture, industry,small business, housing, park space, etc...as well as enough density to support local businesses with regard to employees and consumers. Cities like manhattan will never be able to become hybrid typologies because things like urban agriculture and production will be far too expensive due to crazy high land prices. The only problem with the sub-urban typology is that it sometimes becomes gentrified over time as we see in brooklyn or the opposite happens where it becomes a ghetto due to the home values going down as density goes up like in Jamaica Queens (balance is always a thin line). On the other hand, suburban development lends itself to exploitation by corporate interests as James R. clearly articulates. The American dream of owning a single family home is not going away. It is a part of the American culture that dates back hundreds of years. We need to find a solution to the problem without ignoring the cultural mentality that led to it. This is why ideas like the ones in the MoMA exhibit never work. I believe that we need to study examples that already work like Astoria, and go from there.
jla-x
Feb 16, 12 2:22 pm
Eichler, yes, I agree Kevin. You know of any contemporary developers that are doing this kind of work with a little more focus on community design and sustainability? I would love to do a little research into this.
Eichler, yes, I agree Kevin. You know of any contemporary developers that are doing this kind of work with a little more focus on community design and sustainability? I would love to do a little research into this.
jla-x
Feb 16, 12 11:27 am
Why does innovation from Architects always have to come in the form of telling people how to live their lives?
You hit the nail on the head. This goes back the the FLW broad acre city idea, that we can reinvent society in totality to fit a certain utopian vision. The problem is that every architect wants to invent the big cure not the gradual remedy, because the glory lies in being Jonas Salk not the guy who invented Robatusin. The problem with any utopian model is that it usually works in theory, but is completely unrealisable due to the given societal constraints with regard to culture and economy. I have been arguing on threads here that we need to become developers and offer realistic alternatives to crap suburbia. Once again, architects are thinking of top down solutions to what can only be achieved with bottom up models. We live in a free market society whether we like it or not. We need to create demand by building better stuff. "if you build it they will come" We can't just dictate our solutions and hope for society to demand our service. The suburban model is not going away because it is deeply part of the american culture. Rather than get rid of it, lets start by building more sustainable and enriching suburaban communities that are affordable. Look at the way the auto industry copes with these constraints...Sure a small electric car that weighs 1000 lbs. may be the best solution, but they recognise that society will not change so quick, so they focus on hybrid suv's and 4 door sedans. We need to build the "civic hybrid" equivelent of architecture right now (transitionary projects) not the electric smart car, because unfortunatly many people out there still have steel testicles hanging from the back of their pick-up trucks. If we can't even do that, how the hell are we going to do anything more radical. While I wish society was easy to change and would love to see such grand projects, it just ain't gonna happen yet.
Why does innovation from Architects always have to come in the form of telling people how to live their lives?
You hit the nail on the head. This goes back the the FLW broad acre city idea, that we can reinvent society in totality to fit a certain utopian vision. The problem is that every architect wants to invent the big cure not the gradual remedy, because the glory lies in being Jonas Salk not the guy who invented Robatusin. The problem with any utopian model is that it usually works in theory, but is completely unrealisable due to the given societal constraints with regard to culture and economy. I have been arguing on threads here that we need to become developers and offer realistic alternatives to crap suburbia. Once again, architects are thinking of top down solutions to what can only be achieved with bottom up models. We live in a free market society whether we like it or not. We need to create demand by building better stuff. "if you build it they will come" We can't just dictate our solutions and hope for society to demand our service. The suburban model is not going away because it is deeply part of the american culture. Rather than get rid of it, lets start by building more sustainable and enriching suburaban communities that are affordable. Look at the way the auto industry copes with these constraints...Sure a small electric car that weighs 1000 lbs. may be the best solution, but they recognise that society will not change so quick, so they focus on hybrid suv's and 4 door sedans. We need to build the "civic hybrid" equivelent of architecture right now (transitionary projects) not the electric smart car, because unfortunatly many people out there still have steel testicles hanging from the back of their pick-up trucks. If we can't even do that, how the hell are we going to do anything more radical. While I wish society was easy to change and would love to see such grand projects, it just ain't gonna happen yet.
go do it
Feb 16, 12 10:22 am
it would be a hard sell to convince people to abandon the traditional stand alone owner occupied home to become apartment dwellers.
it really is not that hard to build a very efficient or even a net zero home these days
it would be a hard sell to convince people to abandon the traditional stand alone owner occupied home to become apartment dwellers.
it really is not that hard to build a very efficient or even a net zero home these days
LP: What have we learned about the suburban ideal from the collapse of its American model? Is it sustainable, transferable to emerging economies?
Ricky Burdett (RB): You just have to look at what’s happened to cities, and unfortunately that’s exactly what’s happening. Most cities are suffering from middle-aged spread. They become really wide, and their footprint is becoming larger and larger. And as was said by many of the speakers in this piece, it’s because the car is there and everyone aspires to it. It’s fantastic that the MoMA, this august institution, instead of doing Deconstructivism or “Edible Minimalism” or whatever, is dealing with this stuff. But you can’t talk about this issue of cities and foreclosure and all that unless you link jobs and housing.
Ricky Burdett (RB): You just have to look at what’s happened to cities, and unfortunately that’s exactly what’s happening. Most cities are suffering from middle-aged spread. They become really wide, and their footprint is becoming larger and larger. And as was said by many of the speakers in this piece, it’s because the car is there and everyone aspires to it. It’s fantastic that the MoMA, this august institution, instead of doing Deconstructivism or “Edible Minimalism” or whatever, is dealing with this stuff. But you can’t talk about this issue of cities and foreclosure and all that unless you link jobs and housing.
Lawrence Pollard (LP) : That ideal of your own house and its own garden with room for the car isn’t just American. It may have started there, but it’s what people aspire to in China or in Brazil, in Africa. And if it’s gone bust in the US, can it, should it, survive in the rest of the world?
Making use of the existing infrastructure, Gang came up with “The Garden in the Machine”, which demonstrates how the remains of Cicero’s industry, its lands, building materials, and existing rail infrastructure could be the foundation for a new and better town. The new vision calls for an influx of vegetation, trees and gardens to improve the green space of the area. Housing would largely transition to new live/work units and would require a change in zoning and regulations to allow a different form of ownership — one that allows citizens to purchase and sell shares corresponding to the live/work units they occupy. A variety of flexible housing options would be occupied by families of all sizes and a new economy would be created through residents who live and work in the same area. Rather than raze the entire area and start again, Gang sees that the existing infrastructure can be utilized to build a better, more sustainable city.
doober
LA has low residential carbon emission rates because people there don't need to heat their homes. it works because of the climate.
5 months ago
5 months ago
Urbanists should look beyond the simplistic view that suburbs are, ipso facto, unsustainable. Los Angeles, essentially one of the country’s largests suburbs, also has one of the country’s lowest carbon emission rates when counting transportation and residential energy usage. More important than reducing car emissions may be to reduce the amount of energy derived from coal and increase alternative energy.
Tina
@oboe - Municipalities are trying to retrofit to urbanism because the experts feel they don't have a choice, long-term.
Do you mean in terms of the long view on sustainability wrt enegry and health? B/c I think part of the short term motivation for the retro-fit is economic factors; e.g. demand, attracting/retaining people by providing what the "market" indicates people want, etc.
Feb 22, 2012 12:38 pm
Do you mean in terms of the long view on sustainability wrt enegry and health? B/c I think part of the short term motivation for the retro-fit is economic factors; e.g. demand, attracting/retaining people by providing what the "market" indicates people want, etc.
Feb 22, 2012 12:38 pm
23 Feb, 2012 - (@siemprehasta)
hey @WiedenKennedydon't worry that you're taking money from polluters like chevrolet as long as you do hipster art http://bit.ly/zVOynk
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
CH: The other question is whether we’ll see the market begin to produce smaller homes in the wake of this crisis, whether there’s going to be a lesson learned there, or if we’re just going to start the old Wurlitzer up again and try to dance like we did in the last decade?
MB: I personally think that the people that invest in housing will be fearful of investing in the old versions of housing and they’re going to look for a new product to invest in.
MB: I personally think that the people that invest in housing will be fearful of investing in the old versions of housing and they’re going to look for a new product to invest in.
Bob Herbert (BH): What’s going to inevitably happen is that the American Dream is going to get redefined if it survives. But we’re moving ahead into a landscape where standards of living in general in this country are just going to be lower, and then I assume that housing becomes an integral part of that. And it seems to me that more people are going to rent. It seems to me that houses are going to have to be smaller. They’re going to have to at some point become more affordable, I assume. So, the question becomes what does that look like ten, fifteen years from now?
CH: One of the other architects, Jeanne Gang, who did a project in Cicero in the exhibit, makes this great point that I never thought about in these terms. She said that you’re sort of making a casino bet when you buy a house. You’re betting that it’s going to rise in value. That was a bet that a lot of people made, and now they’re on the wrong side of that bet. But, you’re also betting about what your life is going to look like. How many people are going to inhabit that house? You’re putting money down—you’re putting all your wealth in most cases—into this structure that says, “I am going to be married with the two kids and the dog” or whatever. And the fact is that new family members come in as immigrants possibly or you get divorced or you lose your job or your kids have to move back because they can’t get jobs. So the house is insufficiently flexible to deal with the changing American family.
MB: People have looked toward changing or improving the suburbs
for a long time. You can go back to the 1970s, and academics are often
lambasted for not being sensitive about it. But the reason I’m bringing
this up is that what is different at this point in time is everything from
globalization in terms of where is production happening, what are the
jobs. When you talk about housing, you ultimately always—even if you’re
an architect—end up talking about jobs. What will secure that loan in the
future? So, flexibility comes in. But the difference now, I think, is that
what people realize… And the foreclosure crisis is an awful thing, it is
absolutely a crisis, but it does start to create a situation where people
start to imagine that what we have is not inevitable. And, in fact, it was
produced, and it was dreamed. I think, people don’t like change in housing,
and they should worry about change in housing, but what we have is also
not terribly secure. And, so, I think that’s what you’re bringing up, and
Jeanne was bringing that up quite brilliantly.
CH: One of the things I think Detroit forces us to think of is the fact that
the things we think are natural are contingent.
MB: People have looked toward changing or improving the suburbs
for a long time. You can go back to the 1970s, and academics are often
lambasted for not being sensitive about it. But the reason I’m bringing
this up is that what is different at this point in time is everything from
globalization in terms of where is production happening, what are the
jobs. When you talk about housing, you ultimately always—even if you’re
an architect—end up talking about jobs. What will secure that loan in the
future? So, flexibility comes in. But the difference now, I think, is that
what people realize… And the foreclosure crisis is an awful thing, it is
absolutely a crisis, but it does start to create a situation where people
start to imagine that what we have is not inevitable. And, in fact, it was
produced, and it was dreamed. I think, people don’t like change in housing,
and they should worry about change in housing, but what we have is also
not terribly secure. And, so, I think that’s what you’re bringing up, and
Jeanne was bringing that up quite brilliantly.
CH: One of the things I think Detroit forces us to think of is the fact that
the things we think are natural are contingent.
CH: What does that mean? I think we sort of have a sense of the automobile, the sort of oil-fueled world of post-World War II America and suburban sprawl as these kinds of the things that have conspired to build the great sprawling American suburban landscape. What does rethinking that involve from a design perspective? From a policy perspective?
MB: […] In the 1990s you had a booming economy, you had a kind ofpush to alter, if not end, the welfare state. By the 2000s, you have a real estate bubble. And today you have a foreclosure crisis. But in all of these situations, there are a couple things that have been consistent. The amount of money people spend on housing and transportation is immense. They can’t afford it. You don’t want to tell people they can’t afford something and say that’s the reason to change. You want to be more positive than that. But there are many, many factors about affordability, about energy consumption, and frankly about the role of design in any of it. The American single-family house is a commodity product that has virtually no research and development, no design. Architects, in a spec house in Houston in the late 1990s—their fee was about twelve dollars per house. These are mass-produced commodities. There is no professional engagement. […] I think most of the people in this exhibition are quite
positive and excited about the suburbs. We know it’s a deeply, deeply important part of the American ethos, if not just everyday life of course. But, they’re not inevitable. And the financial underpinnings of them have really dramatically shifted in the last five, ten, fifteen years—not just the last two.
CH: Talk about that R&D thing. You made a point in the video in the exhibition that blew my mind about the comparison between how much money in R&D goes into your iPhone or anti-lock brakes versus an American home.
MB: I did mention anti-lock brakes. For many commodities, before they hit the market, there are billions of dollars that might precede it, whether it’s Clorox or whether it’s an iPhone or a Honda Civic which is quite an ingenious product. Housing as we know it has kind of ironed all of that
out of it, and it did it a long time ago. […] They are paying Mercedes Benz prices for a twenty-year-old used car. The single-family house market atomizes out all of the financial processes, and you still are spending large sums of money, but you’re not getting the sophisticated product. It’s not that it’s not a nice product or something people love, but it could be much, much better in energy and everything else.
MB: […] In the 1990s you had a booming economy, you had a kind ofpush to alter, if not end, the welfare state. By the 2000s, you have a real estate bubble. And today you have a foreclosure crisis. But in all of these situations, there are a couple things that have been consistent. The amount of money people spend on housing and transportation is immense. They can’t afford it. You don’t want to tell people they can’t afford something and say that’s the reason to change. You want to be more positive than that. But there are many, many factors about affordability, about energy consumption, and frankly about the role of design in any of it. The American single-family house is a commodity product that has virtually no research and development, no design. Architects, in a spec house in Houston in the late 1990s—their fee was about twelve dollars per house. These are mass-produced commodities. There is no professional engagement. […] I think most of the people in this exhibition are quite
positive and excited about the suburbs. We know it’s a deeply, deeply important part of the American ethos, if not just everyday life of course. But, they’re not inevitable. And the financial underpinnings of them have really dramatically shifted in the last five, ten, fifteen years—not just the last two.
CH: Talk about that R&D thing. You made a point in the video in the exhibition that blew my mind about the comparison between how much money in R&D goes into your iPhone or anti-lock brakes versus an American home.
MB: I did mention anti-lock brakes. For many commodities, before they hit the market, there are billions of dollars that might precede it, whether it’s Clorox or whether it’s an iPhone or a Honda Civic which is quite an ingenious product. Housing as we know it has kind of ironed all of that
out of it, and it did it a long time ago. […] They are paying Mercedes Benz prices for a twenty-year-old used car. The single-family house market atomizes out all of the financial processes, and you still are spending large sums of money, but you’re not getting the sophisticated product. It’s not that it’s not a nice product or something people love, but it could be much, much better in energy and everything else.
CH: I cannot tell you how much I love this exhibit. I just thought it was really fascinating to start thinking in these terms. And in some ways it brings the discussion we’ve had in Detroit—which is a discussion about “How do you take this moment of crisis and ruin and abandonment and turn it into an opportunity to kind of rethink things?”—to the national level where we have communities … some of these communities that were assigned have foreclosure rates as high as thirteen, fourteen, fifteen percent. Tell me about what your team did, where you were assigned to look at, and how you started to think about what kind of place you would design in the wake of the foreclosure crisis.
Michael Bell (MB): We were asked by the Museum to work on a site called Temple Terrace, Florida. It’s the northeast corner of Tampa, and a little town. It’s 22,000 people. It was an incorporated city in 1926. It preceded the growth of Tampa. Tampa eventually came to meet Temple Terrace, in a kind of typical American situation where something that was very rural became urban, “quasi-urban” one could say. Temple Terrace actually had a relatively low foreclosure rate: 168 foreclosures in a town of 10,000 households. So, in looking at all of this, it actually became much more of a scenario of looking at “How did Temple Terrace operate historically? Financially? What was its density?” Etc., etc. It became much more of a project about trying to produce a future that would be more secure against those kinds of problems, rather than being immediately reactive to the problem now. And I think that’s true for the whole exhibition.
Michael Bell (MB): We were asked by the Museum to work on a site called Temple Terrace, Florida. It’s the northeast corner of Tampa, and a little town. It’s 22,000 people. It was an incorporated city in 1926. It preceded the growth of Tampa. Tampa eventually came to meet Temple Terrace, in a kind of typical American situation where something that was very rural became urban, “quasi-urban” one could say. Temple Terrace actually had a relatively low foreclosure rate: 168 foreclosures in a town of 10,000 households. So, in looking at all of this, it actually became much more of a scenario of looking at “How did Temple Terrace operate historically? Financially? What was its density?” Etc., etc. It became much more of a project about trying to produce a future that would be more secure against those kinds of problems, rather than being immediately reactive to the problem now. And I think that’s true for the whole exhibition.
Chris Hayes (CH): Part of what makes Detroit so symbolically powerful is the fact that it is the birthplace of the American car, and the car is one of the two pillars of the American Dream. The other, of course, is the detached single-family home. Such structures make up almost two-thirds of the nation’s housing stock, but more than that, the single-family home is an essential plot point in the story of the American Dream. We all know how it goes: you spend your twenties renting, aimless. You meet someone you love. You marry, settle down, get a career, and get a mortgage on a single family home in a suburb with a good school district and enough space for children. Of course, it was this aspiration that provided fuel for the maniacal engine of destruction that was the great housing securitization machine that Wall Street built during the last decade. The trauma of the housing bubble, and then the financial crisis and the foreclosure epidemic it has left in its wake, has created a landscape of ruin and abandonment. Half-completed developments of McMansions dot exurban cornfields. Blocks of vacant, boarded-up homes blight neighborhoods in inner-ring suburbs. And all of this forces us to reassess our fundamental adherence to the single-family suburban home as the cornerstone of American life. In a brilliant new exhibition at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, five teams of architects
were each assigned a suburban community with a higher foreclosure rate than the national average and asked to imagine in the design a vision for what sustainable, vibrant, post-crisis communities could be if we rethink our most fundamental beliefs about the American house.
were each assigned a suburban community with a higher foreclosure rate than the national average and asked to imagine in the design a vision for what sustainable, vibrant, post-crisis communities could be if we rethink our most fundamental beliefs about the American house.
We would argue that neither case is true. We would argue that suburban sprawl is a horribly inefficient (i.e. unsustainably expensive) physical arrangement that free markets would never have allowed to develop the way it did.
If the housing crisis taught us anything, it’s that we can’t go on like this anymore. Today, the average American family spends 52 cents of every earned dollar on housing and transportation, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). That’s a fixable problem, and for “Foreclosed,” five different groups came up with conceptual plans for five different suburbs around the country—all of which attempt to create something more sustainable going forward.
01 Mar, 2012 - (@fredbartels)
http://www.moma.org/interactives/e …Watch the video to understand the concept. #yestermorrow
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
lapin229
Mar 5th 2012, 14:55
Architects (some) have always had an over-evolved sense of their own importance. At least Paulo Soleri had style, these guys are recycling stuff we did in the 70's, just not as well. The big design solutions and Urban planning of the past don't work for the future. The next step will be devolution, self sustaining, smaller, less susceptible to economic changes and power failures. I think you call them villages in europe. We don't have that concept in the USA. The curator screwed the pooch on this one, there's lot of interesting alternate work out there.
Architects (some) have always had an over-evolved sense of their own importance. At least Paulo Soleri had style, these guys are recycling stuff we did in the 70's, just not as well. The big design solutions and Urban planning of the past don't work for the future. The next step will be devolution, self sustaining, smaller, less susceptible to economic changes and power failures. I think you call them villages in europe. We don't have that concept in the USA. The curator screwed the pooch on this one, there's lot of interesting alternate work out there.
SometimesLeftSometimesRight
Mar 3rd 2012, 13:35
I saw the show two days ago with my husband and kids (9 and 11). It's been the topic of conversation since then. I hate to think about what sort of world we are leaving our children, not only are our cities and infrastructure falling apart but more importantly there seems to be nobody proposing an alternative to our current state of decay. Although they look very well considered, I'm not sure all the proposals are reasonable, but it's wonderful to have people seriously proposing an alternative to our sinking status quo. I wish there was more of exhibitions like this forcing us to think how we are all responsible for the construction of our world, our cities and suburbs. And more importantly that urban development and infrastructure are our legacy we leave our children.
