Are skyscrapers anti-urban?

P

Patrick

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From http://www.archpaper.com/e-board_rev.asp?News_ID=4338

Density Uber Alles

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In comparison to the Transamerica Pyramid, 555 Washington Street looks small, but its approval would immediately threaten lowrise neighbors to the north.
Courtesy Heller Manus

This Thursday, the San Francisco Planning Commission will again take up the proposed 38-story 555 Washington Street tower, designed by Heller Manus for developer Andrew Segal. During the last meeting, in which the commissioners failed to reach a consensus, venerable community activist Sue Hestor asked them, ?Does ?new urbanism? say that we have to fight suburban sprawl by putting 400-foot buildings everywhere in San Francisco?? Hestor has a point. For far too long smart growth has meant density ?ber alles on both sides of the Bay. The result is a dog?s breakfast, for the most part, much of which has little to do with walkable urbanism and nothing to do with urbanity. It?s time to get nuanced about density. As 555 Washington demonstrates, density?s context is not just the block itself?the immediate environs?but what is influenced and perhaps threatened by its increase.

The 555 Washington tower disregards current zoning for the block it shares with William Pereira?s 1972 Transamerica Pyramid, still the tallest building in the city. Next to it, the new tower doesn?t look so big, of course, and it comes with a packet of ground-level amenities. For Heller Manus, best known for political acumen, the design is OK: cribbed from the late-modern playbook, but OK. All of this has won it an endorsement from SPUR (San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association), an important advocacy group in San Francisco.

So far, so good?I can imagine the trail of logic that brought SPUR on board. It all seems fairly harmless, and if it violates the planning code in the process, well, the code?s out of date anyway. So why should the Planning Commission hesitate to move ahead with 555 Washington when it takes it up again in mid-March? Here are three good reasons for them to slow the tower down and reconsider its larger context.

1. Put a halt to case-by-case rezoning

Dropping a housing tower into the Pyramid block continues a sorry tradition of case-by-case rezoning in San Francisco. Back in May 2009, San Francisco Chronicle critic John King?addressing the 555 Washington tower specifically?spoke up for ?a re-imagined, focused plan for the financial and retail district.? He also noted the price the city pays for not having one: ?As long as downtown is up for grabs, in effect, count on the process to grow more strident and cynical.? San Francisco?s Planning Department may be hobbled by the downturn, King observed, but isn?t the real opportunity of a downturn to plan intelligently for the future?

Given the state of the housing market, there?s no urgency at all to approve the tower. By delaying it, the commissioners can avoid repeating the travesty of exempting Heller Manus? Folsom/Spear Towers, now the Infinity, from the Rincon Area Plan. (They were approved, and then a new Rincon plan was announced?with a dotted line around the towers that suggested that its eastern boundary had been quickly redrawn.)

2. Add density to the core, not the edge

The Pyramid block is on the northern edge of San Francisco?s Financial District, considerably past California Street. To its north, the buildings are much lower, an eclectic mix whose tenants benefit from its current density. This is where you find two of the region?s best bookstores, City Lights and Stout?s, and many of its best dealers in the decorative arts. You want urbanity? It starts here, yet the area clearly thrives because of its proximity to the financial district. Shanghai, facing the same dilemma, has opted to preserve similar areas like the Puxi district, recognizing?as Singapore did not?that they are irreplaceable. This is why SF?s planning code sought, a generation ago, to preserve the area. Let?s give its framers some credit for foresight.

The question 555 Washington raises is not whether it?s inappropriate for its site, but what happens next. As UC Berkeley?s Peter Bosselmann, a professor of urban design, once pointed out to me, adding density at the edge puts pressure on the lower-density neighborhoods that adjoin it. He was talking about the Rincon area, but the comment is even more applicable to the north end of the central business district, where recent and proposed projects along Kearny Street are also testing the higher-density waters. A generation ago, KPF?s building at 600 California had to step down to blend in with lower buildings to the north. Today, a developer doing the same project would be likely to use the occasion for mixed-use, assuming the planning code holds. If enough exceptions to the code get approved, the current edge is unlikely to hold.

3. Focus on urbanity, not just density

The question to ask of density is what does it really contribute to the city? This takes in everything: scale and mix, design quality, effect on microclimate, synergy with surrounding uses, transit access, etc. As we rezone, so shall we reap. Instead of giving 555 Washington a pass, the Planning Commission could send a powerful message to the city and the developer community: no more case-by-case exceptionalism. There?s never been a better time than now?the lull before the resumption of business as usual?to take a comprehensive look at how the central business district should grow, gaining rather than losing urbanity, and how much added density, if any, the districts north of it should absorb. These are the real and pressing issues. The tower can wait.
John Parman

John Parman is a writer and editorial adviser to The Architect?s Newspaper.
 
I think San Francisco would be a good starting point to this discussion. When the TransAmerica tower was proposed, City Planner Alan Jacobs criticized it as a disaster in urban design. Now people across the world associate the structure with SF and it is bound to show up on any postcard of the place. And people love SF more than most cities. But, are these people just tourists, and, if so, in an age of globalized travel and interaction, should their vote count less than those who reside in the city?

I personally have a great interest in skyscrapers, to the point where nothing is too tall for me. The only height limit I would be willing to consider is one which would ensure a building doesn't bump into the moon.

However, in a somewhat related but not always aligned interest, I am also a champion of urbanism. and as many know, tall buildings and urban atmosphere often times but by no stretch of the imagination always go together.

So, are skyscrapers anti urban? Would places like Paris, SF, even Boston be better off without them? Density is actually increased often times for small highrises if the same parcels were built out in a low rise fashion which met street lines. Cafes work well outside of low rises, but do they do so outside of the Pru? does it matter? do we even need cafes? what about book stores? are they important? do they function well in the lobby of a skyscraper?

