Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Re: Front porches

[Harry Pasternak (Harry_Pasternak]

John

In Canada, every home in every subdivision, must have plans submitted for a
building permit. As well, other than when building your own home, the plans
submitted had/have to be designed and stamped by an architect. Consequently,
the majority of the Suburbian housing built for low income as well as middle
income families were/are designed by architects.

 Similarily, "master plans" for the entire community had/have to be submitted
and/or the regionnal or municipal government's staff planners or hired
consulting planners developed/develop the "master plan" for the layout of the
community.

Is it different for the U.S.A.?

Of course developers were/are part of the problem-but architects and planners
have to share the responsiblity of creating subdivision after subdivision
that had/have dozens of barriers built into the design of the houses and
public spaces around these houses, which impeded social interaction between
the people who bought and live in housing found in Suburbia-producing the
"Negative Process": nothing happens because nothing happens. Ethically,
neither planners or architects can use the " I was just following orders"
routine to justify the these travesties. 

Yes, there were/are some planners and architects who refused to go along with
the "Tici Tac" approach to housing; but even today, how many architects do In
Depth Market Research themselves (or hire specialists to do the research)
before houses and communities are designed? If they did, wouldn't all
subdivisions look like Muir Commons? Instead, we get the new city of Columbia
Maryland-designed by the "best" architects and planners-where you had to
drive your children to the nearest park and playground; because, the only
other way to get from the housing to the playground was for the child to run
across a six lane expressway!

In a similar fashion, the architecturally designed high rise apartment
buildings and office towers impede contact between the inhabitants. There are
days, at the corner of Bloor St. and Yonge St. (Toronto) where people can not
walk and have to hold onto lamp posts and traffic signs because of the wind
speeds accelorating down the sides of the high rise buildings! 

"The post modern revolt against the rigidity of modernism has produced a
great number of strained and stilted buildings designed with a greater
emphasis on artistic statement than on the usefulness to the inhabitants."
Jan Gehl 




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