[pdx_history, urban_design] The Promised Land of Robert Moses

1252. Cafe Unknown has a very thought provoking post on the influence of Robert Moses on urban design and planning and how it left its mark on Portland, making some of the urban design and development issues we have today not only possible but (in our opinion) in some cases, necessary).

(Via Stumptown Confidental here).

Tags: Cafe Unknown, Stumptown Confidential, Robert Moses, Freeways, urban design, urban development

[urban_design] Islamabad: The Grid As Pakistani Capital

1222. As part of this blog's urban design commentary series, we decided to go topical with a look at the layout of Pakistan's capital city, Islamabad.

The city is located in the country's far north, near (or very near, depending on whose interpretation of Pakistani territorial limits you respect) the country's border with India. It is immediately adjacent to another major Pakistani city, Rawalpindi – notable as the home base of the Pakistanti General Military Staff. For a great deal of Pakistan's modern history, the city of Karachi – located next to the Indus River delta, and still by far Pakistan's largest city, served as the country's capital. Sometime during the 1960's, though, it was felt that Karachi no longer was the ideal place for Pakistan's leadership. Not only was it old and crowded, it was vulnerable to attack from the sea, and probably held a disproportionate share of national capital development.

As other countries who established new-era capital cities during that time, most notably Brazil's Brasilia and Australia's Canberra, the developing authorities chose to order and plan the city for present order and to channel future growth into desirable (or at least controllable) patterns. The city of Islamabad was thus organized on a rectilinear grid (map below nicked from this site):


Clicky to embiggen. A remarkable feature of the plan can be seen in the notations that emblazon each block: each is identified by a letter-number combination, the letters going from A at the northernmost extremity of the planned urban area and 1 at the farthest east tip, and increasing south and west). Each block is locally known as a sector.

Here, nicked from Islamabad's Capital Development Authority map (click here to go to the main city guide; click on the area labeled "Zone I" to gain access to the residential-commercial sections), is a map of Sector G-10:


Here yet another level of structure reveals itself: each sector is divided into four quarter-sectors, labeled G-10/1, G-10/2, G-10/3, and G-10/4. While the rationale for each sector is the same they are not identical; the quarter-sectors in one sector will not be the same size and shape as those in the next sector. Also notable is the provision of a commercial area in each sector (here noted as Markaz G-10). Reviewing the maps shows that every developed sector has one, typically in the middle (though some have them along one edge). We suspect the interior numbered streets are probably numbered in order of planning or construction. We daresay that the structure of curved and straight streets distributed within each sector reminds one of the layout of some suburban areas of American cities.

The level of planning and order has one more layer; the capital territory area withal is divided into five Zones. Zone I contains commercial, business, residential and national government; Zone II appears to be devoted to heavy industry; Zones III, IV, and V appear to be devoted to either natural open space, more planned housing development, or a mixture (Zone III seems to be strictly natural open space).

It must also be said that a totally-designed city plan is nothing new for national capitals. Even our own capital city, Washington DC, was built on a strict plan that was as much about designing a city as a single unit as it is about keeping things in thier proper places.

Tags: urban design, city planning

[design, urban design] The New Sellwood Bridge?

1153. (Via BikePortland) We've seen the future of the old Sellwood Bridge, and we like what we see.

There are some gorgeous design thoughts happening, everything from cable-stayed to through-arch for the higher-priced options to a beguiling delta-frame bridge and a simple box-girder design that, while relatively plain next to the other glamour-pusses, is still elegantly-designed. Here's the rundown of concept imagery, nicked wholesale from the Sellwood Bridge Project's site:


The Sellwood Bridge Project is running a survey right now on these visual design options. The BikePortland blog suggests we take it, and we endorse that suggestion. Just go the home page there and look for the splash graphic at the top of the right sidebar. It won't take long.

[liff, or_photo] Liberty Street, Downtown Salem, Thanksgiving Day Afternoon, 2007

1148. Liberty Street NE, Salem, the throbbing heart of the state capital, at about 15:30h on Thanksgiving day, 2007:

I was standing in the crosswalk on the north side of State Street facing north up Liberty. That first light up is Court Street NE; the next one up is Chemeketa Street NE; then there's the skybridge over from JCPenney to the Salem Centre mall; I give you Oregon's second (or is it third now) city on a holiday afternoon.

Now, Salem gets a lot of insults for being such a small, sleepy town. I'd like to say that, having grown up there, it's not a bad place really, People are as friendly as anywhere else in the Willamette Valley; Salem is a cute town, comfortable, pleasant on the eyes.

But take it as a clue that a lot of us–residents as well as expats–call it Snailem. And take it as a huge clue that despite standing in the middle of one of the principal downtwon shopping streets, at the crown, I was never in danger of being hit by any car–not once.

Roll up the sidewalks? They never even got them out for the day!

Technorati Tags: Salem,Salem Oregon,Salem photos,Downtown Salem

[pdx] Bike Maps for Free

1146. I love the map Bike There, which is now in a new edition, and $6.00 isn't a big price to pay for the info on how to get around Portland on your two-wheeler. But, odd as it may seem, in this economy, sometimes you don't even have the $6. What to do?

