Haiti - An Introduction

View from guesthouse terrace, CSI, Croix-des-Bouquets, Haiti

In the second week of October, a medical/construction team of 22 people (mostly from Richmond) traveled to an area west of Port-au-Prince in Haiti. Hosted by CSI, an organization that provides in-country infrastructure for visiting teams, the medical portion of the team ran a mobile clinic for 4 1/2 days, treating over 500 patients and dispensing over 2,000 prescriptions. Meanwhile, the construction team constructed three roofs and painted a portion of an orphanage. A mere drop in the proverbial bucket. 

The trip was far too short to claim any kind of comprehensive understanding of Haiti as a place or the Haitians as a people. However, I cannot help but look at the experience through the lens of an architect, making observations on the spaces, textures and relationships I saw during by brief journey. More to follow...

Future Visions of Transportation

A long-time fan of science fiction novels, short stories and films, I grew up reading authors like Orson Scott Card, Robert A. Heinlein and Isaac Asimov, the author of the short story I, Robot. 

[Source: http://3d.about.com]

Recently, I had the chance to see the 2004 film adaptation of the short story, starring Will Smith and Bridget Moynahan. Although the film simplified many of the intellectual subtleties of the story and added predictable amounts of Hollywood action, I still found the movie to be enjoyable. I am a fan, after all.

[Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ascentstage/]

The film I, Robot is set in the Chicago of 2035 and although there is at least one scene with the familiar elevated railway, all of the characters seem to prefer travel on freeways in private vehicles that appear to clock speeds well over 200 mph, all controlled by computers for safety and efficiency. However, the main character, Del Spooner, played by Will Smith, has a tendency to override the computer control and take manual control of his uber-cool 2035 Audi (product placement, please).

[Source: http://ionstars.blogspot.com]

One of the most memorable action sequences in the movie involves Del being attacked by homicidal robots while hurtling down the futuristic freeway.

[Source: http://foraslanandvolstate.wordpress.com]

To survive, Del takes manual control of the car from the traffic control system (a frequent, if discouraged, practice for the main character), ensuring that he can perform the necessary acrobatics. This idea of individual control versus centralized control is a key theme in the film. And, in the context of the movie-action heroics, we discover a particular viewpoint of the future of urban transportation, especially in the United States: 

[a] that technologically advanced private vehicles on technologically advanced superhighways are preferable to public transit and 

[b] that efficient, computer sequenced highways are ok for the masses, but sometimes you have to "take the wheel" for individual expression or basic survival. 

In other words, even the barest nod to public-spirited transportation found in computer-controlled traffic control is not to be trusted (just like those damn robots.)


If the science fiction genre allows the positing of trends, what is being said about the future of transportation in our cities? In the case of I, Robot, the message seems to be that the largely car-centric culture of the United States will continue to evolve into faster, more efficient private transportation that reinforces an identity of hyper-individual liberty. At what cost? If today's freeway cloverleaf takes more land area than medieval Florence, how much land will be required for 200 mph turns?

[Source: Google Earth]

As a contrast, what alternatives could a near-future science fiction propose for public transit in the United States? Is there an alternative that promotes public transit as an integrated way of life? What other near-future depictions of transportation do you remember from films? Leave a comment...

Tips for a Better Boom Boom Burger

Back in May, I penned a piece on the demise of Boom Boom Burgers, the innovative yet ill-fated burger joint that lasted six months in Shockoe Bottom, and how the owner's reasons for the failure didn't hold up to scrutiny.

During a recent visit to Atlanta, I was delighted to stumble across Yeah! Burger and was immediately struck by the ways YB was superior to Boom Boom despite having a similar intent (local, organic, high-quality burgers).

1. Location, location and yes, location. YB is located on a highly visible, heavily trafficked (pedestrian and vehicle) corner in Virginia Highlands. The seating is plentiful and includes an enclosable patio (see and be seen). It is not hidden on a side street.

2. Menu. Simple and complete. Pick your patty (all natural, grass fed, organic, including a vegetarian option), choose your bun (including a gluten-free option), add toppings and fill it out with sides (including multiple varieties of fries, onion rings and other great stuff). Plus, YB has a kick-ass selection of beer, wine and spirits. Finish with ice cream. Check it out here.