But then again, there are undeniably situations in which a certain use would contribute to the city and the only option is to build up give lack of space.

A city completely composed of skyscrapers would seem bad, to me, but the alternative is also a bit odd and backwaterish, sprawling, and towny feeling.

I would be interested in anyone's thoughts. Thanks.
 
Sounds to me like he is just trying to oppose the tower without sounding anti development.

From the renderings, the tower doesn't seem out of place. He seems to emphasize an arbitrary boundary too much. From what I understand, you can't have urbanity without density (height being only 1 of a few aspects of density).
 
Focus on urbanity, not just density
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That really says it all. Density does not equal urban, it is merely an important piece of the puzzle. The South Boston Waterfront is a great example of a dense, suburban environment. Architects are slowing relearning how to build cities but they are only halfway there; they need the little things to make it really work.

Skyscrapers are not inherently anti-urban, bland boring buildings of any size are.
 
Paris is "without skyscrapers", except for the Tour Eiffel (which isn't really a building) and the Tour Montparnasse, widely regarded as a mistake.
 
^And the counter point to Paris/Prague would be NYC/Chicago both of which are very urban cities.

Personally, I prefer the Paris/Prague model but I enjoy NYC as well.
 
Ron Newman said:
Paris is "without skyscrapers", except for the Tour Eiffel (which isn't really a building) and the Tour Montparnasse, widely regarded as a mistake.
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You clearly never seen La Defense then.
 
Ron Newman said:
Paris is "without skyscrapers", except for the Tour Eiffel (which isn't really a building) and the Tour Montparnasse, widely regarded as a mistake.
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Well, the absolute center of Paris may be, but La Defense is very, very close by -- something akin to a SBW for Paris, if we a) could build high-rises there and b) could get anything built there.

While I realize it may look like quibbling to insist on noting La Defense, I do so because I'm not sure Paris would be able to have a shot at retaining many businesses (particularly finance and professional services; maybe media to a lesser degree) without that mini-city. Similarly, London has Canary Wharf (in addition to other skyscrapers in the City and increasingly elsewhere); Moscow has Moscow-City; and so on. No European (or Asian or Oceanian) city trying to present itself as a business capital can really be said to be skyscraper-free.

EDIT: Like you said, Kent. You beat me to it :)
 
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KentXie said:
You clearly never seen La Defense then.
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I've seen it, but it's not in Paris. This is like having skyscrapers in Waltham or Quincy but none in downtown or Back Bay.

Washington DC may be a closer analogy -- no skyscrapers in the city, but some on the other side of the river in Arlington and Fairfax counties.
 
the urbanity of a skyscraper is based on how much its podium is engaging to pedestrians and the street (not a big footprint, has retail inside, no big dead zones due to bare exterior wall). If it's just walled off however with no entrances except for the lobby, I consider it non urban
 
The argument I'm making is not against highrise building per se, but against using density as an all-purpose rationale for expanding highrise districts when there may be room for added density closer to the transit-served core. The wall to which one person referred may be arbitrary, but it reflects a major planning decision taken in the early 1980s. Instead of allowing case-by-case rezoning to erase it, it would be preferable to pause (especially now, when there's almost no development happening) and ask if the wall should stay or, if it should go, how much density the districts to the north of the financial district should absorb (and where). if this goes unexplored, you'll see piecemeal highrise redevelopment north of the existing line as property owners are induced to sell out to developers. That's been the pattern south of Market Street, and the results are deplorable.
 
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all good points, John, some of which were also highlighted in the article posted above. I agree with you, although I am a champion of tall buildings. I am not against the article posted, but rather used it as a launch pad for discussion of what I see becoming more and more of a disconnect between urbanity and skyscrapers. Thanks for your input, you should contribute more. I assume you are from SF?
 
I'm not opposed to highrise buildings, but I'm not in favor of blanketing cities with them, either. In the case of 555 Washington, what's proposed makes sense in the context of the immediate block, but may not in the context of an existing edge to a downtown district that borders a much lower area. That larger context warrants consideration. (I wrote the article that leads off this post, and my earlier comment was meant as an elaboration and reply.) The tower won the first round, by the way, but most of the issues will be discussed in a third hearing on 15 April.
 
Well, I can't say I disagree with you, Jon. I am not opposed to high rises, either, in fact I really like them. However, I also really like urbanity and the vibrancy that can come from the mixed use low rise districts that it seems like 555 washington abuts. So, I sort of used your article to launch a discussion of whether and if so to what extent high rises conflict with the sort of urban-ness that draws people for quality of life and sense of place reasons. It seems like it can, but doesn't always. here might be an example of when it might. What is the neighborhood directly next to this like? If I understand you correctly, you are simply arguing that before moving ahead some thought should be given to the broader context (or region, for lack of a better word) in terms of the citywide shape of development and commerce. Is that right? If so I agree. 100%.
 
The argument that skyscrapers are anti-urban ends the moment that you step foot in New York. I can't imagine much being more urban than New York.
 
I don't think they are anti urban, but I guess I was challenging people to take a more broad view of what exactly being urban entails. Paris and other European cities are probably much more urban than NYC, in the traditional use of the word, yet have far fewer skyscrapers. Of course, the U.S. city has transformed the word urban to mean something different, essentially equating it with skyline. So in that sense you are right about NYC. I don't know. I'm no expert, just thinking these things through.
 
Patrick's summary (above) of my argument is correct. Even NYC (by the way) has areas of lower density. I remember visiting NYC shortly after being in Tokyo and thinking that it really wasn't dense at all, although Tokyo is a much lower city overall.
 
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