The City of Portland has good information available at the city's website, Portland Online, specifically, going to this page will take you directly to the page that not only has Portland cycling maps but also maps for surrounding cities.

They are free for downloading but, if you look in the middle of the page you'll find a link where you can put in a mail request. They'll gather up a handful of the maps you want, throw in a couple of pamphlets and a cool bumpersitcker or two, and send it off to you just for the asking.

That's right, basic good biking info for the asking. The above photo shows you what you'll get if you ask for the whole banana. And I suggest it; what with fuel prices being what they are, I think that people will more and more be taking to people power in the next few years to get round this town.

Technorati Tags: pdx,Portland,Map design,bicycling,Portland bicycling

[info_design] I Want Your Street Sign Pictures!

1104. A few recent posts (and an aside from Sam Adams at the Domain Name Transfer Party) reawakened the Address Nerd in me that's been slumbering for a while, and activated a particular subsector of that attitude regarding street signs–better referred to as blades, because of thier knifelike shape.

I adore these little signs, of course. In a way, a city's street blades function as an aspect of the city's personality. They, if well-designed enough, give you all the information you need to coherently identify your location in a city whether you know the town or not.

Some of them have interesting decorations. Photos of the ones I've seen in New York City have a really cool hi-contrast graphic of the Statue of Liberty on. The ones in our own humble Keizer have the logo of the city on, as to the ones in Vancouver.

I'm making an appeal here. I'm gearing up again to document Portland's street blades. I have that end handled right now, but I'm wondering about what street blades look like in other towns.

I'd like see what other people got! If you live in a town I don't (I live in Greater Portland Oregon, 'member–look at the header image) and you have interesting (or even normal!) street signs that you'd like to show off, might I please request a picture of them? I'll display them here with full credit and linkback.

I want to see what street blades look like all over America. I want to see what other towns' personalities are like. And I want to discover, one by one, how places encode thier grids–location and place–to a blade on a streetcorner, or whatever have you.

This appeal is to anyone within the sound of this blog, anyone who stops by here, from anywhere.

Send your graphics to here (or click on the Gmail email button on the sidebar), and I'll post the with commentary, and we can all have a bull session about them.

Technorati Tags: info design,street signs,street blades,photography,urban design

[urban_design] San José, Then and Now

1100. A nifty thing found today; A PDF file comparing San José, California, in 1975 to SJC today (clicking the link will cause your browser to either display the PDF or download it; it's a 4.9 MB file)

While I am most certainly a child of Oregon and am, I think, justly impressed with the way overall we Oregonians have guided our state's growth, I don't think we have the patent on it. Particularly delightful is the way San José has come forward–from a dowdy town of dreary vistas to a funky place full of interesting street scapes, if the PDF is any indication.

But it would be a still be a stretch to make this content relevant to my blog were it not for pages 31 and 32, which is of SJ's branch of Portland's own Old Spaghetti Factory, at 51 N. San Pedro St, a/k/a San Pedro Square latterly. The difference is amazing.

Tags: urban design, urban growth, urban planning, streetscapes, San Jose, California, then and now

[pdx, Address_Nerd] Quietly Quirky Portland Street Signs

1066 and all that. One of the things I love about Portland is the street signs (I've never made a secret of this, of course). Portland's street grid has certain quirks that have, as a map addict and all-round Address Nerd, endeared me for life.

One is a practice to name some streets without a "Street Type". Herewith, an example:

The street blade isn't incomplete or incorrect. Historically, this street was never called "Reedway Street", despite it being an east-west traffic way (by Portland definition, a named "street"). Whoever named it probably called it "Reed Way", which concatenated over time into a single word, proably echoing "Broadway" and the similarly named "Wardway" (which is the little road that snakes down to the light at NW Nicolai Street and Saint Helens Road, in case anyone's ever wondererd, and was presumably named for the old Ward warehouse which is now Montgomery Park. Reedway, we presume, was either named in honor of Simeon Reed or the unique college that bears his name, which is close to hand).

Latterly, as these signs age, they have been replaced with more conforming signs: SW and NW Broadway are not yet signed "Broadway Av", but N and NE Broadway are increasingly being badged as "Broadway St", as is SE Reedway (and presumably NW Wardway, though we haven't been over there in a while to see.

Needless to say, we like this not. We need to keep Portland quirky.

Next exhibit:

This picture shows something I love to find–this sign, which can be found at the corner of SE 97th Ave and Harold St (how about that? I man, what are the odds?) shows signs made in the Portland style but the format does not conform. The blade on 97th should read SE 97th AV, not SE 97TH AVE (the unsuperscripted ordinal just kind of jumps out at you, and the street type should be AV not AVE) and the Harold blades street type (ST) should be much, much smaller than it is.

