Edward Erfurt sent along a link to Tumbleweed Houses, a company in California that makes pint-sized (40-500 sq. ft.) prefab houses that look, well, darn cute.

These things would look just silly facing a typical street, surrounded by typically sized houses. What I’m imagining is a co-housing bungalow court: ten tiny houses could easily fit on a 50′ x 125′ double lot, with room for a not-tiny common house (with laundry, gathering space, a real kitchen, and parking for shared cars) and many tiny trees. At $30,000 for each “deluxe” 12′ x 16′ house, the finished cost with land would still be less than $50K per tiny house. That’s $300/month (at 6% interest): less than many people pay for their cars, far below construction cost of comparably dense multifamily, and cheaper, even, than new SROs which give their residents less space, less privacy, and less dignity.

Quartier International

Originally uploaded by paytonc.

The initial master plan for the Quartier International by Peterson Littenberg was even featured in “The New Urbanism” (ed. Peter Katz). Here, part of the area as built, with the Palais des Congr�s (T�treault, Parent, Languedoc & associ�s, Saia & Barbese, �difica, with Hal Ingberg, 2002) facing Place Jean-Paul-Riopelle. Who says that New Urbanism cannot accommodate modern architecture?

More photoblog posts to come, since a big photodump to Flickr has buried some gems.

Terror alert

Originally uploaded by paytonc.

Seen on Meridian St in South Pasadena across from an open house for CNU attendees at Mission Meridian.

Someone (whose name escapes me, as names tend to) spent a few hours talking with the neighbors at the little block party reception they were having. Turns out they’re longtime neighborhood activists, having gotten 30+ years of practice at it while campaigning against the not-dead-yet 710 freeway (which would wipe out 1/3 of South Pasadena). Overall, the neighbors admitted that they preferred residential development to the long-vacant lot. The main issue is indeed the trees: despite repeated assurances from both the developer and the town planning officials, a row of truly giant street trees all came down just a few weeks ago — well after major construction was done. The developer’s people said that the trees were diseased; they’re 80 years into their 100-year life expectancy, and have been badly pruned in recent years. (I also have a photo of the street trees up on Flickr.)

A secondary issue is the bulk of the loft building. It is indeed a few feet higher than anything else in the vicinity, and retaining those trees would have done a lot to mask that bulk. Apparently, they really like the Craftsman maisonettes, which are a great way to insert density into the low-scale context.

However, the escalation of the attacks from one development and a half-dozen trees to the whole of New Urbanism, and the loaded addition of “terrorism,” is just inexcusable rhetoric.

The bungalow court came up on a short call with an architect last week, in reference to one building type native to Pasadena (ca. 1909, Sylvanus Marston). Although I was certainly aware of the type from movies (like the Bavarian Village in Silverlake — the apartment complex in “Mulholland Drive”), my knowledge of California courtyard housing is mostly limited to often-Mission Revival courtyards of attached and sometimes stacked maisonettes or flats. However, newly built courts of detached bungalows or cottages have proved popular in the Northwest, and the housing type might have new relevance in the era of the not-so-big house. It seems remarkably appropriate for multifamily infill within established single-family neighborhoods, or for difficult, deep sites within new towns where one might otherwise be tempted to put a cul-de-sac. Perhaps best of all, the small increments of the plan mean that it can be adapted for almost any site or market preference, with an endless variety of plans.

The National Register of Historic Places has a scanned document (ca. 1978; 5MB PDF) giving names, addresses, and descriptions for dozens of bungalow courts in Pasadena. It would be interesting to go around and see what shape they’re in today; I’ll look for a few in June.

For some more photos, scroll down to Bungalow Courts in this slide-show outline from UCSB.

A 1988 survey of San Diego’s bungalow courts and their residents found that not only has this housing type withstood the test of time–80% were still intact, 70 years after their heyday — but that they were well-liked by their diverse residents, with only 5% of the respondents dissatisfied. The courts were primarily located along streetcar lines in the then-new neighborhoods just north of Balboa Park, and many were marketed to single women (then a brand-new household type) as a neighborly, familial middle ground between expensive homeownership and hedonistic apartment life.