I saw the show two days ago with my husband and kids (9 and 11). It's been the topic of conversation since then. I hate to think about what sort of world we are leaving our children, not only are our cities and infrastructure falling apart but more importantly there seems to be nobody proposing an alternative to our current state of decay. Although they look very well considered, I'm not sure all the proposals are reasonable, but it's wonderful to have people seriously proposing an alternative to our sinking status quo. I wish there was more of exhibitions like this forcing us to think how we are all responsible for the construction of our world, our cities and suburbs. And more importantly that urban development and infrastructure are our legacy we leave our children.
johnberkowitz
Mar 3rd 2012, 09:32
I think that contemporary architecture should reflect the community needs of the current population. The idea of changing the old style of living into more dynamic one is great. Replacing bungalows by the condo style type of living is just a great idea. I can see the European and Canadian influence in the battle against the old English style of living.
From my point of view, creating the new "centers" of life in the suburbs is also very interesting idea. Sometimes it is much better to reconstruct everything from the scratch than to continue with the old structures and ideas. Never ending House Flipping can not sustain the houses forever and sooner or later, the old suburb has to be replaced by a new one.
With new model of suburb, you get more possibilities to evade old mistakes and give people better life conditions and space for their everyday lives.
I think that contemporary architecture should reflect the community needs of the current population. The idea of changing the old style of living into more dynamic one is great. Replacing bungalows by the condo style type of living is just a great idea. I can see the European and Canadian influence in the battle against the old English style of living.
From my point of view, creating the new "centers" of life in the suburbs is also very interesting idea. Sometimes it is much better to reconstruct everything from the scratch than to continue with the old structures and ideas. Never ending House Flipping can not sustain the houses forever and sooner or later, the old suburb has to be replaced by a new one.
With new model of suburb, you get more possibilities to evade old mistakes and give people better life conditions and space for their everyday lives.
EVERY exhibition aspires to make a strong impression. “Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream” at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) manages to bowl over the visitor within the first 15 seconds. Unfortunately, the impression is one of intermingled bemusement and nausea. For this viewer, the feeling has yet to subside.
The exhibition is disappointing largely because its premise is so fascinating. Barry Bergdoll, MoMA's chief curator of architecture and design, and Reinhold Martin, director of Columbia University's Buell Centre, set out to explore five struggling suburbs. These pockets of the American landscape are in the midst of a transformation. Yes, they were ravaged by the housing crisis, but they were changing even before the recession. Suburban poverty rose by 53% from 2000 to 2010, compared with a 26% jump in cities. In many suburbs, white, nuclear families have been replaced by multigenerational Hispanic ones. The old car culture has become unsustainable, as petrol guzzles a greater share of families' budgets and the need for exercise becomes ever more apparent. All this begs for new types of transport and housing. MoMA wisely seized the chance to imagine a new future for the suburbs. The result, unfortunately, is absurd.
The exhibition is disappointing largely because its premise is so fascinating. Barry Bergdoll, MoMA's chief curator of architecture and design, and Reinhold Martin, director of Columbia University's Buell Centre, set out to explore five struggling suburbs. These pockets of the American landscape are in the midst of a transformation. Yes, they were ravaged by the housing crisis, but they were changing even before the recession. Suburban poverty rose by 53% from 2000 to 2010, compared with a 26% jump in cities. In many suburbs, white, nuclear families have been replaced by multigenerational Hispanic ones. The old car culture has become unsustainable, as petrol guzzles a greater share of families' budgets and the need for exercise becomes ever more apparent. All this begs for new types of transport and housing. MoMA wisely seized the chance to imagine a new future for the suburbs. The result, unfortunately, is absurd.
Claire, USA
3/3/2012 22:18
@Tony Of course we all aspire to live in our own homes, but that does not mean it's possible for everyone. These projects seek a solution to the problems of urban sprawl, foreclosures, and environmental pollution. For those who cannot afford a single home, who cities are too densely populated for single homes, and for those who want to change our impact on the environment, these projects could be an amazing solution. Personally, I'm not that fond of the architecture, but ecologically and in terms of the amount of green space, they're a pretty good solution to a LOT of needs.
@Tony Of course we all aspire to live in our own homes, but that does not mean it's possible for everyone. These projects seek a solution to the problems of urban sprawl, foreclosures, and environmental pollution. For those who cannot afford a single home, who cities are too densely populated for single homes, and for those who want to change our impact on the environment, these projects could be an amazing solution. Personally, I'm not that fond of the architecture, but ecologically and in terms of the amount of green space, they're a pretty good solution to a LOT of needs.
Andrew Zago, the Los Angeles architect, who came up with a plan for redesigning a partially built suburban housing development in Rialto, Calif. that the developer had to stop construction on when the financial crisis hit, said the criticism of the exhibit misses the point.
He said architecture can't fix the foreclosure crisis or solve all the many economic problems facing communities but it can come up with ideas for making those towns less prone to economic calamity.
He said architecture can't fix the foreclosure crisis or solve all the many economic problems facing communities but it can come up with ideas for making those towns less prone to economic calamity.
A new exhibit at the New York Museum of Modern Art seeks to rethink suburban living and the design of the communities themselves. Taking unique and sometimes radical approaches, five design teams each took a community ravaged by the housing crisis and came up with their own architectural and artistic solution to improve the affected areas and introduce more density, retail stores and sustainable practices. The results need to be seen to be believed, as they provide a completely new and interesting way to look at American housing.
What is so fascinating about the exhibit is the way the design teams take all of these criticisms to heart and seek to remedy the problems of overbuilding and density through five architectural designs that really are about as different as they are similar. As to be expected, they all feature people living closer together and becoming more sustainable, but they differ enormously in how the communities are designed from an aesthetic level. I took a look at all five exhibits (virtually, of course, until I can make the trip to New York), and came away impressed with some of the projects and more skeptical of others. The five exhibits are broken down below:
The resulting projects, including one from a team headed by 2011 MacArthur Fellow/eco-architect extraordinaire Jeanne Gang, all respond to the “Foreclosed” challenge in their own uniquely compelling ways. None, however, address the issue of sustainability quite like Nature-City, New York-based Work Architecture Company’s vision for the Portland/Salem bedroom community of Keizer. The proposal itself is a response to the question, "what if we could live close to nature and sustainably" posed by WORKac's team leaders.
05 Mar, 2012 - (@We_Live_Green)
Nature-City: Suburban housing for agrarians at heart: Essentially, it's the kind of set-up where bot... http://bitly.com/xDINZl #composting
By creating varied but neighboring housing typologies—ranging from 100-square-foot apartments with communal living spaces, to 600-square-foot one-bedroom apartments, to larger three-bedroom apartments—and providing for varied forms of tenure, a community can be created based on the diversity of residents and not on antiquated, inflexible notions of housing. The college student who can only afford the 100-square-foot SRO is an asset to the single mother in the three-bedroom rental who needs to work in the afternoons. The returning veteran may not need much in the way of square footage, but will need the attention of on-site social services, within walking distance of his apartment. The architecture can and should support this type of organic connection. Seniors seeking companionship and affordability can live in a shared three-bedroom apartment that lays out exactly as a family-sized unit. Housing options can better respond to personal need rather than financial status.
One at a time, we must try to save homes from foreclosure and save communities from collapse, but we must also recognize that these are band-aid measures unless they include long-term sustainable strategies and policies for sheltering Americans in homes they can afford within communities where they can work. Acknowledging this epidemic scale, it is relevant to note that the Occupy movement is not merely a grassroots initiative; it is a network from the bottom calling for action at the top.
Anonymous
I think the market is determining that suburbs are unsustainable and more dense living is the way to go. In suburbs around Chicago, like Arlington Heights, downtowns were designed, developed and built so people can have that downtown feel. People want places to have dinner, then walk to the show, and then have ice cream afterwards. All within walking distance. For those of you who haven't tried it, treat yourself to the experience.
3/22/2012 12:33 AM CDT
3/22/2012 12:33 AM CDT
27 Mar, 2012 - (@hvanbiber)
Nature buildings?? http://www.moma.org/interactives/e …
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
The exhibit invited five multidisciplinary teams led by architects to develop site-specific plans for five actual communities, with input from local residents. Models include familiar ecofriendly, sustainable initiatives, from light rail and co-generation electrical plants to recycling centers and community gardens. Some models include light industrial facilities and workspaces adjacent to residential areas to eliminate commutes. Most of the plans also include changes in predominant forms of homeownership.
The displays include placards with statistics that show how housing in five different suburban communities has become financially unsustainable and environmentally unsound. Wall mounted texts feature excerpts from an imagined conversation between Socrates and one of his students-which takes place in a traffic jam-about how to change dominant cultural narratives that disparage public housing and public transportation.
Architectural models offer stylized solutions to suburban ills. Suburbs accessible by proposed high-speed rail corridors are retrofitted with high-density developments, which in some cases are stripped of streets. Instead of oversized single-family suburban houses narrowly tailored for the nuclear family, the show provides a variety of housing models for people in different groupings, such as empty nesters and extended families.
Architectural models offer stylized solutions to suburban ills. Suburbs accessible by proposed high-speed rail corridors are retrofitted with high-density developments, which in some cases are stripped of streets. Instead of oversized single-family suburban houses narrowly tailored for the nuclear family, the show provides a variety of housing models for people in different groupings, such as empty nesters and extended families.
AU: It's our housing policy too. Do you like your tax dollars subsidizing these developers building these tract houses in the suburbs---
SV: Yes.
AU: --- that are completely financially unsustainable?
SV: Who says they're completely financially unsustainable? Who says this?
AU: Well, why is poverty increasing at double the rate in suburbs as it is in cities?
SV: Because maybe poor people have moved out of the city and gotten a place in suburbs.
AU: Well that's the only place they can afford to buy houses.
SV: Yes.
AU: --- that are completely financially unsustainable?
SV: Who says they're completely financially unsustainable? Who says this?
AU: Well, why is poverty increasing at double the rate in suburbs as it is in cities?
SV: Because maybe poor people have moved out of the city and gotten a place in suburbs.
AU: Well that's the only place they can afford to buy houses.
Stuart Varney (SV): It seems to me that this exhibit is from the elites telling us how we should live. We should all live in cities, and if we don't live in cities we should turn our suburbs into cities. That's the way we should live. Isn't that the elites going at us and telling us how we mere mortals should live?
Alex Ulam (AU): No, it's not the elite. It's the way our tax...It's the way our housing policy has been oriented for the last twenty or thirty years. It's unsustainable---
SV: We should not be organizing ourselves and where to live. Now the elites are telling us how we should be doing it.
AU: They are making some suggestions, but -- listen -- it's unsustainable for people to live in suburbs.
SV: Who says?
AU: Well most Americans actually spend more money on transportation than they do on medical care or on taxes. The average family of four that makes $50,000 spends somewhere between $7,900 and---
Alex Ulam (AU): No, it's not the elite. It's the way our tax...It's the way our housing policy has been oriented for the last twenty or thirty years. It's unsustainable---
SV: We should not be organizing ourselves and where to live. Now the elites are telling us how we should be doing it.
AU: They are making some suggestions, but -- listen -- it's unsustainable for people to live in suburbs.
SV: Who says?
AU: Well most Americans actually spend more money on transportation than they do on medical care or on taxes. The average family of four that makes $50,000 spends somewhere between $7,900 and---
Elly
I was going to mention urban farming in Detroit! I'm fascinated by this development. I think it brings real hope to blighted areas, especially those areas which have been historically "food deserts".
Cat Rocketship
n April 17, 2012 at 9:28 am
It gets complicated because the point of the exhibit Caroline is reporting on is basically that home-ownership like that — unrestricted and wholly self-fulfilling — WAS the American Dream, but is no longer. We don't have the space, or the money, or the resources, or the financial institutions to support that sort of everyone-gets-exactly-what-they-want lifestyle. The communities we built in that image are sprawling and unsustainable, and the designers and artists participating in the exhibit were tasked with imagining how society could take existing infrastructure and reimagine it in more effective, community-focused ways.
It gets complicated because the point of the exhibit Caroline is reporting on is basically that home-ownership like that — unrestricted and wholly self-fulfilling — WAS the American Dream, but is no longer. We don't have the space, or the money, or the resources, or the financial institutions to support that sort of everyone-gets-exactly-what-they-want lifestyle. The communities we built in that image are sprawling and unsustainable, and the designers and artists participating in the exhibit were tasked with imagining how society could take existing infrastructure and reimagine it in more effective, community-focused ways.
Rethinking suburbs as self-sufficient urbanized areas where work and life coexist in communal and environmentally-sustainable ways are the best use of the masses of land that have become unfeasible to support after the foreclosure crisis. The nuclear family of the bungalow house is no longer the American family, and with the change in American family must come a change in the American dream.
25 Apr, 2012 - (@kiaraworth)
innovative approaches to re-designing suburbs sustainably - exhibition at MOMA http://www.moma.org/interactives/e …@MGCY_UNCSD#sustainability
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
The principles of the architecture firms, MOS, Visible Weather, Studio Gang Architects, WORKac, and Zago Architecture led the five teams in designing alternative solutions to five unique sites. The teams created strategic solutions for the communities that went beyond building to rethink the connection between the natural environment and the built environment, pursuing new concepts in alternative energy sources, waste management and other operational programs.
The different models include infrastructure additions that seem too rational and essential to not be in tact already; indispensable items such as recycling centers, co-generating electrical plants, light rails, and even gardens for people to grow their own food. They display structures that could house families or groups of all shapes and sizes as that is the reality of the situation. The nuclear family is a thing of the past and possibly never truly existed. Life is not that simple and frankly never has been.
The American Dream has never really been my cup of tea. It never made sense to me. Maybe the world has shrunk over the last couple decades so that I, unlike generations prior who seem to have bought into the idea of the American Dream intimately, see the problems and needs of the human race more clearly. With that recent insight made possible through technology and shared information how can the blind pursuit of your own self interest and desires be the end all be all? How does this consumptive me-first attitude provide for the well being of your children and their children with the daunting realities present in today’s world? I read a quote by the author and economist Jeremy Rifkin that sums up this point better than I can. He said:
“You can’t have 6.8 billion cowboys out there and begin to think about bringing the species together in a global economy and a global biosphere.”
The American Dream is not a sustainable intelligent vision. The needs of the many are left out of the utopian backyard. And I have never witnessed, in all my days, a direct correlation between happiness and prosperity.
“You can’t have 6.8 billion cowboys out there and begin to think about bringing the species together in a global economy and a global biosphere.”
The American Dream is not a sustainable intelligent vision. The needs of the many are left out of the utopian backyard. And I have never witnessed, in all my days, a direct correlation between happiness and prosperity.
Hal Werner
2 months ago
Looking forward to seeing what the teams came up with as their models. And at least at a basic level, I completely agree that creating sustained change in the way we put together cities in a psychological issue; so many conversations I hear that advocate sprawl are full of the word "should," from people who have never fully considered or experienced other arrangements. Take the "should" out of suburbanism and you get a new and very different conversation.
Looking forward to seeing what the teams came up with as their models. And at least at a basic level, I completely agree that creating sustained change in the way we put together cities in a psychological issue; so many conversations I hear that advocate sprawl are full of the word "should," from people who have never fully considered or experienced other arrangements. Take the "should" out of suburbanism and you get a new and very different conversation.
29 May, 2012 - (@MrCotain)
Thoughts on MoMA`s Foreclosed:... http://tinyurl.com/6u6ypzx #adaptablere-use #affordable#architecture#design#green#sustainable
02 Jun, 2012 - (@KVNSLNG)
My favorite was Garden City. public pool is warmed by the heat radiated from the methane composting site underneath it! http://www.moma.org/interactives/e …
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/keizer/
06 Jun, 2012 - (@ando_sierra)
MoMa's blog on ‘Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream’. Sustainable urbanism http://www.moma.org/explore/inside …
06 Jun, 2012 - (@ando_sierra)
Amale Andraos and Dan Wood of WORKac asked, "What if we could live sustainably and close to nature?">>> Nature-City. http://www.moma.org/interactives/e …
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/keizer/
My favorite of the projects that presented an interesting concept as well as creative design was the proposal by Stuido Gang Architects, a Chicago-based practice. I admit however that I’m a little biased to projects that have adaptive reuse of shipping containers, which this project did. Their concept, however, was the one I found to be the most lively and sustainable of the group. All of the projects however presented innovative solutions for urban housing and public spaces.
Does a design exhibit ominously called Foreclosed have a fighting chance to shape a new, hopeful vision for the American suburb, traditionally a no man’s land for architecture? All five of these accomplished schemes have been imagined by architects based in large cities who offer formal solutions to the suburban housing crisis, rather than aspirational ones devised by suburban residents themselves. Obviously, many Americans value the light, space, quiet, and autonomy that suburban living affords, but this lifestyle calculus is slowly changing as prospective homebuyers realize that energy and fuel will only become scarcer and more expensive as traditional suburb-to-city commutes become longer and more perilous.
“Sustainable” is a key word here in the most basic and fundamental sense, and it’s not really referring to solar panels and well-insulated windows. These interventions alter development patterns, funding structure, and conceptions of public and private space to ensure that satellite communities can survive rising energy prices, demographic biases against suburban lifestyles, and greater concern for carbon emissions. The question is, once these changes are wrought, do these places still function as suburbs?
21 Jun, 2012 - (@donscalos)
MrCotain: Thoughts on MoMA`s Foreclosed:... http://tinyurl.com/6u6ypzx #adaptablere-use #affordable#architecture#design#green#sustainableI...
And so it seems that we can have it all: urbanity, diversity of choices, a high quality of life that does not revolve around the automobile, and a healthy and economically sustainable community. And the chance to be “roommates with nature.” I particularly love how Nature-City dares to give kids of every age a landscape of opportunity for discovery and joy.
HUFFPOST SUPER USER, psnyder325, Yep, I'm a Socialist. Deal., 1429 Fans
05:02 AM on 07/23/2012
We need a sea change in American attitudes before anything will change. First, does everyone really need a lawnmower ALL OF THEIR OWN?? Pooled resources would help a great deal. And why do people need so much land? We live in a patio home with a small back yard and very small front yard. It is more environmentally responsible. Then there is the trend to obscenely large houses. Does a couple with no children really NEED a 5K sf house? It is environmentally irresponsible to have such a house. Look at the wasted space and energy.
We must get past the concept of individualism and "what's here for me" and into the concept of sharing in our communities and doing what is best for all of us. The Republicans, of course, don't play well with others and want their individual "rights" regardless of how damaging it is to the community. In the end, it is unlikely that anything will be done that is intelligent until we're falling completely apart. Individualism is the curse of humanity.....and may well be the end of it.
We need a sea change in American attitudes before anything will change. First, does everyone really need a lawnmower ALL OF THEIR OWN?? Pooled resources would help a great deal. And why do people need so much land? We live in a patio home with a small back yard and very small front yard. It is more environmentally responsible. Then there is the trend to obscenely large houses. Does a couple with no children really NEED a 5K sf house? It is environmentally irresponsible to have such a house. Look at the wasted space and energy.
We must get past the concept of individualism and "what's here for me" and into the concept of sharing in our communities and doing what is best for all of us. The Republicans, of course, don't play well with others and want their individual "rights" regardless of how damaging it is to the community. In the end, it is unlikely that anything will be done that is intelligent until we're falling completely apart. Individualism is the curse of humanity.....and may well be the end of it.
MSROADKILL612, love auto biographys. any appS to write mine?, 260 Fans
02:03 AM on 07/23/2012
Only scanned it, but have long thought US doesnt just have the legacy of a bubble, it also has a lot of unsustainable housing that should never have been built & is worthless
Its happening now. forget peak oil. Min wage workers cant afford to drive but they have no choice~
After all this, you now have to rebuild your cities. what a waste.