As information design, Portland street blades are spare but very efficient and above all, uniform. Something like this is a happy find–it's a little like finding that postage stamp with the upside-down biplane that was so famous

Technorati Tags: PDX Streets,PDX Street Signs,street blades,urban sign design,information design

[urban_design] Mannheim: The Grid auf Deutsch

984. A couple of missives ago, I opined about the grid as a city layout basis and came up with an example of a European use of the grid. Milton Keynes, however, is an extremely recent (in historical terms–1960s) example. with the rectilinear grid going, in fact, way back. I did mention that I had read of examples going back as far as the Indus River Civlizations.

While Mannheim, A major industrial city in southwestern Germany, doesn't go back all that far–its city center was laid out in its present form sometime in the 1700s, if I read the histories correctly (and I may not, in all fairness). The city center itself is press-fit between the Rhein and Neckar (a major river in south-central Germany) and is conspicuously recticlinear.

The first illustration here, Exhibit A, is taken from the Wikipedia entry on Mannheim and is taken from the 4th edtion of Meyers Konversations-Lexikon (Meyer's Encyclopedia), which was published from 1885-1890. The grid, oriented more or less toward the Rhein, is encircled by a horseshoe-shaped ring road, and centers on a building that was then the palace of the Prince-elector (Kürfurst) at the south side of the grid (on this map, it's noted as Schloß, also spelt Schloss (the terminal charcter, ß, is a glyph in the German alphabet which simply reduces to "ss" and is my favorite letter in any alphabet, and we're deep in digression land again) It shows little of the surrounding areas (only a section of the neighboring city of Ludwigshafen (Ludwig's harbor) across the Rhein and the burg of Neckargärten (Neckar gardens) across, appropriately, the Neckar.

The next illustration, Exhibit B, is clipped from a Google Maps display, and gives a sense of surroundings. While straight streets and griddish patters can be found around, there is nothing that has the sense of planning that the city center has; the rest of the area seems uncoordinated in comparison.

The last illustration, Exhibit C, is a closeup of the most detailed online map of Mannheim that I could find (clipped from this page):

Now we get down to interesting cases. Perhaps you've noticed the abscence of one very imporant thing (and it was obvious if you zoomed in on the map in Google): there are next to no street names. The surrounds have names (the ring road is named, at different places, Luisenring, Friedrichsring, Parkring, and Kaiserring (the suffix ring tends to be used for semicircular streets like crescent in the Commonwealth or circle here in the USA) and a few of the grid streets have names as well (the horizontal street that intersects at Stadt Parade Platz is named, from west to east, "Rheinstrasse", "Planken", and "Heidelberger Strasse", and the vertical center street is named "Kürpfalzstrasse", essentially, "Electoral Palace Street"), but, instead of street names, we have what look like a sort of grid coordinate in each block (or Quadrate, as locals call them).

The pattern of Quadrate naming follows a logical sequence with an exception, and this pattern relies on the position of Kürpfalzstrasse as an assumed centerline. The ranks-the horizontal rows–are lettered increasing away from the Bismarckstraße baseline. Ranks on the west side of Kurpfalzstrße are lettered A through K, and ranks on the east side take up the sequence again with L and proceed through U. Files–the vertical columns–number in sequence away from Kurpfalzstaße both east and west. The exception comes with the L rank, which includes a row of blocks south of Bismarckstraße which are numbered in a leapfrog pattern until L14 and L15 at the Bismarckplatz.

My understanding of addresses is somewhat limited here, but if I remember my reading correctly ,it's rather Japanese in manner; your address is a number in the Quadrate your place is located in. For example, if you live in a flat (if such exist) four streets north of Bismarckstr. and three streets east of Kurpfalzstr., then your address is a number in Quadrate O4.

This seems rather innovative for the day, I'd guess. It certainly reinforces the ideal of the German as a lover of efficiency and precision, and, in its regularity and order, stands out as a unique city center plan on the European continent (as least as far as I'm aware).

Technorati Tags: urban design,city layout,street grids

[urban_design] The Grid

979. The subject of city layout and address structures is one I've not touched on often of late (well, at all actually) but one which I keep mad keen interest in.

Latterly I was delighted to find an article in Wikipedia about that mainstay of the anglo-American city, the gridiron; read all about it here. The biggest takeaway for me was that, despite the prepoderance of such a grid plan in modern cities and the apparent lack in older ones, the gridiron type of street plan actually goes back a heck of a long way back–to the Indus Valley civilzations.

Grid plans actually seem to date, in the US, from the time of the original layout of Philadelphia which was design with wide straight streets and big blocks as a way to prevent the firetrap problems of cities that grew more organically.

And latterly, even though Europe is (at least to me) not known for griddled towns, there is at least one that qualifies–a town created in the 1960's, the "new town" of Milton Keynes.

While its more of a wobbly, wavy grid, MK's structure is that of the grid, with wide boulevards laid out to get you from one area of town to another, including wide roundabouts, as the map here will show:

This map was nicked from www.mkweb.co.uk, to which all credit goes. Read about Milton Keynes at Wikipedia here.

A net of H (Horizontal) roads mesh with V (Vertical) roads as a top-level in a street hierarchy, highly untypical for a European city–at least from an American perspective.

Technorati Tags: maps,map design,urban design,urban layout