A Sense of Place

One of the things that I notice in driving around town and looking at homes is the almost total absence of intelligent, thoughtful design. It appears that when most track housing is sold it is sold with only minimal attention to landscaping or none at all.  This leaves the homeowner free to do whatever he wants. and what emerges is invariably a discombubulated mess of picket fences, pink flamingos, and foundations plantings with one particular bush planted at equal distances around the entire foundation of the house.

River City Commons, on the other hand, has a sense of place. You feel that your are in a particular unique place -- an attribute highly valued by urban planners and architects.  In fact, Donlyn Lyndon, who was head of the Department of Architecture at the University of Oregon was also the editor of Place Magazine, and probably the person who revived Gertrude' Steins now often quoted statement, "The problem with Oakland is that there is no there there" which has become the mantra of urban designers.

Figure 1, a residential street in River City Commons. Notice the absence of trailers, recreation vehicles and boats, which are not permitted in either driveways or on the street.  Also, the neat landscaping. This street has a stong sense of place not found in other neighborhoods where "anything goes."

My own ideas on architecture went a step further -- I believe that an important consideration in architecture and planning is not merely the sense of place but how one experiences the place. Thus, the first question an architect or planner asks is, "What kind of experience do I want to create?"  Then he decides how to create a place that will produce that experience. This idea was independently developed in the software business when software developers first began studying how persons experience their applications.

Figure 2, is a modest home with a strong sense of place and positive experience. The entry gate is wrought iron and allows us to see through while offering privacy and security. When we approach the entry gate we are made curious as to what lies beyond the gate and want to explore it. But, the modest and inviting entry belies what lies in store for us when we finally enter the house to find ourselves in a sky-lit atrium of tropical plants.

Of course, one of the problems of the idea of creating places and experience is that that road leads directly to Las Vegas. In fact, one of the books my first class in architecture design assigned for reading was Tom Wolfe's "Kandy Colored Tangerine Flake Streamline Baby,"  [Amazon Book] Wolfe's first compilation of his essays on pop culture for Esquire magazine.  Among the essays was one entitled "Las Vegas (What?), an essay on Las Vegas signs and the kind of place they created.  Wolfe did not foresee the kind of place Las Vegas would later become, but the essay is as cogent today as when it was written.