Only scanned it, but have long thought US doesnt just have the legacy of a bubble, it also has a lot of unsustainable housing that should never have been built & is worthless
Its happening now. forget peak oil. Min wage workers cant afford to drive but they have no choice~
After all this, you now have to rebuild your cities. what a waste.
HUFFPOST SUPER USER, psnyder325, Yep, I'm a Socialist. Deal., 1429 Fans
05:06 AM on 07/23/2012
I'm not sure how I see the deflation of an over-inflated housing market brought about by greedy mortgage bankers and speculators has anything whatsoever to do with Obama. If we had kept sensible regulations in place during the Reagan/Bush/Clinton/Bush years, 2008's crash wouldn't have happened, and housing would not have shot through the roof. Obama is picking up the pieces. The previous 4 presidents and previous Congresses caused the problem through being in bed with the criminal international banking cartel.
I'm not sure how I see the deflation of an over-inflated housing market brought about by greedy mortgage bankers and speculators has anything whatsoever to do with Obama. If we had kept sensible regulations in place during the Reagan/Bush/Clinton/Bush years, 2008's crash wouldn't have happened, and housing would not have shot through the roof. Obama is picking up the pieces. The previous 4 presidents and previous Congresses caused the problem through being in bed with the criminal international banking cartel.
4eva, .-.. --- ...- . --..-- / -. --- - / .... .- - ., 2994 Fans
09:14 AM on 07/23/2012
You seem to be of two minds.
First you say American attitudes need to change, which I agree they must, and they will eventually when they realize how very unsustainable our sprawl pattern of development is.
Then you seem to blame one political group. That doesn't make much sense. Suburbia is filled with people of all political persuasions ... who all will have to come to the realization each one on their own that it is not a sustainable way to live.
You seem to be of two minds.
First you say American attitudes need to change, which I agree they must, and they will eventually when they realize how very unsustainable our sprawl pattern of development is.
Then you seem to blame one political group. That doesn't make much sense. Suburbia is filled with people of all political persuasions ... who all will have to come to the realization each one on their own that it is not a sustainable way to live.
Asking question such as, "What if we could create an entirely walkable suburb?" or "How can we live sustainably while close to nature?," the teams came up with truly unique, thought-provoking, and innovative proposals for addressing the crisis. My favorites were Nature City, which "combines the conveniences of urban life with the health benefits and access to agriculture of country living," and Simultaneous City, in which "publicly owned local land remains a public asset, and the income derived from development is shared with citizens" (-moma.org).
MJ: In some ways, in its effort to strengthen the demographics of certain communities, the city used the crisis of the ’70s and ’80s to subtly suburbanize low- and moderate-income neighborhoods through its land disposition and financing strategy. It pushed the needle just a bit in the direction of homeownership, and under Mayor Bloomberg’s plan up until the real estate bubble burst, homeownership—single-family, cooperative, and condominium—continued to be integral to the plan. But what has been and remains truly integral to the plan has been a commitment to encourage mixed-income and mixed-use development based upon the belief that this strategy will result in stronger developments and more stable, durable, and healthier communities.
MariJman
Once you get my age (50) you start realizing you can't take it with you
Top-Down & Bottom-Up (35)
Charles Betterton
06:18 PM on 08/10/2011
Having served as a disaster relief expert and community economic development specialist for 15 years under 5 previous US Administrations, I believe there has never been a better opportunity to provide expanded resources for individuals, organizations and communities to "claim their ultimate destiny".
The field of Community Economic Development (CED), which includes a focus on Self-help, Empowerment and Capacity Building, is best known for successes in microenterprise development, "community based development" and fostering "multi-sector collaborative partnerships".
Your initiative to recognize individuals who are stepping up and making a difference is similar to the Ultimate Destiny Hall of Fame Awards developed to recognize individuals who are fulfilling their ultimate destiny while helping others manifest their own destiny. That program recently led to a visionary description of "The United State of Americans", pending publication of a free publication on Solving the Ultimate Destiny of the USA and a proposal to help establish thousands of locally initiated non-profit CED Community Resource Centers whose mission is nearly identical with your message in this article.
The CAN DO! CED Resource Centers encompass Bucky Fuller's vision of "betterment for 100% of humanity", Authur Morgan's vision for The Great Community and it transforms Abraham Maslow's description of a fully actualized individual into a strategy for evolving more fully actualizing communities. The vision and mission is similar to several recent initiatives by President Obama and HUD Secretary Donovan such as Choice Neighborhoods, Sustainable Communities and most recently the Great Cities, Great Communities program.
Having served as a disaster relief expert and community economic development specialist for 15 years under 5 previous US Administrations, I believe there has never been a better opportunity to provide expanded resources for individuals, organizations and communities to "claim their ultimate destiny".
The field of Community Economic Development (CED), which includes a focus on Self-help, Empowerment and Capacity Building, is best known for successes in microenterprise development, "community based development" and fostering "multi-sector collaborative partnerships".
Your initiative to recognize individuals who are stepping up and making a difference is similar to the Ultimate Destiny Hall of Fame Awards developed to recognize individuals who are fulfilling their ultimate destiny while helping others manifest their own destiny. That program recently led to a visionary description of "The United State of Americans", pending publication of a free publication on Solving the Ultimate Destiny of the USA and a proposal to help establish thousands of locally initiated non-profit CED Community Resource Centers whose mission is nearly identical with your message in this article.
The CAN DO! CED Resource Centers encompass Bucky Fuller's vision of "betterment for 100% of humanity", Authur Morgan's vision for The Great Community and it transforms Abraham Maslow's description of a fully actualized individual into a strategy for evolving more fully actualizing communities. The vision and mission is similar to several recent initiatives by President Obama and HUD Secretary Donovan such as Choice Neighborhoods, Sustainable Communities and most recently the Great Cities, Great Communities program.
estosage
September 18, 2011 at 12:46PM
This sounds like a lot of over paid elitists trying to decide how everyone else should live. My suggestion is that all members of this elite team be required to move their families to this new development and reside there for at least five years as part of their contract. The most troubling is, as Fairfield Fox points out, the use of taxpayer dollars to fund this boodoggle. Who are they to declare that suburban living is dead? Then the usual outlandish lie: " many long-standing critics of the American suburb — who see it as environmentally toxic, energy wasteful and just too expensive (especially because it’s paid for by taxing the cities) " All evidence points to the suburban taxpayer as supporting the urban ghettos so your analysis is an ouit right lie. Abbot schools and other urban renewal activities are primarily supported by taxpayers from the suburbs.
This sounds like a lot of over paid elitists trying to decide how everyone else should live. My suggestion is that all members of this elite team be required to move their families to this new development and reside there for at least five years as part of their contract. The most troubling is, as Fairfield Fox points out, the use of taxpayer dollars to fund this boodoggle. Who are they to declare that suburban living is dead? Then the usual outlandish lie: " many long-standing critics of the American suburb — who see it as environmentally toxic, energy wasteful and just too expensive (especially because it’s paid for by taxing the cities) " All evidence points to the suburban taxpayer as supporting the urban ghettos so your analysis is an ouit right lie. Abbot schools and other urban renewal activities are primarily supported by taxpayers from the suburbs.
sol
Yes, the government f the american dream with regulation. Thankfully, my grandfather left brooklyn in 1948 and made it overseas. Now I dont have to f worry about regulation or whine aobut 'sub-urbia'
be rational–the future is gated communities–there is not 'community' or 'society'...just a bunch of f trying to get ahead by either playing the victim card or getting elected to congress or the executive branch.
The equivalent of a bunch of mentally re-tarded third graders run america. So yea, I think thed solution is for everyone to give one big middle finger to everyone that wants to tell other people how to live, and if they keep at it, move–
THERE ARE SEVERAL PLACES AROUND THE PLANET that are looking for professionals, america is not the only happy pie-
they give you too much sh-t, you leave. GIVE ONE BIG MIDDLE FINGER to all the little angry faced third graders as the economy sours. They dont deserve your taxes. The f idiots can't get out of a cardboard box.
December 20, 2011 at 3:47 pm
be rational–the future is gated communities–there is not 'community' or 'society'...just a bunch of f trying to get ahead by either playing the victim card or getting elected to congress or the executive branch.
The equivalent of a bunch of mentally re-tarded third graders run america. So yea, I think thed solution is for everyone to give one big middle finger to everyone that wants to tell other people how to live, and if they keep at it, move–
THERE ARE SEVERAL PLACES AROUND THE PLANET that are looking for professionals, america is not the only happy pie-
they give you too much sh-t, you leave. GIVE ONE BIG MIDDLE FINGER to all the little angry faced third graders as the economy sours. They dont deserve your taxes. The f idiots can't get out of a cardboard box.
December 20, 2011 at 3:47 pm
The imposition of professional, taxonomical knowledge obscures the complex social, spatial, economic, and cultural aspects of these territories. The realities of the suburbs—their spatial and cultural resiliencies, their persistence (not to mention formal mechanisms of governance)—suggest that big plans cannot rule the day. Foreclosed can thus be contextualized in the history of urban renewal, slum clearance, public housing, and other such large-scale, top-down housing policies that have failed. History seems to demonstrate that micro-transformations, house by house, lot by lot, bottom-up renewal, will most likely define the limits of suburban change [8].
This exhibition features proposals for the future of cities by Studio Gang, MOS, WORKac, Visible Weather and Zago Architecture. All conceptualized large-scale proposals for specific regions in the nation. The nature of the task inherently requires a top-down approach, which immediately leads to issues in terms of feasibility. Therefore, it is necessary to view these projects less so as solutions and more as catalysts of change. Spatially, I expect to see extensive transportation infrastructures and dense high-rise apartments. With the expertise of interdisciplinary teams, I am interested to see the proposed governmental and environmental policies.
Anonymous
Taking cheap pot shots at McMansions smacks of jealousy more than anything else. Would any of these architects turn down the opportunity to design a 18,000 square foot home ... or to live in one if they could afford it?
One of the beauties of the American Dream is that people can aspire to living in a large home, or a cave if they so prefer. The unilateral imposition of small standardized homes on the masses is an idea best left to the few countries that still embrace the mistaken ideology that was Communism. If these rather naive architects are so committed to that concepts they endorse for others, then I suggest they emmigrate to a former Soviet Bloc country where they will feel more fulfilled. They should take their hypocrisy with them. It has no place in the US.
2/14/2012 6:41 PM CST
One of the beauties of the American Dream is that people can aspire to living in a large home, or a cave if they so prefer. The unilateral imposition of small standardized homes on the masses is an idea best left to the few countries that still embrace the mistaken ideology that was Communism. If these rather naive architects are so committed to that concepts they endorse for others, then I suggest they emmigrate to a former Soviet Bloc country where they will feel more fulfilled. They should take their hypocrisy with them. It has no place in the US.
2/14/2012 6:41 PM CST
Anonymous
This is a terrific question for the design community but “Academics” are not equipped to address it because by definition they are insulated from the market forces that drive these questions.
Their design responses always seem to find answers in central planning socialism (or communism) where the lord in charge decrees how the little people shall live. In the context of the greatest economy on earth, these solutions always vary from amusing and trendy to useless. Ironically and predictably, the housing solutions generated by real world socialists and communists are among the worst on the planet!
Two years ago I outlined a grant project to design and build "the next American Home" using an award winning, very expensive, AE design and development team that no market rate home owner could ever afford. My local region's weather, utility rates, standard of living, aesthetic sensibilities and real estate market would all form the basis for this project. Once constructed, it would be leased and its overall performance measured over years – including elements like comfort, pride of ownership and livability in addition to the boring engineering stuff like energy performance.
The goal would be to offer a platform for the next generation of America’s homebuilders to reference when that industry recovers. I will not give away all the beans because I may resurrect it someday but needless to say, even in this economy I became too busy to fuss around with it.
2/13/2012 4:12 PM CST
Their design responses always seem to find answers in central planning socialism (or communism) where the lord in charge decrees how the little people shall live. In the context of the greatest economy on earth, these solutions always vary from amusing and trendy to useless. Ironically and predictably, the housing solutions generated by real world socialists and communists are among the worst on the planet!
Two years ago I outlined a grant project to design and build "the next American Home" using an award winning, very expensive, AE design and development team that no market rate home owner could ever afford. My local region's weather, utility rates, standard of living, aesthetic sensibilities and real estate market would all form the basis for this project. Once constructed, it would be leased and its overall performance measured over years – including elements like comfort, pride of ownership and livability in addition to the boring engineering stuff like energy performance.
The goal would be to offer a platform for the next generation of America’s homebuilders to reference when that industry recovers. I will not give away all the beans because I may resurrect it someday but needless to say, even in this economy I became too busy to fuss around with it.
2/13/2012 4:12 PM CST
Anonymous
Central Planning in Beijing might be a better place for this exhibit. Are these Utopians sure we are all too anti-social and numb to survive as a species? Are we dummies so brainwashed by the old-fashioned we just can't let go of streets, fences, single family homes and going to the store for produce? Clientless design imposed on the "masses" is not the answer to fixing the world that embarrasses these folks...the answer is not to answer the unasked question....and I am sure none of the pathetic low incomers that I know asked to live in a decommissioned pile of box cars. Architecture is evolving at a nice evolutionary rate; leave it to do so. Fix federal regulation and banking and leave this type of "creativity" in North Korea where it works so well.
2/13/2012 2:27 PM CST
2/13/2012 2:27 PM CST
jla-x
Feb 16, 12 11:27 am
Why does innovation from Architects always have to come in the form of telling people how to live their lives?
You hit the nail on the head. This goes back the the FLW broad acre city idea, that we can reinvent society in totality to fit a certain utopian vision. The problem is that every architect wants to invent the big cure not the gradual remedy, because the glory lies in being Jonas Salk not the guy who invented Robatusin. The problem with any utopian model is that it usually works in theory, but is completely unrealisable due to the given societal constraints with regard to culture and economy. I have been arguing on threads here that we need to become developers and offer realistic alternatives to crap suburbia. Once again, architects are thinking of top down solutions to what can only be achieved with bottom up models. We live in a free market society whether we like it or not. We need to create demand by building better stuff. "if you build it they will come" We can't just dictate our solutions and hope for society to demand our service. The suburban model is not going away because it is deeply part of the american culture. Rather than get rid of it, lets start by building more sustainable and enriching suburaban communities that are affordable. Look at the way the auto industry copes with these constraints...Sure a small electric car that weighs 1000 lbs. may be the best solution, but they recognise that society will not change so quick, so they focus on hybrid suv's and 4 door sedans. We need to build the "civic hybrid" equivelent of architecture right now (transitionary projects) not the electric smart car, because unfortunatly many people out there still have steel testicles hanging from the back of their pick-up trucks. If we can't even do that, how the hell are we going to do anything more radical. While I wish society was easy to change and would love to see such grand projects, it just ain't gonna happen yet.
Why does innovation from Architects always have to come in the form of telling people how to live their lives?
You hit the nail on the head. This goes back the the FLW broad acre city idea, that we can reinvent society in totality to fit a certain utopian vision. The problem is that every architect wants to invent the big cure not the gradual remedy, because the glory lies in being Jonas Salk not the guy who invented Robatusin. The problem with any utopian model is that it usually works in theory, but is completely unrealisable due to the given societal constraints with regard to culture and economy. I have been arguing on threads here that we need to become developers and offer realistic alternatives to crap suburbia. Once again, architects are thinking of top down solutions to what can only be achieved with bottom up models. We live in a free market society whether we like it or not. We need to create demand by building better stuff. "if you build it they will come" We can't just dictate our solutions and hope for society to demand our service. The suburban model is not going away because it is deeply part of the american culture. Rather than get rid of it, lets start by building more sustainable and enriching suburaban communities that are affordable. Look at the way the auto industry copes with these constraints...Sure a small electric car that weighs 1000 lbs. may be the best solution, but they recognise that society will not change so quick, so they focus on hybrid suv's and 4 door sedans. We need to build the "civic hybrid" equivelent of architecture right now (transitionary projects) not the electric smart car, because unfortunatly many people out there still have steel testicles hanging from the back of their pick-up trucks. If we can't even do that, how the hell are we going to do anything more radical. While I wish society was easy to change and would love to see such grand projects, it just ain't gonna happen yet.
MOMA, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY is getting into the act with art concerning the great American Housing foreclosure crisis. With all their ecological and environmentalist talk, their solutions may be a bit on the Pol Pot side of things. Oh well, what do you expect.
Jeannie Kim
Reaction to (and, at times, shrill critique) of) the recently opened exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, “Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream,” might suggest that – yes – perhaps designers are better off sticking to the 1% that they know well, given architecture’s repeated historic failures to address complex urban (and suburban) challenges. After all, as Steven Holl apparently said in a 2010 interview, “It’s always about the clients. Without good clients you can’t have good architecture,” (quoted in Nicolai Ouroussoff, “By the Architects, for the People: A Trend for 2010s,” The New York Times, May 3, 2010) and the 99% is a notoriously difficult client. Yet the most innovative architects have and, thankfully, will continue to engage these questions, whether speculatively or with actual “blueprints” rather than just “visions”. OWS and the 99% have been galvanized by mortgage foreclosures, setting up camp at the same time the MoMA teams were first presenting their proposals (nee “visions”) last fall. Any design activity that engages these questions needs to be linked to radical changes in fiscal policy and transit infrastructure as well, however. The announcement that the Obama administration will be unveiling new standards this week for now banks treat the millions of people facing foreclosure may help, therefore, but it’s just a step toward addressing a vast problem that architects and designers alone cannot solve.
Wednesday, February 22 at 6:05pm
Wednesday, February 22 at 6:05pm
Anderson-2
Mar 5th 2012, 13:46
One think that might be interesting is to set up one of these big internet games to virtually re-develop one of these places.
What would folks do if they had their choice? The urbanist ideas make a lot of sense to me. What might happen if you set up things like transport and development guidelines in terms of population density and small and large retail for a small satellite city and then let a whole bunch of people just wiki it out?
One think that might be interesting is to set up one of these big internet games to virtually re-develop one of these places.
What would folks do if they had their choice? The urbanist ideas make a lot of sense to me. What might happen if you set up things like transport and development guidelines in terms of population density and small and large retail for a small satellite city and then let a whole bunch of people just wiki it out?
johnberkowitzin reply to SometimesLeftSometimesRight
Mar 3rd 2012, 14:36
I agree with you 100%. The problem is that the market is not controlled by people with ideas but by people seeking profit. And building a sustainable and children-friendly environment is not that important. Each building has its own architect, own solutions and etc. But look on the wonderful planning of Brasil (the capital of Brazil), with the coherent architecture and sustainable environment. And it is almost 50 years old right now, but it looks wonderful!
I agree with you 100%. The problem is that the market is not controlled by people with ideas but by people seeking profit. And building a sustainable and children-friendly environment is not that important. Each building has its own architect, own solutions and etc. But look on the wonderful planning of Brasil (the capital of Brazil), with the coherent architecture and sustainable environment. And it is almost 50 years old right now, but it looks wonderful!
Ann, Texas
4/3/2012 15:10
What do you think MAN MADE UP GLOBAL WARNING was all about??
What do you think MAN MADE UP GLOBAL WARNING was all about??
Kim, Toronto
4/3/2012 15:01
I would not want my kids to grow up in that cold lifeless compound looking mess. I bet those designers do not have kids. Who paid for this really. I bet they have a evil plans for total control. This makes me sick to my core. All on Earth should be put on notice of this future evil plan.
I would not want my kids to grow up in that cold lifeless compound looking mess. I bet those designers do not have kids. Who paid for this really. I bet they have a evil plans for total control. This makes me sick to my core. All on Earth should be put on notice of this future evil plan.
