Sketching with David

I feel I’ve reached the point in my pseudo architectural blog to try my hand at the suburbs debate. Much has been said about the loved/hated burbs and I have no doubt that my thoughts will be a breath of fresh air…

I’ve now been living for almost a year in London, carefully observing the curious ways of the British. I can say from first hand experience that the issues at hand in London (and more generally England) are very different from those in North America. But interestingly, one thing holds mostly true: the suburbs are not loved. As Martin Dines puts it, it’s the place that gets rebranded “an ‘urban village’ as soon as a branch of Carluccio’s opens”.

The alternative, city life, has its limitations. A high demand in London has seen the rise of tiny north-facing flats off the dreaded train line. More and more neighbourhoods are becoming gentrified as a result of the demand. And prices are high. Most estimates seem to point out that without a serious commitment to high densities, the London Plan of 23 000 new dwellings per year will not be achieved. The answers to our housing questions may lie in a combination of densities and arrangements. I do not believe a case can be made for a unique approach to housing. Certain cities simply do not have the capacity to cope with the demand and suburban developments are going to have to be part of the solution. Which brings me to the final issue: putting aside the credentials debate, how do you design a GOOD suburb?

The interesting thing about Ezra Klein’s article is that he does not vilify the suburbs but simply argues for higher densities and better linkage. It’s very hip, trendy and “new urbanist”. But it just might work. Small town America may have something to teach us after all. And if everyone’s clustered around a village centre, then it makes more economic sense to offer that centre a rail link, doesn’t it? There’s no stressing enough how effective and frequent public transportation connections are important; in fact many of Klein’s readers have pointed out the essential difference between driving to work and a comfortable train ride.

(On that note, Monocle recently published an article on the exciting world of trains. It seems the traditional train nations of the UK, Canada and the US are falling behind many developing nations in fast and sexy trains. I would like to see some more maglevs flying around the place.)

Without any doubt, the aspirations of new urbanism have had a huge impact on architecture and planning. Yet in many cases, it only amounts to a skin-deep stylization of the schemes, an aesthetic touch-up if you will: pedestrian-friendly pavements, individualized building facades (that’s when every window is a different colour_ simply brilliant), winding roads and the odd communal play space. Yes, right next to that train line again.

So far, I’ve already seen a few out-somewhere-in-South England residential schemes (sometimes even praised!) that consist of detached houses arranged in a seemingly random fashion off a highway. Looking at the way these projects are often only questioned on an aesthetic basis, it seems to me that somewhere out there, somebody forgot what the whole point was. Maybe it’s time to get back to the basics, look across the metaphorical highway and start disassembling that huge road network we’ve always taken for granted. Well, at least since the sixties.