3.Value. The portions are generous and despite the fact YB isn't cheap (a meal is going to cost $10-$12 minimum), the great food plus great atmosphere makes it seem worth the money. And YB accepts all normal forms of payment including (gasp) cash.

So, Boom Boom take note. There is a better way.

Demise of Shockoe Bottom's Boom Boom Burgers

Read the Richmond BizSense article here first.

Though I am saddened to see an entrepreneur struggle and a business in the urban core close, attributing Boom Boom’s demise to Shockoe Bottom nightlife is overly simplistic. There are several excellent restaurants with sophisticated menus in the immediate area that seem to be surviving, if not thriving, including Cafe Gutenberg, Lulu’s, Aziza’s, Sette and Millie’s. Although Boom Boom had an intriguing storyline of redefining burgers with grass-fed beef from a Polyface Farms, a rockstar in local foods, I think there were too many aspects that were not thought through.

For one thing, the location was challenging. It is a common mistake to miss the subtle disadvantages of particular sites. All of the restaurants listed above are on Main Street or 17th Street, part of the continuity of the commercial life of the Bottom. Boom Boom chose to locate around the corner on Franklin – a location that is one significant degree away from the action and in a highly competitive market, a potentially fatal flaw.

Another challenge was the menu. Boom Boom chose to have a singular focus that I believe was too narrow. Although redefining burgers with local foods is a worthy goal, what about vegetarians? In my experience, a group of people in the one of target markets (young professionals that care about things like local foods) will inevitably contain at least one vegetarian. Also, burgers with no fries? In know redefinition was the goal, but come on.

Finally, I think the price point was fatal. I talked to multiple people who tried Boom Boom and the consensus was that the burger was too small and the price too high. Given the choice, the perceived value was much higher at any of the other restaurants targeting sophisticated palates. Plus Boom Boom refused to accept cash, an inconvenience that was unnecessary.

I truly hope the entrepreneurial spirit stays alive for the owners of Boom Boom and that the lessons learned will contribute to a formula for success. However, I would suggest the owners be a bit more contemplative before drawing superficial conclusions about the circumstances of Boom Boom’s demise.

Resting In Peace?

Near our office in Shockoe Bottom is the "First Jewish Cemetery in Virginia," also known as the Franklin Street Burial Grounds. I had grown accustomed to seeing the somewhat enigmatic concrete walled enclosure, surrounded by an empty lot used for parking. Suddenly, the cemetery became surrounded on three sides by a five story apartment building, completely changing the presence of the place.

Granted, the cemetery has a decidedly neglected air and apparently has suffered from that condition for many years, interrupted by sporadic consecration and re-consecration ceremonies. This led me to consider how the living and the dead may coexist within urban environments, the former being dynamic forces for change and the latter being, well, static. I confess that my first reaction to the cemetery's engulfment was to recoil from what I perceived to be a lack of respect for sacred ground. However, after reflection, the mere close coexistence of housing for the living and dead may, in fact, be an expected condition for an urban environment. Perhaps there is even value to have the legacy of memory at close hand.

Photo from The Daily Undertaker

I was reminded of the cemeteries of Hong Kong, where the price of real estate is among the highest in the world. These places of burial and remembrance match the urban intensity of their neighboring structures for the living. The grave sites are frequently built with permanent facilities for picnics - tables and benches - where family members may share a meal of ritual memory.

It is probably fair to say that in today's American culture, the rituals of remembrance are largely fleeting and singular in nature. My personal experience with funerals has been marked by the singular ceremony, followed by the internment of the body in a pastoral setting, never to be visited again - a ceremony for forgetting. Is this how it should be? Perhaps ready access to real places of memory, inhabited by the concrete reminders of our personal past, is a healthy part of living. Perhaps I should spend more time in cemeteries and, where it is possible, visit the markers of my own family's history.

So, I find myself growing philosophical about the cohabitation of the living and the dead at the Franklin Street Burial Ground. Perhaps there is value in having one's bedroom window look upon a piece of enigmatic history.

P.s. Somewhere in this train of thought is a city from Italo Calvino.