Fred, Ca.
4/3/2012 14:49
They only left out the ovens for the peaple who do not comply and the millions of cameras to exploit the U.N. Iron fist rule!!! A CITY PRISON.
They only left out the ovens for the peaple who do not comply and the millions of cameras to exploit the U.N. Iron fist rule!!! A CITY PRISON.
Tony, Bristol, UK
3/3/2012 15:12
People aspire to live in their own homes - not apartment blocks, not condos. They want a house, with a garden for their kids. Stop with the unrealistic idea that you can force people into these sorts of housing projects.
People aspire to live in their own homes - not apartment blocks, not condos. They want a house, with a garden for their kids. Stop with the unrealistic idea that you can force people into these sorts of housing projects.
-CJW, Tracy, CA, USA
3/3/2012 12:55
Urban planners will never understand 50%+ of the population DON'T WANT to live in multi-unit dwellings in their beloved cities, but they keep trying anyway. Like Jon from Cheyenne said, many prefer and like our own S-P-A-C-E away from all of the traffic, crime, and supposed "enlightenment" that city life purports to offer. They can have it and LEAVE US ALONE!
Urban planners will never understand 50%+ of the population DON'T WANT to live in multi-unit dwellings in their beloved cities, but they keep trying anyway. Like Jon from Cheyenne said, many prefer and like our own S-P-A-C-E away from all of the traffic, crime, and supposed "enlightenment" that city life purports to offer. They can have it and LEAVE US ALONE!
Linda, Daytona Beach, FL
4/3/2012 18:37
Looks kind of like an upper class prisoner of war camp to me......another way to control people by putting them into neat little compartments. Thanks, but no thanks.
Looks kind of like an upper class prisoner of war camp to me......another way to control people by putting them into neat little compartments. Thanks, but no thanks.
One at a time, we must try to save homes from foreclosure and save communities from collapse, but we must also recognize that these are band-aid measures unless they include long-term sustainable strategies and policies for sheltering Americans in homes they can afford within communities where they can work. Acknowledging this epidemic scale, it is relevant to note that the Occupy movement is not merely a grassroots initiative; it is a network from the bottom calling for action at the top.
In rather simplistic terms, one can categorize that conflict with a series of dichotomies: public/private, large/small, national/local, and most popularly top-down/bottom-up. In many ways, American Suburbia has long been the locus of this conflict. It is, after all, the birthplace of NIMBYism, which requires at minimum the imagined territory of a backyard.
20 Mar, 2012 - (@JJakobDesign)
“Shifting Suburbia” brings visionary thinking down to earth. Not top-down, give people the design tools they need. http://www.moma.org/interactives/e …
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
SV: I want to live the way I wish to live. I want society to evolve the way it wishes to evolve.
AU: You care about where your tax dollars go, don't you?
SV: Yes, and I'll vote to make sure they go in the right place.
AU: Yes, well maybe right now too many tax dollars have been going to the suburbs, and maybe it's time to have the tax payer dollars to go to cities and making certain suburbs more sustainable and more like cities.
AU: You care about where your tax dollars go, don't you?
SV: Yes, and I'll vote to make sure they go in the right place.
AU: Yes, well maybe right now too many tax dollars have been going to the suburbs, and maybe it's time to have the tax payer dollars to go to cities and making certain suburbs more sustainable and more like cities.
SV: What is MoMA doing putting on such an obviously political exhibit? What are they doing?
AU: The Museum of Modern Art has a tradition of putting on---
Sandra Smith [blonde]: I was going to say, artists are never political.
SV: It's always the elite telling the rest of us how we should live, isn't it?
AU: No, it's---
SV: Always.
AU: No, in fact, the state of California is enacting zoning policies to make suburbs more dense. You know, and the Wall Street Journal just pointed out last week that they are trying to, instead of having four houses per acre, they're going to have twenty houses per acre.
AU: The Museum of Modern Art has a tradition of putting on---
Sandra Smith [blonde]: I was going to say, artists are never political.
SV: It's always the elite telling the rest of us how we should live, isn't it?
AU: No, it's---
SV: Always.
AU: No, in fact, the state of California is enacting zoning policies to make suburbs more dense. You know, and the Wall Street Journal just pointed out last week that they are trying to, instead of having four houses per acre, they're going to have twenty houses per acre.
Shibani Joshi (SJ): I love this concept, because I think this idea -- the white-picket-fence dream -- is now starting to get out-dated...It's not working anymore.
SV: But don't you think we can decide for ourselves...?
Shibani Joshi [brunette]: But this is what artists are doing. This is what they do. They inspire thoughts. They inspire discussion. What's wrong with it?
SV: But don't you think we can decide for ourselves...?
Shibani Joshi [brunette]: But this is what artists are doing. This is what they do. They inspire thoughts. They inspire discussion. What's wrong with it?
SV: So there's now an exhibit pointing out that the current way we live, the kind of houses that we live in, where we group together, that is unsustainable. And we, the highly intelligent people show you how to live. Notably, like that [Visible Weather's model] on the screen. Isn't that rather elitist, Alex, really?
Stuart Varney (SV): It seems to me that this exhibit is from the elites telling us how we should live. We should all live in cities, and if we don't live in cities we should turn our suburbs into cities. That's the way we should live. Isn't that the elites going at us and telling us how we mere mortals should live?
Alex Ulam (AU): No, it's not the elite. It's the way our tax...It's the way our housing policy has been oriented for the last twenty or thirty years. It's unsustainable---
SV: We should not be organizing ourselves and where to live. Now the elites are telling us how we should be doing it.
AU: They are making some suggestions, but -- listen -- it's unsustainable for people to live in suburbs.
SV: Who says?
AU: Well most Americans actually spend more money on transportation than they do on medical care or on taxes. The average family of four that makes $50,000 spends somewhere between $7,900 and---
Alex Ulam (AU): No, it's not the elite. It's the way our tax...It's the way our housing policy has been oriented for the last twenty or thirty years. It's unsustainable---
SV: We should not be organizing ourselves and where to live. Now the elites are telling us how we should be doing it.
AU: They are making some suggestions, but -- listen -- it's unsustainable for people to live in suburbs.
SV: Who says?
AU: Well most Americans actually spend more money on transportation than they do on medical care or on taxes. The average family of four that makes $50,000 spends somewhere between $7,900 and---
We were sold a faulty dream. But it is our own failing if we do not make an attempt to actually change that dream to meet the needs of all of us moving forward. We have brilliant ideas in circulation, everywhere. Ones that can lay the blueprints to a promising future. Heck, all you have to do is head to the Museum of Modern Art in New York to see for yourself.
If we can change the dream we can, possibly, change reality.
If we can change the dream we can, possibly, change reality.
These models are examples of the type of communities we should be demanding! Furthermore the designers, and capable minds like them, should be in positions to make decisions in regards to planning. With great talent and intelligence SHOULD come great responsibility.
Grahampuba
MAY 29, 2012 • 6:30 AM
Usually the eye roll comes at a roof garden with mature trees on the 93rd floor, but waterfalls..? Other thoughts would have been; are those Petri dish? are we plebs bacteria colonizing on your culture? I’d like to think i would have come to the same conclusion but I think i would have not made it past the waterfall Voltron skyscraper without cursing enough to be shown the door.
Usually the eye roll comes at a roof garden with mature trees on the 93rd floor, but waterfalls..? Other thoughts would have been; are those Petri dish? are we plebs bacteria colonizing on your culture? I’d like to think i would have come to the same conclusion but I think i would have not made it past the waterfall Voltron skyscraper without cursing enough to be shown the door.
It is important to acknowledge that housing is a tool of political power. Just as high jobless rates work to drive down wages (thus hurting workers and helping employers), so too high rates of homelessness, as well as overcrowding and substandard housing, serve to inflate the profits of real estate developers and mortgage bankers. At this most fundamental level, the threat of homelessness gives the 1% greater leverage over the 99%. If we guarantee that as a nation we will uphold the right to housing codified in Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, then we will empower the poor — a class which these days is expanding to include many who once felt secure in the middle.
Another salutary aspect of the exhibition was the designers' recognition that both old and new suburbs fail to meet the growing diversity of housing needs — e.g., extended families, granny flats, home offices, group living, etc. Both "Nature-City," designed by WORKac for a site in Oregon, and "Property with Properties," by Zago Architecture for a site in Southern California, feature units of different sizes, types and densities. Niche demand (including dispersed rural communities, and supportive and transitional housing) can be more nimbly met by entrepreneurial non-profits working with government support than by top-down housing authorities. But even so-called traditional families would benefit from having more choice with regard to housing providers — with government serving as a watchdog against discrimination and retaliation. When public housing is the only housing provider — the provider of last resort, as it often is today — government itself can become the agent of discrimination, as is the case when it imposes “zero tolerance” rules for minor drug possession — the kind of rule that often results in poor families being evicted. While Reinhold Martin wonders whether we can any longer "imagine an architecture without developers," we would argue that to substitute "government" for "developers" seems an insufficiently nuanced proposition, and that government can have more impact by promoting a diversity of public-serving private developers than by commissioning architecture itself.
(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
(2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.
— Article 25, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, United Nations
(2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.
— Article 25, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, United Nations
Think of Foreclosed, then, as a highly controlled laboratory experiment, a mapping of constraints and a documentation of erasures. It represents one contribution that a university and a museum can make together, as participants in the public sphere, or the multivalent space in which public opinion — and "common sense" — is formed and contested. Whether it contributes to anything like a shift in the dominant paradigm remains to be seen. Thus far, indications are that it has touched a nerve. Whether that translates merely into a nervous reaction or into strategies for structural transformation from below, from above, and from the sides — this is our mutual challenge to take up in this discussion, and beyond.
It is equally interesting, and maybe troubling, that the overwhelming majority of the projects did not take up practices of participatory design that also date back to the 1970s and even earlier. Still, it is worth noting that the more recent codification of “bottom-up” approaches to housing, particularly in Latin America, has coincided with neoliberal “structural adjustment” in the global economy. In the case of sites-and-services and other models of user-generated, low-income housing — in which municipalities provide only minimal financing and basic infrastructure (e.g., water, electricity, sanitation) and depend upon residents to construct their own shelter — this has often meant, among other things, offloading the material cost of that housing onto the backs of already dispossessed residents. This reality in no way delegitimizes vital efforts to empower residents in the provision of housing; it merely marks one of the potential contradictions — the fact that residents are often compelled by implicit, seemingly horizontal power relations to participate in processes that validate and perpetuate their own dispossession. And it suggests that empowerment from below must center on developing the political resources with which to contest — intellectually and pragmatically — the very structures by which this occurs.
(Un)Realistic Proposals (95)
tony
December 4, 2011 at 18:57
This seems an ill-considered proposal.. it is a “griddy” proposal of redundant elements that fail to communicate formally or conceptually. A tower with artificial waterfall generating power
is neutralised by the need for electricity to pump water into the tower.[which does not have enough volume to feed any substantial amount of water back to the development}. The park looks like a urban wasteland waiting to happen no program feeds into the park, it is just another discontinuous element of “green space”. It is fine to propose these sustainable ideas but where are the numbers and technology to support it.
2nd year Architectural project…at best
This seems an ill-considered proposal.. it is a “griddy” proposal of redundant elements that fail to communicate formally or conceptually. A tower with artificial waterfall generating power
is neutralised by the need for electricity to pump water into the tower.[which does not have enough volume to feed any substantial amount of water back to the development}. The park looks like a urban wasteland waiting to happen no program feeds into the park, it is just another discontinuous element of “green space”. It is fine to propose these sustainable ideas but where are the numbers and technology to support it.
2nd year Architectural project…at best
In the design process, the architect is the principal actor in the processing of concepts into the form and aesthetic of a proposal. The impact of the concepts will therefore depend largely on the extent to which the architect determines their conformity with the overall design concept. Collaboration in this context occurs merely on the periphery of the design process and is thus constrained. At the outset of the process, the architect embraced the proposed ecological design strategies. However, in the course of the translation of these strategies into a design aesthetic, a sustained process for facilitating input from the ecologist was never fully developed or attempted, with mixed results in the extent to which the architect was able to effectively capture the ecological concepts. Consequently, while the final proposal of misregistration provides a compelling aesthetic, its actual ecological functionality remains open to question.
Alexander J Felson
MARCH 21, 2012, 12:40 P.M.
First, I really appreciate the commentary from both KB (12/15) and DK (03/07) regarding the rewilding concepts in relation to suburbanization. I would like to respond first to DK’s point of building dense and compact cities and leaving the “hinterland and wilderness as intact as possible” is the ideal and I certainly do not disagree with this position. That said this is not what is taking place on the ground. Urbanization is continuing to spread into the hinterlands here in the US, in China, India, and Brazil and around the globe. The proposal here is to consider the potential for these exurban developments to adopt an ecological mandate.The focus on the MOMA exhibit and analysis is also very specific and thus the proposal needs to be seen in its context. We were specifically tasked with looking at foreclosure housing projects and how as designers and scientists we might bring federal funding to address some of the issues faced. Thus the site was selected for us, and due to its proximity to the San Bernardino National Forest and the ecologically intact conditions of the surrounding context including the Lytle Creek Wash, we saw the notion of creating a neighborhood focused in part on ecological management as an opportunity for collaboration between developers, the federal government and future homeowners.A third factor to consider is climate change and global warming. The earth is changing in part through large-scale anthropogenic causes. These are creating pressures and constraints on the hinterland ecosystems and organisms. Already, there are discussions of how to foster species migration as their ranges shift north. This is an area that scientists are keenly interested in the role they might play. Consider the species introductions, assisted migrations and other efforts scientists are already participating with the goal of enhancing ecosystems. In other words, just leaving the hinterlands out there “undisturbed” by the built environment does not mean they remain undisturbed, and to maintain ecosystems and organisms human interventions will likely be an important component. Consider John Foley’s diagram of the changing landscape conditions – where is the “hinterlands” in his diagram?Finally, Rewilding (and this goes back to KB’s comments) is a radical proposal and one that is debated amongst ecologist. Much of the issue arises from the concern over human – wildlife conflict that would likely ensue if we were to reintroduce large carnivores etc. to the US. At the same time, most ecologists would agree that top down predation would benefit ecosystem health and lead to greater diversity of species. Thus the issue is one of public acceptance. As a result, getting this concept out there through a variety of venues (given that Rewilding is in the “marketing” stage) should mostly benefit the cause. It is a much more radical concept than simply allowing people to manage biological systems at the urban fringe and is intended to create debate and discussion.The MoMA exhibit is pervaded by architectural discourse of the suburb and could use this layer of integration of knowledge into new suburban forms. The architect and their modes of working and analysis were prioritized and sites open to large development were sites for new visions. Still, the rewilding concept is part of the exhibit, which means that tens of thousands of museumgoers visiting the exhibit will have the opportunity to reflect on what role people can play in managing ecosystems in their neighborhoods, and on the potential value of rewilding as a concept to consider for promoting ecosystem function.
First, I really appreciate the commentary from both KB (12/15) and DK (03/07) regarding the rewilding concepts in relation to suburbanization. I would like to respond first to DK’s point of building dense and compact cities and leaving the “hinterland and wilderness as intact as possible” is the ideal and I certainly do not disagree with this position. That said this is not what is taking place on the ground. Urbanization is continuing to spread into the hinterlands here in the US, in China, India, and Brazil and around the globe. The proposal here is to consider the potential for these exurban developments to adopt an ecological mandate.The focus on the MOMA exhibit and analysis is also very specific and thus the proposal needs to be seen in its context. We were specifically tasked with looking at foreclosure housing projects and how as designers and scientists we might bring federal funding to address some of the issues faced. Thus the site was selected for us, and due to its proximity to the San Bernardino National Forest and the ecologically intact conditions of the surrounding context including the Lytle Creek Wash, we saw the notion of creating a neighborhood focused in part on ecological management as an opportunity for collaboration between developers, the federal government and future homeowners.A third factor to consider is climate change and global warming. The earth is changing in part through large-scale anthropogenic causes. These are creating pressures and constraints on the hinterland ecosystems and organisms. Already, there are discussions of how to foster species migration as their ranges shift north. This is an area that scientists are keenly interested in the role they might play. Consider the species introductions, assisted migrations and other efforts scientists are already participating with the goal of enhancing ecosystems. In other words, just leaving the hinterlands out there “undisturbed” by the built environment does not mean they remain undisturbed, and to maintain ecosystems and organisms human interventions will likely be an important component. Consider John Foley’s diagram of the changing landscape conditions – where is the “hinterlands” in his diagram?Finally, Rewilding (and this goes back to KB’s comments) is a radical proposal and one that is debated amongst ecologist. Much of the issue arises from the concern over human – wildlife conflict that would likely ensue if we were to reintroduce large carnivores etc. to the US. At the same time, most ecologists would agree that top down predation would benefit ecosystem health and lead to greater diversity of species. Thus the issue is one of public acceptance. As a result, getting this concept out there through a variety of venues (given that Rewilding is in the “marketing” stage) should mostly benefit the cause. It is a much more radical concept than simply allowing people to manage biological systems at the urban fringe and is intended to create debate and discussion.The MoMA exhibit is pervaded by architectural discourse of the suburb and could use this layer of integration of knowledge into new suburban forms. The architect and their modes of working and analysis were prioritized and sites open to large development were sites for new visions. Still, the rewilding concept is part of the exhibit, which means that tens of thousands of museumgoers visiting the exhibit will have the opportunity to reflect on what role people can play in managing ecosystems in their neighborhoods, and on the potential value of rewilding as a concept to consider for promoting ecosystem function.
Here are thoughts from Alexander Felson, a member of Andrew Zago’s team.
What is most interesting, and hauntingly familiar, is the ecologist’s critique of the final proposal:
“However, in the course of the translation of these strategies into a design aesthetic, a sustained process for facilitating input from the ecologist was never fully developed or attempted, with mixed results in the extent to which the architect was able to effectively capture the ecological concepts. Consequently, while the final proposal of misregistration provides a compelling aesthetic, its actual ecological functionality remains open to question.”
We see this time and again, where some sort of abstract design aesthetic is forced onto the landscape, marginalizing or worse yet, ignoring the basic tenants of ecology, and then championed in the name of ‘sustainability’. Once again, it goes to show that many architects (and landscape architects) talk a good talk about ecological issues but rarely understand the science and almost certainly don’t know how to fully integrate sound ecological principles into their work. The two are not mutually exclusive.
What is most interesting, and hauntingly familiar, is the ecologist’s critique of the final proposal:
“However, in the course of the translation of these strategies into a design aesthetic, a sustained process for facilitating input from the ecologist was never fully developed or attempted, with mixed results in the extent to which the architect was able to effectively capture the ecological concepts. Consequently, while the final proposal of misregistration provides a compelling aesthetic, its actual ecological functionality remains open to question.”
We see this time and again, where some sort of abstract design aesthetic is forced onto the landscape, marginalizing or worse yet, ignoring the basic tenants of ecology, and then championed in the name of ‘sustainability’. Once again, it goes to show that many architects (and landscape architects) talk a good talk about ecological issues but rarely understand the science and almost certainly don’t know how to fully integrate sound ecological principles into their work. The two are not mutually exclusive.
As one example, MOS Architects (undoubtedly under the influence of The Buell Hypothesis) dismisses the street, the block, and the playground as spatial mythologies. They probably didn't mean it the way it sounds. However, as indicated earlier, their solution reaffirms the same trope by superimposing Constant’s New Babylon-redux upon the old neighborhood—a new fantasy in place of the old.
30 Jan, 2012 - (@DesignerTweetz)
"Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Ma... http://bit.ly/wQrDCr
LECORBUSIER
The writer of this article doesn't seem to have the foggiest idea of what is actually being done to fix the suburbs. For a summary of the good work being done, see the book Retrofitting Suburbia by Ellen Dunham-Jones.
