Category: Steve Mouzon

Today’s reads: Urban housing, post-crisis Charlotte, and a pox on high-rises

 Steve Mouzon of Original Green fires back at what he calls Skyscraper Fetish: the idea that to increase density in cities – generally considered an environmentally desirable goal – requires high-rise residential towers (examples of some in uptown Charlotte in photo, above).

In “Uninhabitable high-rises,”  he points out some of the problems: wind speeds grow with height, making cross-ventilation difficult. Glass curtain walls either cause immense glare, or must be so strongly sun-screened that it’s tough for light to penetrate far inside. Operable windows are problematic in tall buildings. And this:”Elevator motors consume more energy than any other single piece of equipment in a high-rise building.” 

Subdivisions go urban as housing market changes. USA Today’s Haya El Nasser asks: “Why are the giants of the building industry, the creators for decades of massive communities of cookie-cutter homes, cul-de-sacs and McMansions in far-flung suburbs, doing an about-face? Why are they suddenly building smaller neighborhoods in and close to cities on land more likely to be near a train station than a pig farm?”

Her answer: The U.S. housing industry is rethinking what type of housing to build and where to build it.
I’ve wondered whether some of the news about this trend might be wishful thinking, but El Nasser has facts to buttress her point:

“Latest Census data show that population growth in fringe counties nearly stopped in the 12 months that ended July 1, 2011, and urban counties at the center of metro areas grew faster than the nation as a whole, a USA TODAY analysis found.
“Central metro counties accounted for 94% of U.S. growth, compared with 85% just before the recession and housing bust.
“A recent Case Western Reserve University study found that Cleveland’s inner city is growing faster than its suburbs for the first time.”
Fortune magazine takes a look at Charlotte after the banking crisis: “Charlotte after the bank crisis: ‘Just fine, and you?’ ” Contains this great line: “And there you have the essence of Charlotte. It is a city that knows how to move on.” 
And for long-time Charlotteans or newer residents who are history buffs, here’s a video of driving through Charlotte streets in 1986. There’s footage from Indy Boulevard but, alas, no Thompson’s Bootery and Bloomery. I lived here then, and I had a hard time identifying a lot of the scenes. There were a lot of highways and convenience stores. The car radio music is fun, too.
Meanwhile, back in the OQC (Other Queen City, aka Cincinnati): “Getting it right in the Queen City.”
Photo credit: Claire Apaliski of UNC Charlotte’s Urban Institute.

Author: Redevelop in increments

Architect, planner and author Stephen Mouzon, did more than just give some lectures from his book, Original Green: Unlocking the Mystery of True Sustainability, when he was in town recently. He also took a look at a section of south Charlotte that he thinks might be ripe for a different kind of long-range plan: The Park Road-Woodlawn Avenue neighborhood.

City planners are drawing up an area plan for that part of town, home to Park Road Shopping Center and Montford Drive’s burgeoning restaurant and bar scene, among other things.

Like many places in Charlotte, the area has most elements of a strong city neighborhood – houses, apartments, condos, shopping, offices, schools, churches, parks and greenways – but is suburban and auto-oriented in its layout and the way it functions. I’ve long thought it would be a good area to transition to a more urban flavor as it redevelops over time. But the zoning now in place for most of the area requires suburban-style building: stores and offices sitting behind huge parking lots, single-uses, apartments quarantined from single-family houses, and all the buildings too far apart to make walking practical, much less pleasant.

An aside: Don’t get me wrong; I love Park Road Shopping Center, despite its hopelessly car-focused design. It opened in 1956 as Charlotte’s first open-air shopping center, and for years has offered a mix of stores that works exceptionally well. I hope to heaven its new owners, Edens & Avant, don’t mess up a good thing.

Stephen Mouzon

Mouzon suggested the area could show how to do what planners and developers call a suburban retrofit: Taking an aging suburban area and making it a more village- or town-center type of area, with housing and stores and workplaces closer to one another. But, he said, most redevelopments require a developer buying up a big chunk of property and doing a big-footprint development. [Much of uptown Charlotte was redeveloped this way. Example: The EpiCentre.] Why not try something different, he proposed. Why not do it incrementally? Code every street frontage to its climax condition – that is, put codes in place that envision 30 years out and work toward that vision over time, as property changes hands and owners of small parcels redevelop and rebuild. Don’t wait for one deep-pocketed savior developer.

He said he’s going to draw up an idea and send it to the city. I asked him to share that with me, as well. I’ll write more on it, if this comes to pass.

During his public lecture, sponsored by the Charlotte chapter of the Urban Land Institute and by the Charlotte Department of Transportation, he expounded on many of the ideas in his book: Build buildings that are designed to be able to transition from one use to another over time; live where you can walk to the grocery story; don’t be afraid to look to the past for wisdom about how to design buildings and construct cities.

Indeed, Mouzon’s pitch is what many architects might scorn as nostalgic. He said his goal is for audiences to leave his lectures having no idea what his politics are.

‘Original Green’ author to speak in Charlotte

Steven Mouzon, whose book Original Green makes the point that environmentally sensitive living requires more than what he dubs “gizmo green” gadgets, will give a public lecture in Charlotte on Wednesday Feb. 15.

Sponsored by the Charlotte Department of Transportation and the local chapter of the Urban Land Institute, Mouzon’s talk will be at 6 p.m. in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Government Center, Room 267.

Mouzon, an architect and author, is founder of the New Urban Guild in Miami, “a group of architects, designers and other New Urbanists dedicated to the study and design of true traditional buildings and places native to, and inspired by, the regions in which they are built.”
One of the things I find interesting about Mouzon’s writing is that, to my mind, he’s an illustration of how New Urbanism can’t be so easily pigeonholed as “liberal” or “conservative.” He writes in his blog, for instance, that Original Green is what we had “before the Thermostat Age,” when “the places we made and the buildings we built had no choice but to be green.”

I’m not sure if trying to return to the building and living styles of old can be considered anything other than conservative, but as I wrote in “Is sustainability for Commies?” there’s a school of thought that anyone who mentions protecting the environment or conserving energy must be a Marxist who’ll rip people from their cars and subdivision houses and force-march them into Pruitt-Igoe-style high-rises. Note the Gaston County commissioners’ action late last month: “County leaders identify ‘insidious’ threat of Agenda 21.”

In an unfortunate architectural convergence, the UNC Charlotte College of Arts + Architecture, the Charlotte Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, and the Mint Museum of Art have planned another architectural lecture for the same night: Craig Dykers of the firm Snøhetta will give a lecture about his firm’s work. It’s at the UNC Charlotte Center City Building. A reception is at 5 p.m., and the lecture at 6 p.m. Both are free and open to the public, but require registration here.