Many individual courts acquired social identities over time; some courts were still filled with single women who all moved in decades ago. The reasons for the courts’ passage into history seems simple but stupid in retrospect: “Due to the unfathomable popularity of the two-story ‘dingbat’ apartment complex, eight units could now be crammed onto one city lot complete with off-street parking. It is probably also true that apartment seekers in the 1960s (like everyone else) wanted modern dwellings with gleaming kitchens and green shag carpeting.” In addition, bungalow courts’ small units and lack of attached garages may have turned away potential occupants.

A mention of lifestyle centres in Canada by the ICSC included a hint: the first completed lifestyle centre, the Village at Park Royal in North Vancouver, includes a 70,000 sq ft design-focused Home Depot with a round, street-facing, two-level layout. It looks quite good from these photos from architect MDMA:

The Santa Monica city council will soon consider plans for redeveloping Santa Monica Place. Owner Macerich’s plans, developed by Jon Jerde, will scrape the site for underground parking and extend Third Street through the existing site. (This is an unexpected windfall to Sears, which stands to become the southern terminus of Third Street.) A pair of two-story retail buildings would line an extension of Third Street: small shops at ground level and four anchors (including the existing Macy’s and Robinsons-May) largely on the second level. Atop the podium on the the west half of the block is a rooftop garden with restaurants and an office building. A few live-work units would prop up the street presence on Second Street.

Personally, I’m somewhat puzzled by the sudden interest — as at Block 37, in the last pre-Mills scheme released to the public, but also seen in some lifestyle centers like Paseo Colorado or Clarendon Market Common — in building these rooftop dining gardens and, more importantly, selling them as huge public benefits. Sure, they’re pretty with nice views (in this case, of the ocean and pier), sure, they’re green, and sure, they’re open to the public, but won’t they end up serving mostly as fenced-in outdoor dining? In a location like Santa Monica, is outdoor dining really all that interesting, and (considering how profitable it is) why does anyone consider it to be a public benefit?

And in this case, a better urban design approach would maintain the somewhat higher podium heights found nearby (in the 50-80′ range), possibly by moving the office component from a freestanding tower into the podium. A cluster of high-rise residential towers isn’t the end of the world, but a little more thought should be given to integrating those into the rest of the project — not that Macerich, as a pure-play retail developer, has any interest in thinking about that.

Update 26 Jan: today’s Times has a timely article on how the “food court” atop the Time Warner Center is faring. Seems that, for many in the haute cuisine set, entering a mall is just too gauche for words. Some sort of direct street access would have been preferable, I suppose.

Transportation Alternatives makes the case for wider rollout of three test traffic configurations: traffic calmed side streets, variable parking pricing, and higher-visibility bike lanes. None requires very significant capital investments, but all have proven effects on the safety and efficiency of the existing transportation network.

Variably priced parking, in particular, can be done quite easily with either electronic meters (reprogrammed slightly to note the time and charge accordingly) or with pay & display systems. It is a proven revenue enhancer, reduces the incidence of double parking, and encourages off-peak use — thereby cutting traffic congestion. There’s no reason not to do it.

“Even the urban design is retro: A big box flanked by parking lots — a piece of suburban sprawl stuck in the city. Since sprawl wastes energy by forcing people to drive enormous distances, the building’s green roof is a hollow gesture, kind of like putting a piece of organic lettuce on a bacon double-cheeseburger.” — Blair Kamin on the new McDonald’s in River North

My heart dropped last night when I saw this sign:

The Association House settlement house — kind of a one-stop social service shop — just outside my window, has gone up for sale. Most importantly for me, the sign advertises “11 city lots” — including the lovely playground which gives my first-floor apartment unobstructed sunlight from the west and a view of trees.

The actual Association House, at the western end of the site (but apparently not at the west edge — it appears there’s a vacant lot to its west) cannot be torn down, since it is in the Wicker Park Historic District. However, the playground can (and, almost certainly, will) be replaced with new buildings. The site is zoned B4-2, which is the same zoning as all the new construction to the west of us along North — retail on the ground floor, residential above.