As I would expect from MOMA, the designers in this exhibit are more interested in attracting attention to themselves by doing something new and different than in doing something that can work: "Michael Bell would herd newcomers to Temple Terrace, Florida, into a pair of high-tech megastructures lifted above vast urban plazas. Zago turns the classic subdivision into a largely car-free cubist collage...."
Obviously, this sort of thing cannot be done. But when the writer concludes that transforming the suburbs "probably can’t be done" at all, he just shows that he has not looked beyond this museum exhibit at what actually is being done in suburbs across America.
6 Months Ago
As I would expect from MOMA, the designers in this exhibit are more interested in attracting attention to themselves by doing something new and different than in doing something that can work: "Michael Bell would herd newcomers to Temple Terrace, Florida, into a pair of high-tech megastructures lifted above vast urban plazas. Zago turns the classic subdivision into a largely car-free cubist collage...."
Obviously, this sort of thing cannot be done. But when the writer concludes that transforming the suburbs "probably can’t be done" at all, he just shows that he has not looked beyond this museum exhibit at what actually is being done in suburbs across America.
6 Months Ago
Anonymous
There's ample evidence that these ill-informed speculations lead nowhere. Not anywhere useful anyway. But speculation is easier than dealing with hard facts and the practical exigencies of real design for real people. (There's nothing a liberal academic hates more than a fact. Acknowledging facts undermines the whole basis for their existence in the fantasy land that is architectural academia.) So let's stop humoring these self-serving, compost-dome loving con artists. There's more newsworthy architecture out there if Record would get some sense and seek it out.
2/16/2012 6:23 PM CST
2/16/2012 6:23 PM CST
Anonymous
News to MoMA: You don't need abstract, avant-garde "investigations" on the subject. This work is already being done, in practical ways. Entire books have been written documenting case studies. The Sprawl Repair Manual is an entire book filled with PRACTICAL design and implementation methods to accomplish this challenge.
2/16/2012 6:05 PM CST
2/16/2012 6:05 PM CST
Anonymous
Theory-based architects consider themselves the vanguard of civilization, leading mere mortals towards a better world where untested ideas are more relevant than facts. The vision and superior attitude of these self-anointed guardians of our future lacks respect for the wisdom inherent in experience and common opinion. Its practitioners value abstractions—dreams for an egalitarian world where conflicts and the preferences rooted in individuality do not exist. The cold urban wastelands that result from this approach are to be seen all over Eastern Europe. Why would anyone want to repeat these mistakes now?
2/16/2012 12:40 PM CST
2/16/2012 12:40 PM CST
Anonymous
Spend the money that these proposals would waste by creating impractical and ambiguous geometries on rehabbing existing city homes. In this age, the architect doesn't have to make an artistic statement to do good to a neighborhood.
2/16/2012 10:36 AM CST
2/16/2012 10:36 AM CST
Anonymous
I'm guessing the people who will inhabit the newly roadless (or road filled) scheme by MOS will never need a fire truck or an ambulence. - I'd like to hear their thoughts on how they planned for these rather basic needs.
2/15/2012 5:45 PM CST
2/15/2012 5:45 PM CST
Anonymous
These proposals are shockingly superficial. They are all rooted in slick but meaningless graphics that bear no relationship to the human condition they are intended to adress. There's a huge gap between the abstraction of misguided and untested "theories" and the reality of "shelter".
2/15/2012 4:48 PM CST
2/15/2012 4:48 PM CST
I can assure you that the typical American family threatened with eviction and foreclosure is not fantasizing about the sort of solutions proposed by these very delusional and self-indulgent architects. They would laugh at Andrew Zago's childish scheme of deformed and cartoonish boxes. And they'd be right to do so. The work is ridiculous. - The regimented and joyless schemes proposed here seem more like the slums of the future rather than the solution to the problem as posed.
2/15/2012 3:18 PM CST
2/15/2012 3:18 PM CST
Anonymous
To the commenter below who said "BTW, people are stupid ..." - Just because you lack intelligence, don't assume everyone else is in the same boat. The comparison with Steve Jobs and Apple is highly selective. For every Apple there has been a slew of failures. The projects shown here seem more likely to be in the failure category. We've seen this stuff before. It didn't work then, it won't work now. - But it's a free country. If these architects chose to be pretentious, who am I to stop them. It's their mind to waste revisiting dead end speculations.
2/14/2012 2:42 PM CST
2/14/2012 2:42 PM CST
Anonymous
There's a reason the general public prefer New Urbanism to the quasi-intellectual fantasies proposed here. The former adresses the real needs of the end users in a way that has stood the test of time, even as it evolves stylistically and functionally. As evidenced in the elitist and out-of-touch works shown here, the latter approach is at best a disconnected abstration that responds only to the imposed program of its creator. It has no basis in the world we as architects are supposed to service. Using trumped up jargon like "investigations" or "speculations" cannot hide the intellectual abyss from which this work emanates.
2/14/2012 12:58 PM CST
2/14/2012 12:58 PM CST
Anonymous
Studio Gang seems to have recycled Yona Friedman and a lot of the futurist thinking of the sixties. That was fifty years ago. It turned out not to be all that palatable then and I don't think it's going to do any better today. On the whole, I have to agree with the previous comments about how out of sync with the real world these proposals happen to be. McMansions are not the answer and I think most people today would agree that little boxes all in a row (ticky tacky) don't make the grade either but higher densities and an architectural language that comforts rather than confronts may provide some of the answers that we are seeking. I am not talking about the acres of "townhomes" that spring up in the suburbs. I am suggesting something else altogether that is neither that nor what we are seeing in the "Foreclosed" exhibition.
Jim Pettit (I am not anonymous)
2/13/2012 4:08 PM CST
Jim Pettit (I am not anonymous)
2/13/2012 4:08 PM CST
Anonymous
Once again, I applaud MOMA reaching out to Architects for thoughtful investigations. One hopes that someday actionable ideas come out of this brainstorming. The argument that the housing industry is not serving the needs of Americans is valid, but not much in this show is any better. Like "Home Delivery" and "Small Scale: Big Change", earlier MOMA investigations, these aesthetic fantasies are appealing to look at but largely out of touch.
2/13/2012 3:45 PM CST
2/13/2012 3:45 PM CST
Anonymous
As long as the architectural media continues its wrong-headed fascination with "speculation" conducted in a vacuum, we'll continue to see vapid presentations like these. The best architecture has always come from a clear examination of real problems. Post-facto selection of only the particular information that suits the pre-conceived thesis is best left in the pretentious world of psuedo intellectuals where it belongs. Just don't foist this nonsense on the public who deserve better.
2/29/2012 9:03 AM CST
2/29/2012 9:03 AM CST
The most provocative idea in the show may belong to MOS—the firm headed by Michael Meredith and Hilary Sample—which focuses on East Orange, New Jersey. The plan acknowledges the lack of pedestrian life in today’s suburbs and reclaims the streets themselves as building sites. That allows increased density without the need to demolish existing housing. But if the idea is strong, details, of what the “ribbon” buildings” would look like and how they would function, are sparse.
The other star of the exhibition is Jeanne Gang, the Chicago architect. She and her teammates tackled the problems of Cicero, an older Chicago suburb that is filled with rotting industrial facilities but not the kind of housing needed by its large immigrant population. They decided to play to Cicero’s strengths, as what Gang calls an “arrival city,” by creating modular housing that can go up or down in size as families evolve. They also reclaimed industrial facilities as gardens and, like most of the teams, came up with an unconventional financing scheme. Like the very different WORKac proposal, Gang’s Cicero proposal seems practically shovel-ready, even though, as she pointed out in a New York Times op-ed, it remains illegal under Chicago’s zoning code.
That proposal is by Amale Andraos and Dan Wood of WORKac, for a section of Keizer, Oregon that would be five times as dense as neighboring suburbs, but with three times as much open space. A gorgeous, dome-shaped structure contains a community composting plant. Around it are buildings that recall the best work of Steven Holl, Bjarke Ingels, and MVRDV. One imagines a developer seeing Andraos and Wood’s elaborate 1:250 model, depicting a gently futuristic suburb, and wanting to break ground tomorrow.
Factor in mixed-use zoning that would allow alleys to become vibrant marketplaces lined by cottage industries that residents would run out of garages (left; below, the same alley now, with an existing parking lot in the background), and — presto! — you have a vision fit for displaying on the walls of a prestigious museum.Whether it would work is a different matter.
While there are ample reasons to be skeptical about Gang's design for Cicero, it should help kick-start a much-needed debate about alternatives to the standard single-family house on a grassy lot. Our homes should fit the realities of how we live, not some preordained myth of the American dream. But making the right fit among form, function and finance is no simple matter, as a close look at Gang's design reveals.
According to New York Magazine, Some of the concepts posited by these visionaries are fanciful and even silly; others are bold but intriguing - Bergdoll asked the team, when ideas seemed exceedingly far fetched, to ask practical questions about energy consumption, fire codes, zoning laws, etc. that they would need to consider to make their projects feasible in real time.
Nam Henderson
Apr 26, 12 7:38 pm
Recently saw that ICON took the same general critical tone regarding the exhibition.
"This sort of vague, non-ideological collectivism hangs over the entire show. Designs by Visible Weather and, in particular, Zago Architecture, stress the blurring of the usual lines between public and private, renting and owning, residential and commercial sites. Such imprecise boundaries give these projects a Ballardian air: what use is changing the dream if you replace it with a nightmare?"
More http://www.iconeye.com/news/news/foreclosed-rehousing-the-american-dream
Recently saw that ICON took the same general critical tone regarding the exhibition.
"This sort of vague, non-ideological collectivism hangs over the entire show. Designs by Visible Weather and, in particular, Zago Architecture, stress the blurring of the usual lines between public and private, renting and owning, residential and commercial sites. Such imprecise boundaries give these projects a Ballardian air: what use is changing the dream if you replace it with a nightmare?"
More http://www.iconeye.com/news/news/foreclosed-rehousing-the-american-dream
jla-x
Feb 23, 12 12:07 pm
Sub-urban and suburban are also two very different things. I would argue that sub-urban is not bad. A good example of this is in some parts of Brooklyn, Queens, and Nassau county NY. The density is greater than the typical suburban environment, and there is a small business walkable street scape that flanks a mix of multi and single family housing in many of these neighborhoods. There is also access to public transit in and out of the city. There is a mix of home owners and renters, and the opportunity to own a house and rent out the top floor. There is a sense of community and a feeling of being in a small town within a city. The film "Do the Right Thing" by Spike Lee so clearly expresses this. Another issue is density. More density is not the solution alone. We need to find an appropriate balance of density, production, and economy so that development can be in some sort of sustainable balance. I think that sub-urban form has the greatest potential for a sustainable development because there is enough space to support a mix of agriculture, industry,small business, housing, park space, etc...as well as enough density to support local businesses with regard to employees and consumers. Cities like manhattan will never be able to become hybrid typologies because things like urban agriculture and production will be far too expensive due to crazy high land prices. The only problem with the sub-urban typology is that it sometimes becomes gentrified over time as we see in brooklyn or the opposite happens where it becomes a ghetto due to the home values going down as density goes up like in Jamaica Queens (balance is always a thin line). On the other hand, suburban development lends itself to exploitation by corporate interests as James R. clearly articulates. The American dream of owning a single family home is not going away. It is a part of the American culture that dates back hundreds of years. We need to find a solution to the problem without ignoring the cultural mentality that led to it. This is why ideas like the ones in the MoMA exhibit never work. I believe that we need to study examples that already work like Astoria, and go from there.
Sub-urban and suburban are also two very different things. I would argue that sub-urban is not bad. A good example of this is in some parts of Brooklyn, Queens, and Nassau county NY. The density is greater than the typical suburban environment, and there is a small business walkable street scape that flanks a mix of multi and single family housing in many of these neighborhoods. There is also access to public transit in and out of the city. There is a mix of home owners and renters, and the opportunity to own a house and rent out the top floor. There is a sense of community and a feeling of being in a small town within a city. The film "Do the Right Thing" by Spike Lee so clearly expresses this. Another issue is density. More density is not the solution alone. We need to find an appropriate balance of density, production, and economy so that development can be in some sort of sustainable balance. I think that sub-urban form has the greatest potential for a sustainable development because there is enough space to support a mix of agriculture, industry,small business, housing, park space, etc...as well as enough density to support local businesses with regard to employees and consumers. Cities like manhattan will never be able to become hybrid typologies because things like urban agriculture and production will be far too expensive due to crazy high land prices. The only problem with the sub-urban typology is that it sometimes becomes gentrified over time as we see in brooklyn or the opposite happens where it becomes a ghetto due to the home values going down as density goes up like in Jamaica Queens (balance is always a thin line). On the other hand, suburban development lends itself to exploitation by corporate interests as James R. clearly articulates. The American dream of owning a single family home is not going away. It is a part of the American culture that dates back hundreds of years. We need to find a solution to the problem without ignoring the cultural mentality that led to it. This is why ideas like the ones in the MoMA exhibit never work. I believe that we need to study examples that already work like Astoria, and go from there.
jla-x
Feb 16, 12 11:27 am
Why does innovation from Architects always have to come in the form of telling people how to live their lives?
You hit the nail on the head. This goes back the the FLW broad acre city idea, that we can reinvent society in totality to fit a certain utopian vision. The problem is that every architect wants to invent the big cure not the gradual remedy, because the glory lies in being Jonas Salk not the guy who invented Robatusin. The problem with any utopian model is that it usually works in theory, but is completely unrealisable due to the given societal constraints with regard to culture and economy. I have been arguing on threads here that we need to become developers and offer realistic alternatives to crap suburbia. Once again, architects are thinking of top down solutions to what can only be achieved with bottom up models. We live in a free market society whether we like it or not. We need to create demand by building better stuff. "if you build it they will come" We can't just dictate our solutions and hope for society to demand our service. The suburban model is not going away because it is deeply part of the american culture. Rather than get rid of it, lets start by building more sustainable and enriching suburaban communities that are affordable. Look at the way the auto industry copes with these constraints...Sure a small electric car that weighs 1000 lbs. may be the best solution, but they recognise that society will not change so quick, so they focus on hybrid suv's and 4 door sedans. We need to build the "civic hybrid" equivelent of architecture right now (transitionary projects) not the electric smart car, because unfortunatly many people out there still have steel testicles hanging from the back of their pick-up trucks. If we can't even do that, how the hell are we going to do anything more radical. While I wish society was easy to change and would love to see such grand projects, it just ain't gonna happen yet.
Why does innovation from Architects always have to come in the form of telling people how to live their lives?
You hit the nail on the head. This goes back the the FLW broad acre city idea, that we can reinvent society in totality to fit a certain utopian vision. The problem is that every architect wants to invent the big cure not the gradual remedy, because the glory lies in being Jonas Salk not the guy who invented Robatusin. The problem with any utopian model is that it usually works in theory, but is completely unrealisable due to the given societal constraints with regard to culture and economy. I have been arguing on threads here that we need to become developers and offer realistic alternatives to crap suburbia. Once again, architects are thinking of top down solutions to what can only be achieved with bottom up models. We live in a free market society whether we like it or not. We need to create demand by building better stuff. "if you build it they will come" We can't just dictate our solutions and hope for society to demand our service. The suburban model is not going away because it is deeply part of the american culture. Rather than get rid of it, lets start by building more sustainable and enriching suburaban communities that are affordable. Look at the way the auto industry copes with these constraints...Sure a small electric car that weighs 1000 lbs. may be the best solution, but they recognise that society will not change so quick, so they focus on hybrid suv's and 4 door sedans. We need to build the "civic hybrid" equivelent of architecture right now (transitionary projects) not the electric smart car, because unfortunatly many people out there still have steel testicles hanging from the back of their pick-up trucks. If we can't even do that, how the hell are we going to do anything more radical. While I wish society was easy to change and would love to see such grand projects, it just ain't gonna happen yet.
Nam Henderson
Feb 15, 12 7:15 pm
Or to reference a line from Blair Kamin's review of Jeanne Gang studios contribution to the exhibit maybe what is needed is less concept more blueprint?
Or to reference a line from Blair Kamin's review of Jeanne Gang studios contribution to the exhibit maybe what is needed is less concept more blueprint?
Keith Carlson
Feb 15, 12 11:10 am
I thought I would post this interesting interview w/ Michael Bell. It seems we are always discussing ways to put architects back in the driver's seat of the building process. I thought he posed some interesting solutions to immediate, real problems.
I really liked his holistic approach of re-casting the financing business model and working with members of that community to create a new paradigm.
http://www.reuters.com/video/2012/02/14/reuters-tv-a-radical-approach-to-homeownership-feli?videoId=230166482&videoChannel=117757
I am hoping the show runs through June so I can see it in NY.
I thought I would post this interesting interview w/ Michael Bell. It seems we are always discussing ways to put architects back in the driver's seat of the building process. I thought he posed some interesting solutions to immediate, real problems.
I really liked his holistic approach of re-casting the financing business model and working with members of that community to create a new paradigm.
http://www.reuters.com/video/2012/02/14/reuters-tv-a-radical-approach-to-homeownership-feli?videoId=230166482&videoChannel=117757
I am hoping the show runs through June so I can see it in NY.
I thought I would post this interesting interview w/ Michael Bell. It seems we are always discussing ways to put architects back in the driver's seat of the building process. I thought he posed some interesting solutions to immediate, real problems.
I really liked his holistic approach of re-casting the financing business model and working with members of that community to create a new paradigm.
I really liked his holistic approach of re-casting the financing business model and working with members of that community to create a new paradigm.
Laurie Manfra
2. I feel the reviewer missed the mark this time. The design teams for Foreclosed are young architects (hardly deserving of the term “starchitects,” since they have comparatively built far less than today’s typical starchitect.) I visited the open studios and lectures that were held at P.S.1 over the past year and a half. The program is meant to be thought-provoking and exploratory, as opposed to concrete in its proposed solutions. I was impressed by the amount of data compiled by the teams (in their efforts to document the megaregions) and the thoughtfulness evident in their evolving research. The exhibition is meant to inspire people with new ideas, and new approaches to familiar problems. Obviously, architects can’t solve the foreclosure problem (that’s our banking system’s responsibility), but they can document patterns of potential future growth for these massive regions, which the teams certainly accomplished by last August during the open studios. The purpose of the excerise is to imagine new housing opportunities in regions where two large cities share resources and transport systems. Mr. Bell doesn’t mention this fact. If the teams were working in small neighborhoods and failed to engage the community, his criticisms would ring true. But these are large-scale regions with massive populations.
February 22, 2012, @ 12:50 p.m.
February 22, 2012, @ 12:50 p.m.
AP: What chance does a scheme like this have of being realized?
Jeanne Gang (JG): I think we can’t afford not to realize something. We have so many issues especially in the inner ring suburbs where we were looking at, like Cicero, where developers kind of hop-skip over them and sprawl out into further and further-out suburbs, which just increases our dependence on the car.
Jeanne Gang (JG): I think we can’t afford not to realize something. We have so many issues especially in the inner ring suburbs where we were looking at, like Cicero, where developers kind of hop-skip over them and sprawl out into further and further-out suburbs, which just increases our dependence on the car.
16 Feb, 2012 - (@AlJavieera)
MT @johncaryDesign Corps' Bryan Bell claims the new "Foreclosed" exhibition at the MoMA sets design back 10 years http://bit.ly/wNi18W
Now the trick is to try to implement one of these options. (See some images here.) While it is interesting to consider what might be done, it would be useful to ask the architects about how they would go about putting these plans into action in particular suburbs. What would suburban governments and residents approve? Where would the funding come from? A prominent composting plant? Gang’s plan requires changing a lot of zoning laws? Looking at some of the comments to this story, there is some skepticism. If these designs are in a museum, is the exhibit intended to be more art or practical design?