Recently Read - City: Rediscovering the Center

A good companion to Jane Jacobs' seminal text Death and Life of Great American Cities, William Whyte's book City: Rediscovering the Center reflects Whyte's careful research on the way people use urban spaces. Although Jacobs' work is full of wonderful observations of urban life, they are largely anecdotal and sometimes questionable as a base for generalizations. Whyte's premise is that urban spaces are used by people in predictable ways and that subtle differences in design can have huge impacts on behavior. Thus, he observed spaces for periods of time, recording his observations with stop-action film and notation and the result is a compelling argument for deliberateness in the design of urban spaces.

Whyte's work was initiated through a study commissioned by New York City to examine the effectiveness of urban amenities installed as part of commercial developments, the result of incentives (such as increased allowable building area or height) given to developers in exchange for civic space. Whyte suspected that although the developers were meeting the letter of the requirements for these "amenities," the resulting spaces were not meeting the intended purpose due to thoughtless and ill-informed design. His research proved his suspicions accurate and his work resulted in revisions to the prescribed requirements.

More Powerful than Vitamin D

A Beautiful Saturday in Raleigh, NC – the first one in quite some time to bring a hint of spring; couldn’t I find anything better to do than spend the daylight hours in a darkened room in Raleigh’s impressive new convention center, listening to a succession of presentations on urban design?

Actually the Urban Design Forum program “Creating Value: Designing for Resilient Cities” was well worth its opportunity cost in potential Vitamin D.

To some extent, the program was an exercise in rebranding – ideas long trumpeted in the sustainable design movement (transit oriented development, urban agriculture, walkable cities, etc.) were recast in terms of value in today’s economic Hard Times. But there was value and clarity to this new conceptualization, and for me the notion of an urban system’s resiliency, or capacity to adapt to new conditions as it was defined by one speaker, was compelling.

Several themes emerged for me throughout the day. First was the need for openness, clarity and even honesty from the inception of any project about the nature of the local situation. The current Hard Times and collapsing, an-urban structure were largely the result of policy and finance decisions not grounded in sound analysis, but too often chasing an attractive vision with cheap money. McDuffie Nichols, Economics Principal at AECOM, suggested that clearing out this bad investment will take at least the next 5 to 10 years, and that will still leave the physical detritus – abandoned strip malls, uncounted square miles of pavement and a hyper extended, costly infrastructure. His suggestion was to analyze the economic milieu of a place even before the site analysis, and definitely before drawing out the vision of a project; grounding the vision in reality.

A description of projects for resilient cities might be as follows: smaller scale, locally specific, diverse, and connected. There is currently a nationwide (or greater) model for development of moving outward to cheaper land (ignoring or subsidizing the unseen costs of getting there,) until the people catch up, land becomes more expensive, and outward pressure is felt again. The cost of the infrastructure to get out there is subsidized – dispersed until the people paying it don’t notice. Banks have been supportive of this model because of a history of success (narrowly calculated.) This model has collapsed, and banks are no longer so interested. But according to Nichols, banks are not in the business of searching for new models- he suggests compiling a set of successful precedent case studies to bring to the banks when looking to finance different types of projects. Several presenters mentioned the necessity of bringing an increasing number of stakeholders in early, and for the duration of project design, with the designer’s role to facilitate these discussions with drawing tools present to discover the vision of the project.

Third there was discussion about what these places might be like. Dean of the College of Design Marvin Malecha reminded that “architecture begins with the measure of the first human step.” That should indicate the scale of how we develop our cities. NY City’s Alexandros Washburn pointed out that there is really nothing new about all this – the Greeks had found an aesthetic language to represent civic virtues in their built environment, and that was what we are seeking to do. The virtues he pointed to were all timeless: Prudence, Thrift and Creativity. These he correlated to design activities of Adaptation, Mitigation and Generation, what he spoke of as the principles of design grounded in Urbanism and Ecology.

In his keynotes address, Architect, former Mayor of Charlottesville, and most recently Director of Design for the NEA Maurice Cox spoke of the need for the design community to engage with the politics of crafting our cities, and to inculcate an engagement on the part of the citizens. This was a necessity, he felt, to bring about “design excellence” in our places. The afternoon was capped by a Q& A session with four Triangle area journalists – the gist of which was that the ideas presented would “go over with a resounding thud,” if presented that way to the general public. That leaves open ended Mayor Cox’s challenge to engage the citizenry, which he called “creating a constituency for design excellence.” It is incumbent upon designers to find the language, both visual and verbal to make these ideas real to the citizens, and also to find the will to engage with the people on their own level, and where they live.