Ideally, any new development there would retain and perhaps loft-convert the old school, while building a single structure on the remainder of the site. The new building should fit its historic architectural context and provide some breathing room for both my building and the Association House. (Indeed, the existing pedestrian walkway alongside the existing building would make a nice residential entry.) The parking should not come at the expense of the big old trees at the rear lot line.

I don’t think that’s a terribly tall order, but given the likely $4 million asking price, the pressure to just cut the losses and run by throwing up some crackerbox flats will likely be tremendous. Under the new zoning, they’re not even obligated to give any side setback, unless my building gets rezoned R (which it should be), in which case they’re obligated a mere 2.5′ of setback — whereas in the case of a larger building with residential units oriented sideways (parallel to the street), the zoning would require a 12′ setback. However, any larger building would be a much bigger construction job: Type A construction, elevators, and accessible units. Maybe they’ll use up a good deal of their FAR on the labyrinthe existing building and have less to spare on this side.

In any case, 11 lots = 34,375 sq ft; at 2.2 FAR and 43 dua, that’s 75,625 allowable built sq ft (huge!) and 34 units — the same as my building, incidentally, which is on six lots. However, we don’t have a rear setback; the new zoning requires stepped rear setbacks, from 0′ at ground to 30′ for any residential floors.

I obviously feel conflicted. On the one hand, in the abstract I’m all for density in transit accessible locations like mine; I’ve regularly trumpeted the fact that I live at a perfectly livable 60 units per net acre. However, that quality of life depends on the open spaces around: the courtyard in front and the playground out back. Without the wide playground, in particular, I can expect much less light and possibly less privacy. I also feel as if I should have known: there’s been remarkably little activity over there this year — no ballgames, no after-school programs — while Association House’s building on Kedzie is hopping with stuff. Then the voter registration card came and listed the polling place as “TBD,” not as Association House as it’s always been. However, the sign only went up very recently. And it makes sense for them: the population they’re serving has long since been pushed out of this neighborhood, and the land they’re not using could net them millions of dollars for their programming.

While I was poking around for the listing, I came across the listing for the Cook Brothers building. $6.5M for 88,300 square feet in a ca. 1920 three-story loft with huge but bricked-in windows; on Ashland next to the Green Line, a block from Union Park, in the still growing West Loop. Plus, it has a really cool clock tower that terminates Fulton Market St. Too bad it’s in a Manufacturing district — although it would certainly make cool offices.

In a further sign that the British establishment is going whole hog for new urbanism, the Royal Institute of British Architects‘ president, George Ferguson, issued a call for architects to come out of their shells and embrace the label of “urbanist,” alongside “(in alphabetical order!) architects, developers, engineers, environmentalists, landscape architects, leisure consultants, planners, politicians, sociologists, surveyors, technologists, transport consultants or urban designers.”

More from The Guardian, including a follow-up letter from Richard Rogers, who doesn’t understand that new urbanism “transcends style” (in the words of the Charter).

The relatively small, entirely street-fronting retail complex at 730 N. Michigan will sell for the equivalent of $1,150 per foot. Granted, it’s an unparalleled location, but the price — more than ten times higher than the national average for retail — also points to the incredible sales per square foot figures being posted by the flagship tenants. Each of the stores draws thousands of shoppers a day directly off the street and into spaces far more generous than any available inside a mall. (Incidentally, CompUSA has threatened to leave its large, top-floor space at the complex.)

Down on State Street, Mills is exhibiting some preliminary architectural renderings of its Block 37 development. The going idea, unveiled last summer, is a phased development with different uses at each corner and ground-level open space in the center. Retail would focus at ground level and below ground; the tremendous excavation needed to build the proposed airport express station will open up a few levels for a subterranean mall.