Each proposal in “Foreclosed” actively seeks to address the issues that many dying towns in America face today, as industry leaves and bills go unpaid. While the ideas may seem too radical to implement, it’s this type of innovative thinking that will put American housing on a more sustainable and affordable path.
20 Feb, 2012 - (@FictionWitch)
Rather Utopian approaches to reconfiguring US suburbs. http://www.moma.org/interactives/e …Not sure people would actually want to live in these...
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
A provocative exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), Foreclosed, wants to change that, by insisting that suburban single-family homes have played a role in the foreclosure crisis. Curated by Barry Bergdoll and produced in less than three years (lightning-fast for large museums like MoMA), Foreclosed presents five architectural projects that rethink the suburbs from their economic underpinnings to their aesthetic character. But while the exhibit’s thesis that sprawl is toxic jives with that of many urbanists, the architectural remedies on display seem almost as problematic.
Who is going to pay for those architect-designed plans for the suburbs? | Legally Sociable
March 16, 2012 at 12:04 PM
[...] reviewing the “Foreclosed” exhibit at MoMA, Felix Salmon raises an interesting question: who is going to pay for these projects to be built? [...]
[...] reviewing the “Foreclosed” exhibit at MoMA, Felix Salmon raises an interesting question: who is going to pay for these projects to be built? [...]
PH [Voice over]: Orange Mayor Eldridge Hawkins had not yet seen the plans.
[to Mayor Hawkins (EH)]: Could it help solve the crisis?
EH: I think it’s a novel idea. I think it might be a little bit more futuristic, something down the road, but the theme in and of itself is not that strange or different than what we’re trying to establish here.
[to Mayor Hawkins (EH)]: Could it help solve the crisis?
EH: I think it’s a novel idea. I think it might be a little bit more futuristic, something down the road, but the theme in and of itself is not that strange or different than what we’re trying to establish here.
PH: We took the plans out to Orange in Essex County, which has one of the state’s highest foreclosure rates.
Woman on Street: [looking at images] I really like it.
Man on Street: [looking at images] Fantastic.
Woman 2 on Street: [looking at images] Sounds like something from the Jetsons.
Woman on Street: [looking at images] I really like it.
Man on Street: [looking at images] Fantastic.
Woman 2 on Street: [looking at images] Sounds like something from the Jetsons.
New York is a dense area accessible to public transit, Tampa, Los Angeles, and Portland are areas full of ‘failed’ housing, and Chicago is overwhelmed with abandoned unused factories. The teams are reconfiguring what is the best way to live in the current economical conditions, so when development takes place, it doesn’t eat more land. ‘Real’ problems are being looked at as a start for models and the question of how to change these already existing structures not only economically, but physically and socially too. Michael Meredith and Hilary Sample of the design in New York feel like architecture has become to passive. Stating so, they focus on the issue of health/stress as inspiration for ideas and want to redefine the street as a social space. How do we cater to current important problems through architecture?
Aaron Cohn, “Dream Houses,” Columbia Magazine, Summer 2012, 3.
DREAM HOUSES
Letters
The proposed housing models featured in your Spring 2012 issue (“Dreaming American”) are best described as solutions in search of a problem. In particular, the proposal for the Oranges, in New Jersey — which would fill underused streets between existing buildings with ribbons of new developments — creates problems for which there are no reasonable solutions.
Problem number one is that the new structures, to meet disability-access regulations and building codes, would require elevators and public corridors leading to enclosed exit stairways, neither of which can be accommodated within the proposed configurations. Problem number two is that the structures would interfere with access for emergency vehicles.
But aided by the reclamation of previously private spaces (“The idea is that private space that is now abandoned, foreclosed, or empty would be given back to the public”), a more realistic project could be conceived featuring the following:
• Narrowed and reconfigured roads for use by bicyclists and joggers, and access for emergency vehicles.
• Playgrounds, parks, and open space enabled by the demolition of buildings deemed to be unsuited for adaptive reuse.
• Varied housing types to accommodate residents with a wide range of family structures and financial resources.
• Ground-level spaces for such services as childcare, health care, laundry, and community administration.
• Community-owned shuttle buses to provide access to shops and schools.
I’m sure that Jane Jacobs, if she were alive today, would be pleased to see this concept implemented.
Aaron Cohn ’49GSAPP
Los Angeles, CA
Aaron Cohn, “Dream Houses,” Columbia Magazine, Summer 2012, 3.
III. Public Outcry!
The provocations lived up to their name. The show was widely praised in the media for its ambition, vision, and social and environmental engagement, but there has also been some dust raising on the architectural blogs. Dissenters called the proposals out of touch, self-indulgent, elitist, esoteric. Some saw a cabal of ivory-tower types imposing their social-engineering fantasies upon a constituency they don’t know or understand. Others confused a theoretical exercise meant to incite discussion with a shovel-ready project.
The provocations lived up to their name. The show was widely praised in the media for its ambition, vision, and social and environmental engagement, but there has also been some dust raising on the architectural blogs. Dissenters called the proposals out of touch, self-indulgent, elitist, esoteric. Some saw a cabal of ivory-tower types imposing their social-engineering fantasies upon a constituency they don’t know or understand. Others confused a theoretical exercise meant to incite discussion with a shovel-ready project.
The content of the show tracks closely with a preview presentation held last September at PS1, MoMA's contemporary annex. The participating teams—headed by architects Jeanne Gang, Michael Bell, Andrew Zago, partners Amale Andraos and Dan Wood (of partnership WORKac), and Hilary Sample and Michael Meredith (MOS Architects)—have taken real tract developments, in locations across the U.S., and turned them into theaters for conceptual intervention. Using models, renderings, and videos, the group leaders and their co-designers demonstrate how creative real estate contracts and innovative architectural solutions could combine to forge a revitalized suburbia, one inoculated against the kind of economic shocks that precipitated the current real estate crunch.
The basic idea is stirring: “Temple Terrace’s residents could spend 30 percent of the $700 million they collectively earn annually and remain within HUD housing-cost guidelines,” write Visible Weather’s Michael Bell and Eunjeong Seong, “but the disaggregated way in which housing monies are spent means that they are spent on a very low-level commodity.”
But there’s the rub: If you try to get 10,000 people to live together in a single development, you’re cutting against the very impulses that drive people out of the city and into the suburbs in the first place.
But there’s the rub: If you try to get 10,000 people to live together in a single development, you’re cutting against the very impulses that drive people out of the city and into the suburbs in the first place.
But despite this prejudice against development, the proposals in the show are basically mini-cities, to be developed as single projects at vast expense. There’s precious little scope for organic growth in this exhibit: Instead, all residents have to fit into a preconceived plan where the costs are front-loaded and where financing seems to magically appear whenever the municipality wants it. Meanwhile, the existing residents of the suburbs in question, the ones still underwater on their American Dream houses, are barely considered in these plans.
It is thus extremely important that this exhibition and its accompanying research are taking place during an ongoing crisis. This has created the necessary sense of urgency which has been transmitted into the ideas themselves. As we are still suffering from the effects of the crisis, these projects put themselves forward as possible post-crisis realities, but also as ways of overcoming the crisis itself.
At the same time, however, these projects also suffer from this sense of urgency. They do not, in fact, discuss one key question, which is central to contemporary architectural debate and is concerned with the instruments which are available to architectural practitioners. The open question is this: why should the solution to all problems always be the same one: the building of new architecture? Nobody here has really moved towards other and more radical solutions, which move beyond the very idea of an architectural project.
At the same time, however, these projects also suffer from this sense of urgency. They do not, in fact, discuss one key question, which is central to contemporary architectural debate and is concerned with the instruments which are available to architectural practitioners. The open question is this: why should the solution to all problems always be the same one: the building of new architecture? Nobody here has really moved towards other and more radical solutions, which move beyond the very idea of an architectural project.
After the MOS project, everyone who works in that area will have to take into account what they have proposed. A new idea is thus introduced into suburbia, something which is typical of the historic city: whatever is added must take account of what is already there. The merit of Thoughts on Walking City is that, perhaps, it creates a new dream which is not necessarily happy or workable. In a realistic way it asks residents to attempt to live in spaces which have greater limits (the project is marked by many stairways and pedestrian routes).
OpinionFromAustralia
Mar 7th 2012, 05:07
Isn't the museum of Modern Art a place for Art?
I don't know if i'm missing something, but any art gallery/museum i've been too rarely lets reality to get in the way of weird and wonderfula rt (especailly if it's of the 'modern' genre).
Was this exhibition meant to showcase real options for architectural redesign of these places or was it's objective to do art?
I'm confused...
Isn't the museum of Modern Art a place for Art?
I don't know if i'm missing something, but any art gallery/museum i've been too rarely lets reality to get in the way of weird and wonderfula rt (especailly if it's of the 'modern' genre).
Was this exhibition meant to showcase real options for architectural redesign of these places or was it's objective to do art?
I'm confused...
The projects range from ready-to-build to conceptual to downright wild. Barry Bergdoll, MoMA’s chief curator for rchitecture and Design, who conceived the exhibition with Reinhold Martin, the director of Columbia University’s Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture, hopes that each can serve as a catalyst for discussion. Lots of hot-button issues involving housing are hinted at, including who pays for it, how is it made and how it can impact our health.
real DAO
Mar 4th 2012, 10:08
crazy imagination must depend on real need and life.
crazy imagination must depend on real need and life.
A plan for Cicero, a suburb of Chicago, may be the most reasonable of the bunch (pictured top). Studio Gang Architects try to accommodate Cicero's influx of Hispanic families. The suburb's old bungalows are replaced by stacks of flats and spaces that can be shared among families. The most enthralling site, however, is the one imagined by WORKac for Keizer, a suburb of Oregon. A high-rise is a stack of individual, peak-roofed houses—a bland suburban form becomes a building block for a fantastical tower. A small mountain has a path that spirals down its slope, passing flats tucked neatly into the hillside. One wonders, however, whether the inhabitants of this hill will relish the scent of compost burning in the mountain's interior. Similarly, residents enjoying a grass-covered roof might be unsettled by the immediate proximity of a grizzly bear, as displayed in the architects' model.
The suburbs may be in need of change, but surely not the changes proposed here.
The suburbs may be in need of change, but surely not the changes proposed here.
A design for a suburb near Tampa, Florida is much less dangerous and slightly less silly. The suburb, which never had a town centre, suggested building one at a busy intersection. This sounds quite sensible. But the architects at Visible Weather scrap this plan and propose instead a 225-acre site along a commercial strip north of town. The result is a complex of offices for city bureaucrats and start-ups, with homes on the top floor. Part of suburbia's challenge is creating a sense of community while still preserving privacy.
Still reeling from this display, your correspondent rounded a corner to the main room of the exhibition. The gallery presents a new vision for each of the five suburbs. The first project is for the Oranges, in New Jersey. The curators' decision to lead with this design is unwise, particularly as its only proper place is the dustbin. MOS, an architecture firm based in New York, came to the astounding conclusion that the roads of the Oranges should be filled with new buildings. The monolithic new structures would have walls that zig and zag, making it impossible to see if someone was lurking behind a corner. With no conventional streets, there are only narrow paths for bicyclists and walkers. Heaven help residents if a fire ever broke out. Perhaps the firefighters could use scooters?
Ocean Blue, USA, Santa Barbara
3/3/2012 11:13
It's never going to happen, there's not a chance in hell that America will EVER look like this. It would be fabulous if it did happen but I just don't ever see it coming to fruition.
It's never going to happen, there's not a chance in hell that America will EVER look like this. It would be fabulous if it did happen but I just don't ever see it coming to fruition.
paevo
USA, 3/3/2012 10:00
This won't fly...
This won't fly...
Even though "Foreclosed" has been open for just a few weeks, critics are already questioning the practicality of the plans and noting that trying to redesign troubled communities does little for people living in a foreclosed home or who can't afford to pay their mortgage.
“Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream” (through July 30, 2012) presents conjectural designs for five representative but quite different suburban places where defaults have been especially numerous. There are no mile-high farming machines or magically floating street grids among these concepts. They are serious proposals with recognizable components—more and less radical, but readily buildable. If, that is, there might be a mass market for them.
rjchicago
MAR 14, 2012 3:27 PM EDT
Felix:
Please see my post in Architect Mag online. Being an architect I am just amazed there were no practical solutions to the myasmatic real estate industry of today. This is a multivariate problem with NO utopian solutions. And I remain saddened that my bretheren in architecture would publish such utter non-sense. Sheesh!!!
Felix:
Please see my post in Architect Mag online. Being an architect I am just amazed there were no practical solutions to the myasmatic real estate industry of today. This is a multivariate problem with NO utopian solutions. And I remain saddened that my bretheren in architecture would publish such utter non-sense. Sheesh!!!
GRRR
MAR 14, 2012 8:40 AM EDT
I don’t know how you can say that the housing crisis was mostly a suburban thing. In downtown Portland all of the condo projects that were completed between 2007 and 2009 were subsequently turned into apartments or turned over to banks. Unsold units in bank possession were auctioned off or otherwise sold at a 40% discount. This reversed the trend of the prior decade of apartment buildings being converted into condos. Look around and the cranes are building new apartment buildings, not condos.
To the point of suburban architectural solutions to making housing affordable. You know that museum-curated shows are always ‘think big or don’t come’. When was the last time you saw a curated show present pragmatic proposals that could be installed in real life, the next day?
Real life solutions are already being played out in the burbs of Portland, and undoubtedly in hundreds of other burbs in the nation.
Orenco Station is supposed to be a New Urbanism project, although its growth has been driven by the big-box strip mall (a blend between the traditional strip mall and the single lot big box store).
A twist on Jane Jacobs romanticism connected to mass transit rail is discerned from stop after stop along the TriMet MAX, with tracts of townhomes and pocket parks within 1000′ of a MAX stop.
Not two weeks ago, the Portland Home Show unveiled the IKEA House. A collaboration between IKEA and a local company – Ideabox – that designs and builds prefab structures. It turns out, the solution to making housing affordable is to downsize the McMansion and make it practical inside.
In any case, the solution is either to expand suburbia outward or increase density — move out or move up.
I don’t know how you can say that the housing crisis was mostly a suburban thing. In downtown Portland all of the condo projects that were completed between 2007 and 2009 were subsequently turned into apartments or turned over to banks. Unsold units in bank possession were auctioned off or otherwise sold at a 40% discount. This reversed the trend of the prior decade of apartment buildings being converted into condos. Look around and the cranes are building new apartment buildings, not condos.
To the point of suburban architectural solutions to making housing affordable. You know that museum-curated shows are always ‘think big or don’t come’. When was the last time you saw a curated show present pragmatic proposals that could be installed in real life, the next day?
Real life solutions are already being played out in the burbs of Portland, and undoubtedly in hundreds of other burbs in the nation.
Orenco Station is supposed to be a New Urbanism project, although its growth has been driven by the big-box strip mall (a blend between the traditional strip mall and the single lot big box store).
A twist on Jane Jacobs romanticism connected to mass transit rail is discerned from stop after stop along the TriMet MAX, with tracts of townhomes and pocket parks within 1000′ of a MAX stop.
Not two weeks ago, the Portland Home Show unveiled the IKEA House. A collaboration between IKEA and a local company – Ideabox – that designs and builds prefab structures. It turns out, the solution to making housing affordable is to downsize the McMansion and make it practical inside.
In any case, the solution is either to expand suburbia outward or increase density — move out or move up.
Anybody who visits the exhibit can see that nothing remotely along the lines of the buildings being proposed is ever going to be realized — Orange, New Jersey, for instance, is not going to replace its roads with long strips of narrow housing. But what’s less obvious is the way in which all of these projects are also a huge financial stretch. They were charged with coming up with innovative forms of home finance, but all those innovative solutions tend to boil down to the same basic idea: get the local municipal government to borrow hundreds of millions of dollars and then spend that money on a massive housing development which will, somehow, generate the income needed to service the debt.
My main beef with the show is that it’s far too utopian and impractical. That’s par for the course when it comes to museum architecture shows, but I was hoping for more realistic proposals in this particular case, just because the foreclosure crisis is so real and urgent.
Among the questions on the table is that of the role of architecture (and architecture within the museum) in the search for workable solutions, to which the stock answer within the field is something about synthetic problem solving and visionary thought leadership. The first step may simply be the difficult and contentious public identification of where the problems actually lie in order to move beyond top/bottom and toward throughout/within, a step architects and the MoMA have taken before. In 1934, the museum exhibited America Can’t Have Housing aimed at “show[ing] why America needs housing and yet is so backward at filling this need.”[1] That was several architectural lifetimes ago and the specifics of the housing problem were different, but it seems much of the conversation was the same. In the museum’s Bulletin, Carol Aronovici (chairman of the committee responsible for that exhibition) refers to the rationalized plans of Modernism when he writes, “Impatient with the confusion of our cities and unable to find a solution which would provide for the essential human needs, many of these innovators have presented radical schemes for city planning as fantastic as they are inconsistent with the structure of modern society.” He continues, “This is perhaps not the fault of these innovators, but rather of the social order under which our cities have grown up…We cannot hope to rebuild our cities without changing our social and economic structure…”
The result of these decisions is that each project represents a mixture of real and fictitious possibility. As such, reactions to these projects are reactions both to places and processes that might be as well as to the places and processes that currently are. Perhaps what is most compelling about the work in Foreclosed are the projects’ attempts at pulling apart suburbia’s binary conflicts and forcing an acknowledgement of problematic premises within the real status quo.
First, there is the abject lesson of how not to accommodate a society’s population – the exhibit Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream at the Museum of Modern Art, where teams of architects, economists, and artists re-imagined five areas devastated by the 2008 housing crisis. The hotspots in New Jersey, Florida, Illinois, southern California and Oregon are all primarily suburban environments, though not as far-flung as the so-called zombie subdivisions miles from anywhere.
The ideas in the exhibit prompted much commentary about how realistic they were, from James Russell, Blair Kamin, Diana Lind, Bryan Bell and my colleague Sarah Goodyear. Members of the team that re-imagined a factory site in Cicero, Illinois, Jeanne Gang and Greg Lindsay, penned a New York Times op-ed calling for a fresh design and policy approach to housing for the 21st century. Curator Barry Bergdoll said the proposals were meant to be "provocations."
The ideas in the exhibit prompted much commentary about how realistic they were, from James Russell, Blair Kamin, Diana Lind, Bryan Bell and my colleague Sarah Goodyear. Members of the team that re-imagined a factory site in Cicero, Illinois, Jeanne Gang and Greg Lindsay, penned a New York Times op-ed calling for a fresh design and policy approach to housing for the 21st century. Curator Barry Bergdoll said the proposals were meant to be "provocations."
In reviewing the “Foreclosed” exhibit at MoMA, Felix Salmon raises an interesting question: who is going to pay for these projects to be built?
16 Mar, 2012 - (@karenyair)
Reflecting on the new suburban utopia at 'Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream' @momapsi: http://bit.ly/wqFcxE #urbanism.
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
3. Zago Architecture, “Property with Properties”
This is another project that left me feeling unconvinced. The talk about “misregistration” and flexible boundaries etc. didn't seem to do much to change the overall standard suburban layout of the proposed subdivision. The models were amazing, although Seussical in their color choices and shapes.
This is another project that left me feeling unconvinced. The talk about “misregistration” and flexible boundaries etc. didn't seem to do much to change the overall standard suburban layout of the proposed subdivision. The models were amazing, although Seussical in their color choices and shapes.
2. Michael Bell and Visible Weather: "Simultaneous City" in Temple Terrace, FL
Michael Bell is another critic at GSAPP, but not one I've had before. Although his group's proposal was filled with slick renderings, I was not at all convinced, because it didn't look like anyone on the team had really thought about or looked at Florida's climate. There was text saying that the project would do this or that regarding climate, but one look at the images was enough to show that it would be ridiculous in Temple Terrace. All that glass would need to be washed continuously! Besides that, where is the vegetation in the renderings? Nothing in Florida looks like the images below - stark white and reflective - because it would blind you, and vegetation takes over whenever it gets a chance. Maybe it's just the style of the images, but it looks to me like no one on the design team had been to Florida.
