Bringing density back in to city making has been back in vogue for awhile with the reintroduction of the 'Transit Oriented District'. This hasn't been without its disappointments.

In the United States of America, we believe in a democracy based on the rule of law. The thought is that the rule of law will create a better society, one that promotes Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. As civilization has progressed, no-one seems to have come up with a better idea.

Taking this idea, and translating it into how we make cities, the Democratic choice and the rule of law guides us to build in one of two ways, and in America, we've done both.

In Pasadena, where I live, the community values careful monitoring of the design of new construction and remodeling of buildings. The city has established a panel to review proposed building projects which, as a group, is aptly called, 'The Design Review Board'. This panel, consisting of professionals and other appointed interested parties, takes its work seriously. It's not easy to get their approval.

The Architect's Newspaper:

"Details are sparse during the period of Zaha Hadid replacing Assemblage. First, over the two year span, Assemblage was never officially notified that they had lost the bid. Although, in private they knew they were frozen out of conversation. Second, leading Iraqi architectural critic Ihsan Fethi said there has been a veil of secrecy as he has tried several times to see the plan for the parliamentary building. Finally, the Iraqi Council of Representatives never had a chance to choose the winner selected by the RIBA judges."

Witness the ongoing saga at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. With the acquisition of the American Folk Art Museum on West 53rd Street, came a crafted building praised by many critics. After some wavering on the issue, it was announced that this building would be torn down to make way for a new MoMA addition, throwing MoMA headlong into a classic preservation debate. Keep or Tear Down. Keep the quirky structure by the architects Tod Williams + Billie Tsein, with all of its accompanying issues mis-matched floor elevations and the like, or scrape it clean and start over.

Where I come from, building setbacks at the front are primary and irrefutable elements of the zoning code. Intrusion is forbidden up to a few inches above the ground plane, except for landscaping and the odd lamp-post. The front-yard setback is the hallmark what what is considered to be good suburban design, the semi-public space that sets a residence or other suburban building away from the activities of the street, and helps to create a pleasant and pastoral street volume.

"The rest of the country looks to California. Not for what is conventional, but for what is necessary—necessary to keep faith with our courageous forebears.What we have done together and what we must do in the coming years is big, but it pales in comparison to the indomitable courage of those who discovered and each decade thereafter built a more abundant California. As Legislators, It is your duty and privilege to pass laws. But what we need to do for our future will require more than producing hundreds of new laws each year.

The title of an interesting article about craft in the New York Times, by NPR correspondent Alan Davidson. Interesting to me, because I'm curious about the economic models that support crafts-people and how they compare with the economics of those who craft cities, and the value to those who support the craft.

Over time, the tourist appeal of the Highline will diminish, and its infrastructure will burnish itself into the surrounding neighborhood. Hopefully it will be kept it good repair, to be treasured for many years to come. The displaced will find other quarters in the Burroughs, and some will still survive in the shadows of the trestles as before.

I'll send this out to you: parallels can be drawn in how we imagine and build cities. The culture within the government, planning, and architectural communities can have their own way of inhibiting things. I offer a few examples for your reading pleasure, and you may have a few of your own. Here goes:

With a few exceptions, city builders of the 'civilized' world are confronted with considerable rules to follow, and clearances to be reviewed, in order to be allowed to build a project. These are processes devised for the public good, established to enforce the public will, to make manifest the political power of government, and to greatly influence and control what may be constructed within a community. They are also processes that happen to squander our resources, and hamper us (all of us) in building the best possible cities.

Why is it that some things, designed as prescribed, are lifeless objects, a mis-appropriation of resources and effort, while others, outside of the code, regulation, or just plain illegal are filled with delight, a gem in the surrounding neighborhood.

The one-word answer is love.

At the SCI-Arc lecture, Eric Owen Moss was available for some counterpoint. I picked this quote:

"I can feel you love making the Parametric argument. But your case may say as much about you as it does about architecture. It’s what you guys require to validate going proceeding ahead. Forgive me for the street-corner psycho-analysis. And again, nowhere a scintilla of a minutiae of an iota of doubt. Why are you doing this? Because it’s so? Or because you need it to be so? No inkling that something’s left out? I always thought that the unique voices in architecture included both an extreme self-confidence, and simultaneously, a deep skepticism of the consequences of that self-confidence."

From someone who advocates keeping, renewing, and repurposing the existing city fabric (the layering of buildings and infrastructure accumulated over time), the notion of offering up something called creative destruction as a solution for solving city design issues naturally incites some suspicions.

Good rules and how to administer them are of utmost importance to city design. Design by precedent is at best too simple minded a way of making a city, and at its worst, a way of allowing the legal profession to usurp something best handled by designers.

There are broader, more basic truths about the design of cities than can be captured in one theory or design movement. Even if you are a rabid proponent, or even if you’ve 'invented' a design methodology, if you're honest, it takes someone else about a minute to determine some of the ways to contradict your ‘manifesto’.

Architectural style has been assigned by the less thoughtful and those with a bias, as the primary character maker of a city.

Style, in the most basic and obvious way, deeply affects the way a city looks. But it quality really assumes the role of primary character maker.

The New Urbanist movement has been a remarkable endeavor, a force to be reckoned with in planning, government, and design communities throughout the world. It is part academia, part enterprise, part Arcadian vision…

An architect is trained to think of each building as a discrete whole, bounded by its sides and top. An object understood on its own; more simply put, four walls and a roof. A program is understood, the needs of the inhabitants are thought through, and a shape is made to wrap what goes on inside. If the program is lavish, if the architect is a sculptor and makes a statement with each work, the shape is fully considered from all sides. This isn’t about the rugged self-reliance of the architect. Those who commission the building, and those who build it see it as a very singular act, governed by vague notions about ‘fitting in’.

As a society, we prescribe a procedure and a set of rules to make good cities. We like good, and we dislike bad. When someone does something bad, makes a bad building, or does something that is deemed inappropriate to the health and welfare of the general public, a rule is made, and a procedure is enlisted to carry out the rule.