A retail-only corner opposite the Reliance Building would both let the sun shine on Reliance and strengthen State’s traditionally strongest corner; residential at Randolph would complement three existing residential towers nearby (the Heritage, Block 36/Art Institute, and the forthcoming Smithfield tower). It appears, then, that Mills is rejecting any major big boxes for the site, including department stores — the smaller parcels required by the phasing just won’t fit anything with a 20,000 sq ft footprint. Theaters are listed as a possible use, but given their tremendous space demands I’m not sure whether that will happen. Similarly, I’m not sure where they expect the parking to go. Nor do I quite understand how they intend to phase construction of the underground mall, unless that (and, presumably, the retail building fronting State/Washington) is the first phase.

One tenant targeted by the city in early discussions with Mills was REI — hoping to follow the success of REI’s flagship in Seattle or the Coldwater Creek flagship in Denver. (Illustration from Mills Corp. site)

In strip mall news, The Fresh Market, a staple of my North Carolina childhood (I would spend much time sniffing the bulk bins of coffee), has announced plans to move into suburban Chicago.

First, imagine a heart drawn around “Rem & Prada” above. I’m usually not one to have knee-jerk reactions to the starchitects (I’ve visited IIT and Seattle, and neither lived up to the praise nor the condemnations), but it appears that OMA is trying to erase the boundary between private and public in the snotty world of high-end retail. Democratization is good in theory, but how will it work in practice?

Capt. Koolhaas Sails the New Prada Flagship by Christopher Hawthorne

The latest stateside design from Mr. Koolhaas and his Rotterdam-based firm, Office for Metropolitan Architecture, is a Prada flagship store that opens here Friday on Rodeo Drive. (Prada and Mr. Koolhaas prefer to call it an epicenter, joining other large stores like it in New York and Tokyo, and one in San Francisco that may never be built.) [Who thought to call a building in an earthquake zone “an epicenter”?] The building, whose budget has not been released, covers 24,000 square feet on three levels, on a lot squeezed between Gucci and Brioni, just down the palm-lined street from the Beverly Wilshire Hotel.

It is a piece of architecture whose most dramatic gesture is invisible: the building is completely lacking a storefront in the traditional sense. Before the store opens each morning, a gigantic garagelike aluminum door will retract into the basement, leaving no barrier � no windows, no columns, no doors � between the $400 sandals and the sidewalk.

The threshold is protected from Los Angeles’s rare spells of bad weather by an air-curtain system that responds to outside temperature and wind speed, and by the second story, which features an aluminum-covered box, 45 feet long by 12 feet high, that is cantilevered over the entrance.

“We wanted to use this absence of facade to let the public enter absolutely freely, to create a hybrid condition between public and commercial space,” Mr. Koolhaas said.

That is hardly an inconsequential gesture on a street where some retailers position conspicuously armed guards near the front door. At Prada, security sensors are hidden in the floor at the entrance, but keeping shoplifters from exiting absolutely freely will offer more than the usual challenge. [Prada stores everywhere have conspicuous, if not yet armed, guards at the entries. After all, much of the brand mystique of high fashion comes from the fact that it’s inaccessible to the wider public.]

There is also nowhere to affix the all-important logo. Prada is betting that the nonfacade facade will be highly conspicuous in its absence, suggesting the company’s supreme brand confidence. It is a calculated, even arrogant kind of nothingness, the architectural equivalent, Prada hopes, of a woman beautiful enough to risk showing up at a gala without a bit of makeup.

The firm explored a similar public-private mixture in its Manhattan flagship for Prada, which occupies a prominent corner in SoHo (formerly occupied by a branch of the Guggenheim Museum) and includes a stage for public performance.

The idea, Mr. Koolhaas said, was to shake up Prada’s reputation as one of the most exclusive brands in fashion by stressing an openness, even what he calls an “easy” and “welcoming” quality.

“A lot of high-end retail spaces are done in a minimalist style that only looks good if nobody’s in there and nobody’s touched anything,” said Ole Scheeren, a 33-year-old partner in Mr. Koolhaas’s firm who helped lead the Beverly Hills design team. “We wanted to create a space that was exclusive but also more informal, where you could sit on the stairs and try on shoes if you want but also just talk to your friends.” [Right ho. We all know how fashionistas welcome the hoi polloi to hang out in their midst.]