Michael Bell is another critic at GSAPP, but not one I've had before. Although his group's proposal was filled with slick renderings, I was not at all convinced, because it didn't look like anyone on the team had really thought about or looked at Florida's climate. There was text saying that the project would do this or that regarding climate, but one look at the images was enough to show that it would be ridiculous in Temple Terrace. All that glass would need to be washed continuously! Besides that, where is the vegetation in the renderings? Nothing in Florida looks like the images below - stark white and reflective - because it would blind you, and vegetation takes over whenever it gets a chance. Maybe it's just the style of the images, but it looks to me like no one on the design team had been to Florida.
1. MOS with Hilary Sample (GSAPP Housing Studio Coordinator): "Thoughts on a Walking City"
Since Hilary is a GSAPP professor and I've seen this project before (she presented it during the housing studio), I'll pass over it. Suffice to say that it is more on the radical/speculative end of the spectrum of proposals.
Since Hilary is a GSAPP professor and I've seen this project before (she presented it during the housing studio), I'll pass over it. Suffice to say that it is more on the radical/speculative end of the spectrum of proposals.
greybeard
03/20/12 09:52 AM
@guest #6: Agree. When you remove the Yours/Mine designation, it devolves to the:"Its yours to maintain, but mine to use" mentality. The resultant building imagery looks like a Tim Burton claymation model--and not in a good way. This is an interesting idea, but the result is more pastiche than real content.
@guest #6: Agree. When you remove the Yours/Mine designation, it devolves to the:"Its yours to maintain, but mine to use" mentality. The resultant building imagery looks like a Tim Burton claymation model--and not in a good way. This is an interesting idea, but the result is more pastiche than real content.
ZA took a subtle approach, "creating a richer mix of uses, housing types, living situations, and landscapes than the serial repetition of an individual home with a driveway and patch of lawn would allow." The blurred look in the renderings is intentional misregistration ("a printing-process error that leads to blurred images") used metaphorically. The team also allowed a little more nature in via seasonal rivers and natural wildlife routes and made the roads narrower and "more circuitous."
Anonymous
Does this mean that those unrealistic, ill-informed and silly schemes in the Foreclosed exhibition won't find a willing sponsor?
3/21/2012 1:02 PM CDT
3/21/2012 1:02 PM CDT
But during a panel on March 8 at the museum sponsored by the Forum for Urban Design, two developers, an architecture professor, and a real estate lawyer reacted soberly to the adventurous and optimistic schemes. Though the panelists agreed that the foreclosure crisis will lead to major changes in suburban development, they all thought new patterns are less likely to be brought about by a revised American dream than by economic and demographic factors. And all said it would be very difficult to change zoning laws to permit denser new development patterns, especially in existing “inner-ring” suburbs.
The main problem with the show was that the architects involved seem torn between providing sweeping visionary gestures and wanting to offer immediate answers to an immediate problem. Those who chose the latter path offer solutions that are, if anything, more dispiriting than the quasi-dystopic views of their colleagues. Studio Gang Architects’ repurposing of an old freight railway station in Cicero, Illinois into differing housing typologies where “informal entrepreneurial businesses” would flourish seems a purely urban solution paying little attention to a suburb’s innate characteristics. After all, the problem the suburbs face is not a lack of housing but a surfeit of it. Foreclosed seems less an attempt to save the suburbs than a chance to put them out of their misery for good.
All these communities had received stimulus money in 2009, and the designers were often approaching the sites after the money had already been spent. Though this makes the exhibit seem like a critique of irreversible and shortsighted choices in spending, it is hopeful in offering new solutions to the American Dream. Michael Bell, who worked on the Temple Terrace project near Tampa, compared the hundreds of millions of dollars of research that has gone into Honda Accords and iPhones to the tiny amount of money ("probably about $5000") that has gone into the research of single family housing. Moma's exhibit doesn't offer itself up as a solution to the lack of research, either; the design ideas in "Foreclosed" are often both practical and applicable, but they are ultimately more speculative and visionary. GetawayStyle also aspires to this new dream -- that housing can suit our everchanging lives while also having an awareness of the greater world outside our walls.
Predictably, the notion of cutting off thoroughfares didn’t go over well with leaders. “That may be perfect for a utopian society where there’s no crime, no fires, no issues,” said Mayor Eldridge Hawkins Jr. “But how would you get fire trucks and emergency vehicles in there? It doesn’t make any sense.”
A PAIR of New York architects describe the plan they have conceptualized for remaking downtown Orange as something that will “rewrite both the physical and social spaces of Orange.” Township officials, on the other hand, compare it to what “you could see in a third world country” and say it’s “not really grounded in reality.”
15 Apr, 2012 - (@SensibleStreets)
Moma's #Foreclosedexhibitors fail to ground proposals in reality or pragmatism. http://nyti.ms/HMyoX5
Some ideas might seem quite odd for some people, but, in general, they all have practical sense and innovatory view on the problem I stated above.
The response to this show has been almost overwhelmingly negative, which is unfortunate. The projects, so speculative in nature, have com in for a good deal of criticism, some of it valid, as to their practicability and humanity. More broadly, however, they have been attacked as condescending visions imposed on the suburbs by urban-dwelling architectural elites. The idea was to drum up discussion, not to breed polarisation.
The resulting projects, for actual American suburbs, are predictably varied in their practicality and architectural flair. A proposal for an Oregon community designed around a compost mountain by the New York firm WORKac seemed especially daring. Chicago's Jeanne Gang proposed the retrofitting of a derelict factory, and used it to piggyback an argument for better design and smarter financing options on the opinion page of The New York Times. Taken together, the projects would seem to suggest that the American suburbs should look a lot more like Europe, or really Holland. That is, they should be more dense, less dependent on the car, more flexible, and more environmentally friendly.
On a second visit, I was relieved to notice evidence of a persistent engagement with reality, which is remarkable for MoMA. There was, in each display, a small video screen showing scenes—very dreary, very believable—of the five towns in question. However, each of those screens is paired with one immediately beneath it, which was showing footage of impromptu studio talks given by the architects. Michael Meredith, for instance, was explaining the Pez-shaped buildings that MOS has crammed into the streets of the Oranges, in New Jersey: “This informality of the repetition of this module allows for these gaps of public space….” These jargon-filled videos had the unintended effect of making the architects seem even more divorced from reality than they are. It’s what happens when you pair architect-speak with, say, scenes of boarded-up houses. The juxta-position is, I guess, an argument in favor of MoMA’s customary shunning of the real.
The different models include infrastructure additions that seem too rational and essential to not be in tact already; indispensable items such as recycling centers, co-generating electrical plants, light rails, and even gardens for people to grow their own food. They display structures that could house families or groups of all shapes and sizes as that is the reality of the situation. The nuclear family is a thing of the past and possibly never truly existed. Life is not that simple and frankly never has been.
Though seemingly farfetched, at the very least this exhibition will influence future community design toward more progressive and sustainable development.
But just a few minutes into the exhibit and we wondered if we had taken a wrong turn back at the stark-white Mies van der Rohe inspired vestibule. Perhaps we had wandered into the surrealist room, or maybe we stumbled into a symposium discussion on deciphering nightmares. The models in the center of the room were disturbingly unrealistic; they all seemed to stem from dystopian visions of dense, industrial mega-plexes. Filling in the empty spaces, previously known as backyards, with geometrically arranged chaos seemed to be the priority for most schemes. The only thing missing were miniature figures from the film Blade Runner standing on lonely decks staring out over the vast disarray of their tiny surroundings.
Therein lies the problem. Since cities began to rapidly expand more than a century ago, urban thinkers have proposed transit-oriented, neighborhood-based development as the antidote, packaged in architectural wrapping appropriate to innovative thinking of the time. Obviously, we’re missing something. The strongest piece on this exhibit wall is a deceptively simple ad campaign. The actual buildings of Foreclosed range from whimsical to indecipherable; a few might be at home in Manhattan or downtown Chicago, but none would be adopted by a suburban developer today. While we lament the lack of popular design sophistication, visitors flock to the model with blinking lights and tiny people, and miss the more important underlying ideas. We architects are left talking with ourselves, once again.
The result is a series of essentially utopian schemes. I was most drawn to the solution called Nature City, for Keizer, Oregon by WORKac, a design firm in Manhattan. Inspired by the Garden City concept espoused by influential late 19th century British urbanist Ebenezer Howard, (detail of part of a garden city plan shown above, courtesy Our Letchworth), they proposed developing a 225 acre parcel (already slated for big box stores and the like) in a way that is “five times denser than the adjacent suburban blocks but has three times the amount of public open space, including a 158-acre nature preserve.”
While rewriting zoning laws and mortgage requirements falls outside the architect's traditional role, these extra-architectural ideas bring a fresh sense of reality to the designs. The need for designers to work hand-in-hand with financial experts and developers to effect deep change to suburbs—or anywhere else—might be the most important takeaway from the show.
These are just a few examples of thinking big/starting small. Central to all is the belief that design matters. For decades now, we have waged a battle between Architecture (high design) and architecture (social design). But as with public and private, this is a false debate. Ultimately good design must be aesthetically engaging, economically viable, environmentally responsive and socially just. There is no either/or. If we are to meet the goal of housing for all, good design must be part of the process. This is why Foreclosed is compelling; regardless of the criticism they've inspired, all of the projects grappled with the power of good design to reshape housing. And yet they all neglected one final quality of good design: the ability to be actionable. Let's pair them with more agile, smaller-scale innovative processes, as a first step in realizing their big-scale visions.
The results of the experiment are on display at MoMA and at this interactive online exhibit. The exhibit caused some controversy when it first opened for being “unrealistic” (planners said it would be impossible to change zoning laws to permit denser development patters in inner-ring suburbs, for example). But it’s also been hailed as innovative and visionary. I found it fascinating to read through and to look at the pictures and renderings that envision incredible possibilities for changes in our everyday spaces.
HUFFPOST SUPER USER, Mary Blickhahn, Is this really the best we can do?, 1291 Fans
12:42 AM on 07/23/2012
There are many good ideas and many bad ones. What is important is remain clear that one solution will not work for everyone and in every area. Plus all ideas will have to manage the actual implementation. Making it a reality often takes quite a bit of compromise. I do not like the over populations idea..that has proven to be a failure and a cesspool for disease. Those zoning laws prohibiting it are there for a reason. This is not a solution, but a night mare.
There are many good ideas and many bad ones. What is important is remain clear that one solution will not work for everyone and in every area. Plus all ideas will have to manage the actual implementation. Making it a reality often takes quite a bit of compromise. I do not like the over populations idea..that has proven to be a failure and a cesspool for disease. Those zoning laws prohibiting it are there for a reason. This is not a solution, but a night mare.
MJ: But East Orange’s riff on transit-oriented development is a very smart proposal as well. It stretches our thinking, residing on the edge of the practical and the ideal. It proposes a politic trade: save revenue and therefore tax dollars by eliminating many of the neighborhood streets and the costs associated with maintaining them. Additionally, this approach radically diminishes the role of the automobile in the community. It treats the streets like we’ve treated vacant land in the city: as an opportunity for infill housing. It increases density in the area near an existing rail station and incorporates mixed uses enriching the area’s amenities while, again, reducing the residents’ reliance on the car to get things done. Curiously, however, while calling for the end of the ghetto enclave, its uninterrupted ribbon development results in a densely packed community that reminds me of my image of the kasbah, a true enclave, impenetrable from the outside, labyrinthine from the inside, and devoid of large, open, public spaces where people can meet and talk and relax. To relegate these opportunities, as they say in the paper, to the ground floors of new developments which might contain a variety of shops and services is to subordinate community to commerce.
It’s refreshing that the team unabashedly suggests that much of these new ribbons of housing would be developed as public housing. But if this is a serious idea, not simply a gesture or metaphor, then one must confront the fact that public housing in the United States, apart from unfortunately being in ideological disrepute, is also grossly underfunded.
It’s refreshing that the team unabashedly suggests that much of these new ribbons of housing would be developed as public housing. But if this is a serious idea, not simply a gesture or metaphor, then one must confront the fact that public housing in the United States, apart from unfortunately being in ideological disrepute, is also grossly underfunded.
MJ: In fact, amidst the rubble and smoldering ruins of the South Bronx, building these 1950s, Beaver Cleaver, suburban tract homes was as provocative and improbable an act as building any of the five projects proposed in Foreclosed. It went contrary to and undermined every conceivable narrative about the South Bronx and the folks who lived there. It provided people with hope, an ineffable but indispensible quality that something could be done to roll back the firestorm of devastation. And it provided them with a model for how to do that: draw upon the ambition, energy, and resources of organized community residents, marry it with significant philanthropic and more importantly government resources and political will, and use those relationships to leverage private capital.
The Workshop (87)
Five teams of architects will rethink housing in American cities and suburbs in light of the foreclosure crisis in a 14-month program to be announced on Monday by the Museum of Modern Art and MoMA PS1.
We’ve been invited by the Museum of Modern Art and PS1 in New York to undertake a summer-long workshop to re-imagine the American suburb and the American dream of home ownership in the shadow of the home foreclosure crisis. It is an incredibly important opportunity for us to have a venue at such a prestigious institution, and we hope it will be an opportunity to help shape the national conversation on what home means today. This workshop will lead to an exhibition of our work, together with that of four other teams, at MoMA in New York next January.
02 May, 2011 - (@KatieandWalter)
MoMA- Foreclosed “will enlist five interdisciplinary teams of architects to envision a rethinking of housing,” http://bit.ly/hgTBQz
03 May, 2011 - (@AzureMagazine)
Join us Saturday May 7, 2:00-6:00pm for Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream Symposium http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/events/12430
03 May, 2011 - (@InTheKn0w)
RT @KatieandWalter MoMA- "Foreclosed " uses 5 interdisciplinary architect teams to envision rethinking of housing http://tinyurl.com/3hbt3ml
The formula for the project, then, is fairly standard: an analytical phase informs the development of research questions that are then put to interdisciplinary teams, led by architects, to decode into design strategies. Their strategies will later be scrubbed by Bergdoll and his curatorial team for public consumption. The structure is thus highly normative; by taking each element to its extreme, it becomes radical. Not just research, but dense research; not just architects but highly qualified architects leading teams of highly qualified professionals; not just a public audience but the very public audience of MoMA.
In an effort to begin a conversation on the foreclosure crisis, architecture, and suburbanism, we have just launched Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream, the second workshop and exhibition in the series Issues in Contemporary Architecture. Like last year’s Rising Currents, Foreclosed uses the model of a workshop with public open houses at MoMA PS1, followed by an exhibition at MoMA, with five interdisciplinary teams each working on designated sites.
14 Jun, 2011 - (@SurfaceMag)
@studiogang, MOS, @Workac—what a group! RT @MoMAPS1: Meet the five interdisciplinary teams at MoMA PS1's "Foreclosed." http://bit.ly/ijH31m
14 Jun, 2011 - (@MoMAPS1)
Meet the teams of "Foreclosed" at @MoMAPS1. Learn about the project & interact with the architects on Sat, 6/18 4-6:30pm.http://t.co/wIZTrNh
14 Jun, 2011 - (@nothininvisible)
MoMA | Foreclosed Open Studios Meet the five interdisciplinary teams at the first opportunity for the public to... http://fb.me/ZWqhEcew
16 Jun, 2011 - (@artinfodotcom)
Saturday is the first public viewing of architect-in-residence studios @MoMAPS1for the MoMA Foreclosed project. moma.org/visit/calendar
16 Jun, 2011 - (@Culturenik)
MoMA: "Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream"; Learn about project, view progress + interact with architects: http://bit.ly/mwBanL
We invite you to join us tomorrow, Saturday, June 18, at MoMA PS1 for Open Studios, where you can meet the five interdisciplinary teams working on solutions to the foreclosure crisis in the U.S., hear about their projects, and see work in progress.
23 Jun, 2011 - (@Hodgei)
“@MuseumModernArt: 5 teams rethinking the rules to design and produce housing in the US. http://bit.ly/kARHd9 ” My kinda fun #architecture
23 Jun, 2011 - (@gfriend)
MT @brainpicker: 5 teams rethinking rules for housing design, production, availability http://bit.ly/kARHd9 (via @MuseumModernArt)
23 Jun, 2011 - (@pinkpopsoda)
RT @brainpicker: 5 teams rethnkng rules re how housing have 2 b designed produced made available http://bit.ly/kARHd9 (via @MuseumModernArt)
24 Jun, 2011 - (@rtkersh)
Cool #MOMAcompetition on affordable-housing design/production, esp in developing world: http://bit.ly/kARHd9. #NYUWagnerMUPs, go get 'em!
24 Jun, 2011 - (@AIANational)
RT @brainpicker5 teams rethink rules by which housing is designed, produced and made available http://bit.ly/kARHd9 (via @MuseumModernArt)
07 Jul, 2011 - (@GalleryUntitled)
Foreclosed : Narratives, Typologies, and Property: The five multidisciplinary teams working on projects for the ... http://bit.ly/qJ1qlp
07 Jul, 2011 - (@GalleryUntitled)
Foreclosed : Narratives, Typologies, and Property: The five multidisciplinary teams working on projects for the ... http://bit.ly/qJ1qlp
18 Jul, 2011 - (@SalaDarkVintage)
Foreclosed: Title and Model Scenarios: The five multidisciplinary teams working on projects for the exhibition F... http://bit.ly/p7wMC5
18 Jul, 2011 - (@BlueberryHillTx)
MoMA | Foreclosed: Title and Model Scenarios http://fb.me/AHd10aVK
18 Jul, 2011 - (@wmacchia)
Interesting study of changing populations & housing needs RT @MuseumModernArtForeclosed: Rehousing the American Dream http://bit.ly/q2AodR
21 Jul, 2011 - (@SalaDarkVintage)
Foreclosed: The Halfway Mark: The five multidisciplinary teams working on projects for the exhibition Foreclosed... http://bit.ly/nKqgZ5
25 Jul, 2011 - (@studiogang)
Halfway done w/ the workshop phase of @MuseumModernArt's Foreclosed exhibition! Find out what we've been up to: http://bit.ly/rbRMEI
27 Jul, 2011 - (@TejasArtesanas)
Foreclosed: Constructing an Exhibition Narrative: The five multidisciplinary teams working on projects for the e... http://bit.ly/nbJr5q
28 Jul, 2011 - (@Culturenik)
MoMA: "Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream" teams begin conceptualizing/constructing their exhibition displays: http://bit.ly/mXFByg
04 Aug, 2011 - (@GalleryUntitled)
Foreclosed: Visualizing the Invisible: The five multidisciplinary teams working on projects for the exhibition F... http://bit.ly/rlJwMh
10 Aug, 2011 - (@GalleryUntitled)
Foreclosed: Five Weeks to Go: The multidisciplinary teams working on projects for the exhibition Foreclosed: Reh... http://bit.ly/pwrqBW
13 Aug, 2011 - (@Sonia_Melani)
Check out Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream at MoMA http://bit.ly/kKqGDJ
A biologist, an urbanist, an economist, and a sewage expert walk into a museum. And they say, “Let’s get out of here and go fix some problems.”
This conversation, in so many words, has been occurring simultaneously at several New York museums, where experts from outside the art world are converging to collaborate on projects that extend far beyond the galleries—and beyond conventional definitions of art.
This conversation, in so many words, has been occurring simultaneously at several New York museums, where experts from outside the art world are converging to collaborate on projects that extend far beyond the galleries—and beyond conventional definitions of art.
At MoMA, experts in urban planning, housing policy, ecology, landscape design, engineering, and the social sciences will brainstorm on issues affecting homeowners as part of “Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream.” For the first phase in the 14-month initiative, supervised by architecture and design curator Barry Bergdoll, five teams—each charged with a particular mega-region—will create proposals reflecting “new and inventive thinking about the relationship between land, housing, infrastructure, urban form,” and what the idea of “public space” even means. The workshops will be followed by a symposium and then an exhibition of proposals, opening in January.
16 Aug, 2011 - (@Greg_Lindsay)
My MoMA "Foreclosed" teammate. RT @ccoletta@Ra_Joy: Fire Hose Art Brings Fame to Hot Urban Recycler Theaster Gates http://t.co/ur0
The multidisciplinary teams working on projects for the exhibition Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream have one month left in the workshop phase before the final public Open Studios at MoMA PS1 on Saturday, September 17, 2011. Here, they summarize their progress and outstanding concerns as they move towards finalizing their respective projects.
17 Aug, 2011 - (@TejasArtesanas)
Foreclosed: Prioritizing Project Elements: The multidisciplinary teams working on projects for the exhibition Fo... http://bit.ly/oKPjN3
17 Aug, 2011 - (@Culturenik)
MoMA: The five teams behind "Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream" close in on their final proposals: http://bit.ly/mRF4eV
17 Aug, 2011 - (@GalleryUntitled)
Foreclosed: Prioritizing Project Elements: The multidisciplinary teams working on projects for the exhibition Fo... http://bit.ly/oQrj6s
17 Aug, 2011 - (@JoshuaTomeoni)
I want to see it “@MuseumModernArt: "Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream" close in on their final proposals: http://bit.ly/o8AENj ”
Right now the Department of Architecture and Design is midway through a second design laboratory/exhibition experiment that picks up that tradition of exploring new design paradigms and new public policy approaches regarding the relationship of housing to infrastructure. In the wake of the ongoing foreclosure crisis — that symptom of the global financial crisis which most directly effects a large percentage of the U.S. population as well as the future of our national landscape — the department has joined forces with the Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture at Columbia University; we have challenged five interdisciplinary teams of architects, landscape architects, economists, and policy specialists to propose alternative physical and even financial and legislative models for the redevelopment of American suburbia.
16 Sep, 2011 - (@PlacesJournal)
Sat 9/17 Foreclosed Open Studios by Barry Bergdoll and MoMA includes keynote by HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan @HUDNews. http://bit.ly/qcPjIv
16 Sep, 2011 - (@MuseumModernArt)
U.S. Sec. of Housing Shaun Donovan speaks at the last “Foreclosed” open house, Sat. @MoMAPS1. Info & livestream: http://bit.ly/n7sbwh
16 Sep, 2011 - (@PlacesJournal)
Sat 9/17 Foreclosed Open Studios by Barry Bergdoll and MoMA includes keynote by HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan @HUDNews. http://bit.ly/qcPjIv Sat 9/17 Foreclosed Open Studios by Barry Bergdoll and MoMA includes keynote by HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan @HUDNews. http://bit.ly/qcPjIv
16 Sep, 2011 - (@MuseumModernArt)
U.S. Sec. of Housing Shaun Donovan speaks at the last “Foreclosed” open house, Sat. @MoMAPS1. Info & livestream: http://bit.ly/n7sbwh
17 Sep, 2011 - (@JoseEsparza)
Shaun Donovan's #foreclosedkeynote address live at: http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar …. 4pm at @MoMAPS1#Buell
17 Sep, 2011 - (@rafaelaugustooo)
Secretário da Hab. e Desenvolvimento Urbano dos EUA no MoMA: os desafios da arquitetura americana em era dos foreclosed http://ow.ly/6xit5
17 Sep, 2011 - (@katzimmer0)
I am enjoying this @museummodernartlivestream of FORECLOSED keynote address: http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar …
This weekend, we had the opportunity to attend the Open Studio event at MoMA’s PS1. As we mentioned earlier, this project posed the daunting question of how to re-think, re-organize and re-energize the concept of an American suburb in the wake of the foreclosure crisis.
This past Saturday, U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan spoke at MoMA PS1 in Long Island City, Queens, as part of the museum’s Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream. The workshop and exhibition—which included an architect-in-residence studio component—examined new architectural possibilities for American cities and suburbs in the context of the recent foreclosure crisis.
Here’s an excerpt from Secretary Donovan’s speech, “From Crisis to Opportunity: Rebuilding Communities in the Wake of Foreclosure.” (You can also view a video of the entire keynote here and learn more about the project here.
22 Sep, 2011 - (@bamarquis)
US Sec HUD Shaun Donovan highilghts #ArtPlacein keynote at MoMA's Foreclosed event. http://bit.ly/n58jye
Each team took as its subject a specific locale affected by the real estate collapse. Studio Gang, together with a multidisciplinary team of experts that included writer Greg Lindsay and urban designer Rafi Segal, took on the problem of “arrival cities,” towns that act as ports of entry to immigrants from around the world. “These places can work—or they can turn into slums,” noted Ms. Gang, whose speculative plan for immigrant-heavy Cicero, Illinois, would turn abandoned industrial facilities into integrated live-work environments.
Back in May, New York’s Museum of Modern Art kicked off a nearly yearlong series of presentations, workshops, and public symposia on the topic of America’s ongoing foreclosure crisis. Out of this dense thicket of discourse will emerge a new exhibition, “Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream,” scheduled to open early next year.
NEARLY 100 ARCHITECTURE aficionados crowded into the steamy third-floor rooms of MoMA/PS1 last June to hear five architect teams discuss their latest projects. Their mandate: solve the country’s housing crisis.
“Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream,” an ongoing series of workshops that will culminate in an exhibition at MoMA in February, aims to do nothing less than provide new models for how metropolitan areas-specifically large suburbs in five areas around the country-might be improved. “The projects are not meant to provide solutions to immediate site,” says Barry Bergdoll, MoMA’s chief curator of architecture and design. “They are meant to provide ideas for fundamental change.”
“Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream,” an ongoing series of workshops that will culminate in an exhibition at MoMA in February, aims to do nothing less than provide new models for how metropolitan areas-specifically large suburbs in five areas around the country-might be improved. “The projects are not meant to provide solutions to immediate site,” says Barry Bergdoll, MoMA’s chief curator of architecture and design. “They are meant to provide ideas for fundamental change.”
The Open Studios were followed by a keynote address, titled “From Crisis to Opportunity: Rebuilding Communities in the Wake of Foreclosure,” by U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan. The closing panel discussion, with Mohsen Mostafavi, Dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, Dean of the Miami School of Architecture, was moderated by myself and Reinhold Martin, Director, Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture at Columbia University.
05 Oct, 2011 - (@MuseumModernArt)
U.S. Secretary of HUD Shaun Donovan delivers the "Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream" keynote address at MoMA PS1 http://bit.ly/pRir83
05 Oct, 2011 - (@GalleryUntitled)
Foreclosed: Close of the Workshop Phase: U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan delivers ... http://bit.ly/nCyddG
10 Oct, 2011 - (@tfas)
At the #CIWArchtalk, Jeanne Gang talked about her Studio's contribution to MoMA's Foreclosed exhibit - http://bit.ly/resqu7 #ciw11#cicero
14 Oct, 2011 - (@tfas)
To Jeanne Gang's Cicero project in that she envisions the buildings as multi-use "kits" that can be used in anywhere http://bit.ly/resqu7
14 Nov, 2011 - (@mattpark99)
Foreclosed Open House: Studio Gang at http://MoMA.org http://bit.ly/ksDYQU #sckr
30 Nov, 2011 - (@MuseumModernArt)
Theaster Gates, Jr., shares his thoughts on MoMA's "Foreclosed" project vis-à-vis Cicero, Illinois. http://bit.ly/t6vakf
Implicit in the notion of reverse engineering is that the subsequent iteration of the target construct is superior to its predecessor. The method utilized over the course of the development of Visible Weather’s contribution to the Foreclosed exhibition was oriented in the application of multidisciplinary techniques within a consolidated process that balanced notions of generation and analytics in its outcome. Grounded in the integration of the design, financial, and regulatory disciplines, the method provided a mechanism for testing and analyzing design interventions. The utility was not only that any given massing and program could be tested for its financial and regulatory feasibility, but that optimal combinations of variables could be developed to keep the vision of the designer within the bounds of reality and subject to its highest utility. In this regard, the rhetoric of sustainability could be applied to a much broader notion of the built environment, one which was inclusive of financial and environmental values.
19 Dec, 2011 - (@ArchitectureOmi)
RT @MargaretNYC: ...#MoMAenlisting arch. teams to find solutions in 5 U.S. regions. http://bit.ly/oez2hm
19 Dec, 2011 - (@MargaretNYC)
Heartbreaking story on foreclosed homes on #60Minutes. #MoMAenlisting arch. teams to find solutions in 5 U.S. regions. http://bit.ly/oez2hm
19 Dec, 2011 - (@MargaretNYC)
Heartbreaking story on foreclosed homes on #60Minutes. #MoMAenlisting arch. teams to find solutions in 5 U.S. regions. http://bit.ly/oez2hm
19 Dec, 2011 - (@ArchitectureOmi)
RT @MargaretNYC: ...#MoMAenlisting arch. teams to find solutions in 5 U.S. regions. http://bit.ly/oez2hm
Feedback has been provided by the design and lay community on ours and other alternative design approaches to the current suburban model. The model and our work will be refined by the museum’s curators and then be put on display in the main museum in Manhattan in February, 2012.
Yet of all the elements of the design process that could be controlled, timing certainly was not one of them. For starters, the teams had a scant four months to reimagine the prototypical dwellings of American suburbia and create a world-class exhibition for the public. Moreover, weekly deadlines and interim exhibitions imposed by the curatorial leadership kept the teams’ minds trained on deliverables (and reinforced the old adage that one should never reveal unfinished work). All of this notwithstanding, the architects needed to remain flexible to the submission schedules of invited experts. (When consultants work for free, their deadlines are often written in pencil.)
19 Jan, 2012 - (@MuseumModernArt)
Structural engineer Zak Kostura discusses his contribution to "Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream." http://bit.ly/wt5ecc
19 Jan, 2012 - (@Porter_Anderson)
RT @museummodernart: Structural engineer Zak Kostura discusses his part in "Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream." http://bit.ly/wt5ecc
The entire production and funding structure allowed each design team to visit, investigate, and talk with the residents of each town. Gang's team dove in and worked hand-in-hand with the Cicero community, while other teams simply took shots from a car and quickly left. Gang's strong grassroots effort would show up in the team's comprehensive research and final design in comparison to other schemes, allowing the project to develop a framework for Cicero's long term growth and MoMA's future community design efforts.
In the early weeks of the workshop phase, the teams spent time in their assigned megaregions-visiting potential sites for intervention, meeting with local residents and officials, and considering what type of architectural program would respond to the local needs and realities of the existing population. As a result, the proposals developed for the five sites provide radically different visions of a rethought surburbia.
This exhibit represents the work of architects, urban planners, ecologists, engineers, and landscape designers. In the first iteration of the suburbs, these five groups did not communicate, leading to the current situation.
What happens next is the continuation of the dialogue that began at MoMA PS1 (where the architects began the initial stages of research and design) and has transferred into the Architecture and Design galleries in the Museum. In order to establish solutions to current problems, such as the emergency housing crisis in America, we must propose ideas (as the aforementioned teams have done) through careful research and study before proceeding with rebuilding and redevelopment efforts. What Bergdoll demonstrates throughout Foreclosed and in this exhibition series is the importance of involving architects and design practitioners in the early stages of development of larger problems and social issues, such as the housing crisis and the global warming crisis, respectively, on both a local and global scale. Thanks to these efforts, the architecture and design community can now offer a more substantial role in the redevelopment of cities and, more importantly, ways of thinking about how we live in the expanded spatial environment.
Laurie Manfra
2. I feel the reviewer missed the mark this time. The design teams for Foreclosed are young architects (hardly deserving of the term “starchitects,” since they have comparatively built far less than today’s typical starchitect.) I visited the open studios and lectures that were held at P.S.1 over the past year and a half. The program is meant to be thought-provoking and exploratory, as opposed to concrete in its proposed solutions. I was impressed by the amount of data compiled by the teams (in their efforts to document the megaregions) and the thoughtfulness evident in their evolving research. The exhibition is meant to inspire people with new ideas, and new approaches to familiar problems. Obviously, architects can’t solve the foreclosure problem (that’s our banking system’s responsibility), but they can document patterns of potential future growth for these massive regions, which the teams certainly accomplished by last August during the open studios. The purpose of the excerise is to imagine new housing opportunities in regions where two large cities share resources and transport systems. Mr. Bell doesn’t mention this fact. If the teams were working in small neighborhoods and failed to engage the community, his criticisms would ring true. But these are large-scale regions with massive populations.
February 22, 2012, @ 12:50 p.m.
February 22, 2012, @ 12:50 p.m.
To be fair, a few efforts at community engagement could be found in Foreclosed. Jeanne Gang included three qualified advocates for the interests of the general public: Theaster Gates, Roberta Feldman, and Cristine Pope. As she states: “Early in the process, our teammates Roberta Feldman and Theaster Gates worked with Cicero’s Interfaith Leadership Project [Cristine Pope] to interview residents about their own personal foreclosure crises.
It also seems prescient. But I wonder if the museum, and the five interdisciplinary teams, haven’t tried to do too much in to a nine-month process, and into a single gallery. A preliminary read suggests terrific unpacking, but many question marks before we're able to put American housing back together.
Lately, an increasing number of museums are giving their art-for-art's-sake mantras a bit of a rest and behaving more like think tanks. I'm all for this. Pure experience is great, but museum's are ultimately about a balance of things.
Here's a great case in point. The Museum of Modern Art recently opened a new and ambitious exhibit, "Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream." Last summer, MoMA invited some of the best architects, urban planners, ecologists, engineers and landscape designers to be in residence at MoMA P.S. 1. Their task? To reimagine housing and transportation infrastructures, particularly in the suburbs and areas plagued by foreclosure. The exhibit, which features models and animations, is also accompanied by a strong line up of events and a public blog. MoMA has made itself a center of dialogue on an important subject for a set period of time.
Here's a great case in point. The Museum of Modern Art recently opened a new and ambitious exhibit, "Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream." Last summer, MoMA invited some of the best architects, urban planners, ecologists, engineers and landscape designers to be in residence at MoMA P.S. 1. Their task? To reimagine housing and transportation infrastructures, particularly in the suburbs and areas plagued by foreclosure. The exhibit, which features models and animations, is also accompanied by a strong line up of events and a public blog. MoMA has made itself a center of dialogue on an important subject for a set period of time.
A few days ago, New York City’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) unveiled its newest exhibition, Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream. A collection of five architectural plans that reimagine how five different suburbs in America could have benefitted significantly from Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) funds, Foreclosed is an amazing exhibition that melds art and architecture, politics and place. Today, I’m going to discuss the impetus of this exhibition—The Buell Hypothesis. The Hypothesis is an amazing hybrid publication created by Columbia University’s Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture. According to the publication’s graphic designers, The Buell Hypothesis is “part socratic dialogue, part contemporary screenplay, part media scape and part power point slide presentation.” This hybrid production, with its emphasis on collaboration and reinterpretation, is an appropriate point of genesis for Foreclosed.
Starting today, through July 30, New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) will be running an exhibit featuring the proposals of five interdisciplinary studios that were asked to re-think and re-invent the future of housing in the midst of the foreclosure crisis that remains a threat to many Americans and their homes. Over the Summer of 2011, WORKac, MOS Architects, Visible Weather, Zago Architecture and Studio Gang Architects selected five “megaregions” across the country on which to speculate the form that housing could take: physically, socially and economically. Late this summer, ArchDaily has provided coverage while the work was in progress. Opening today, the results of those speculative efforts will be presented at the MoMA as part of an exhibit called Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream. The Open Studios exercise was organized by Barry Bergdoll, MoMA’s Philip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture and Design, with Reinhold Martin, Director of Columbia University’s Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture.
Like the Rising Currents show, the Foreclosed exhibition put MoMA in an activist role, actually commissioning speculative solutions, developed through a workshop process. Bergdoll, who organized the project with Reinhold Martin, Director of Columbia University's Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture, isolated five geographical areas in the U.S., from Florida to California, where the banking mortgage crisis of 2007–08 led to stalled projects and swaths of publicly held land now available for development. For each of the five sites—identified based on Buell Center research—Bergdoll and Martin assigned a team, led by architects and including experts in finance, housing, planning, and infrastructure. Each team created proposals meant to provoke new ways of thinking about housing and dense community living: Bergdoll wants to engage the public in understanding “how architects think.”
The show also asked architects to engage with community activists, economists, urban planners, ecologists, and experts from other fields, suggesting that architecture does best when it can manage complex input from a wide variety of professionals. To complicate things further, the design process itself beame public through a series of charettes, presentations, conferences, and blog posts, all of which are archived-and worth looking through-on the Foreclosed web site.
Yake
Thu Apr 12, 03:14:00 PM EDT
I didn't see the exhibit in person like you did, Alex, but I did read about it. The part that really got under my skin was when I read that the participants, to prepare for this exhibition, had spent some time "in residence" at PS 1 in Long Island City.
Would it really have killed them to spend some time in -- gasp -- actual suburbs? I guess that was just a bridge too far.
It confirmed my pre-existing notion, which I think you echo, that architecture, generally speaking, is not a discipline that has much that's meaningful to contribute towards these issues of redefining the American Dream. To critique it and to change it, it's helpful to have even a smidgen of understanding of why it's powerful and widespread among so many people.
I didn't see the exhibit in person like you did, Alex, but I did read about it. The part that really got under my skin was when I read that the participants, to prepare for this exhibition, had spent some time "in residence" at PS 1 in Long Island City.
Would it really have killed them to spend some time in -- gasp -- actual suburbs? I guess that was just a bridge too far.
It confirmed my pre-existing notion, which I think you echo, that architecture, generally speaking, is not a discipline that has much that's meaningful to contribute towards these issues of redefining the American Dream. To critique it and to change it, it's helpful to have even a smidgen of understanding of why it's powerful and widespread among so many people.
There was never any interaction between city officials and the MoMA project team, either during the research phase last year or since the exhibition opened in February. Yet Orange officials are willing to admit that the architects got some things right.
Uniquely, this was not a contest. The five teams were invited to host open conversations with each other at MoMA, and the 5 designs, though wildly different, were actually the product of open collaboration. They have provided five new models of living, working, and commuting in a metropolis. Some of the ideas look like the product of a J.G. Ballard nightmare, but others are truly innovative.
11 Jun, 2012 - (@_kate_joyce)
"In the summer of 2011, New York's Museum of Modern Art invited five teams of architects, planners, ecologists,... http://fb.me/24gFxCald
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/foreclosed/
The five interdisciplinary teams of architects – led by principals at MOS Architects, Studio Gang, WORKac, Visible Weather, and Zago Architecture – were each assigned a site within a U.S. mega-region. The teams spent time in their assigned megaregions, visiting potential sites for intervention, meeting with local residents and officials, and considering what type of architectural program would respond to the local needs and realities of the existing population. Then they developed proposals to address the issue of foreclosure in each area, based on ideas drawn from The Buell Hypothesis, which rethinks housing and infrastructure in ways that could transform American suburbs.
Each team engaged in a cross-disciplinary conversation, analyzing and eventually imagining the redesign of their specific sites, from older East Coast suburbs with rail connections to newer subdivisions accessible only by highway. As a result, the proposals developed for the five sites provide radically different visions of a rethought suburbia.
Each team engaged in a cross-disciplinary conversation, analyzing and eventually imagining the redesign of their specific sites, from older East Coast suburbs with rail connections to newer subdivisions accessible only by highway. As a result, the proposals developed for the five sites provide radically different visions of a rethought suburbia.
Board Prez Michael Sorkin will participate in the symposium #Foreclosed: Re-housing the #AmericanDreamat MoMA this Sat.: http://ht.ly/4N5GN