Streets Are Rooms

The first step toward creating pedestrian friendly spaces is to treat each street as if it was a room in a house. By first, making sure all buildings have walls tight to the sidewalks, these buildings will form walls on either side of the street. The street then becomes an outdoor room. Whether the neighborhood is low rent or high rent, the outdoor space can be beautiful through city efforts.

On designated shopping streets, the first floors should have glass with shops or businesses visible. This makes for safe streets and active one's. One long blank first floor on a street can ruin the feeling of an area. 

Lights and wide sidewalks of brick and trees creating shade and buffer for childs safety can all be done by the city. 

In Portland, new buildings in the Bayside neighborhood have and have not been placed tight to the sidewalks. The DSS building sets back behind a parking lot in a suburban layout, destroying any hope for Marginal way to feel like a room there. The new university housing however, forms a wonderful outdoor street space and has a nice bus stop of glass in front. This simple rule can have dramatic positive results.

Streets are public space and have much potential for safety, and the pursuit of happiness!

(Originally posted 9/17/2008)

Warmth of a New Year

Inviting materials of Hamann House interior by Michael Belleau Architect.

When the holiday season comes along we thankfully switch our thoughts, concerns and feelings from me to us. Many of us naturally spend much of our year in a competition mode for perceived scarce resources or to protect our families in different ways.

But when December rolls around we begin to smile more, give more heartfelt greetings and as a culture agree to treat each other more as extended family. That warmth and generosity we normally reserve for guests in our homes extends out into the public space.

The care we put into making our homes as welcoming and warm and friendly and happy as possible can be extended into our public spaces in order to support our care for each other year round.

We need more chances to mix in public naturally, without signing up for anything.

I remember when I was studying in London and on new years eve my partner and I decided to go into the center and just be there. At this time in early 90’s there were armed police in the train stations due to terrorist attacks and in general people were more emotionally guarded.

We were in a random pub when the clock struck midnight and someone put on the old Monkees hit ‘Daydream Believer’. To our happy surprise immediately everyone began to sing along! People of all different walks of life bonded in that special moment.

Happy Holidays! -mB

20 Years of Urban Design in Maine 19

Portland Maine waterfront with proposed new buildings in black strengthening the existing piers as streets fabric, etc.

(Continuing with my July 2010 Maine Sunday Telegram article proposing a blueprint for a successful approach to development on Portland's waterfront...) Using historical analysis combined with a form-based approach, I suggested we treat the piers as streets with buildings along the sides of the piers. Using the Thomas block as an example of how to build on that side of Commercial we could make a continuous 4 story wall of mixed use space with storefronts at grade. Then the piers could have a street running down the middle and buildings on the sides with waterfront use on the pier level and provide as much public access as possible. Great read for those who care about building better places to live especially those with waterfronts. Here's the article text second half:

...It is clear the most crucial aspect regarding development on the piers is that a street run down the middle of them that imitates the streets of the Old Port. This means sidewalks on both sides, or a totally pedestrian street wide enough to drive down and walk alongside moving cars and nothing at the end of the pier at the end of these ‘streets’ to block the view. These ‘streets should be mandated public access corridors as the piers are private property. Buildings could line both sides of these streets to a height of 2 or 3 stories without blocking out too much sunshine or overwhelming the ‘feel’ of the old established building fabric. Buildings should be required to build to the sidewalk edges to make the ‘walls’ to these street ‘hallways’. Open air breaks in these buildings for view and pedestrian access should occur at mandated intervals to allow people to see the ocean from the ‘street’, walk to the pier’s long edges from the street, and to break up the potentially long building walls. It is this human scaled pre-industrial fabric that generates the livability we enjoy and thus, attracts the income we depend on.

Since ALL uses except marine ones can be accommodated anywhere else, it is natural that the ground floors of most space on piers beyond the depth of a Thomas block size building be reserved for marine use only. Piers are built to function as a way to allow boats to pull up alongside them- for marine use. Once that space is handed over to non-marine use, the whole logic of the city begins to fall apart and our sense of place unravels. We passed the marine only zoning law because we panicked when Chandler’s private condominiums and gated street went up. We instinctively knew the whole city as a place was at risk. Seafood restaurants with moderate income menus like the Porthole and Becky’s feel natural to us on the ground floor as does a fish market. It is the ground floor of the buildings that we interact with and which provide us with a sense of place. On the other hand, I’m not sure it makes much difference on the floors above whether there are restaurants, offices or concert halls. The exception is residential which can cause problems when condo owners act naturally territorial leading to lawsuits and which cannot be changed to a different use if the public changes the zoning. There must be a way for property owners to make a deserving profit while the greater good and Portland’s long-term interests are preserved.

Believe it or not this is a pier- Custom House Wharf.

If we write the zoning in such a way as to get the street space the way we want and the form of the buildings similarly creating that street space- public space- then Portland will always be the best experience we can get. This means writing a form-based code instead of a function based code. Zoning language should emphasize that use requirements may change to accommodate public interest but that building form requirements will stay. This actually stabilizes the owner’s long-term viability as they can build the form and fill it with whatever use is approved at any point in time.

Finally, the actual pier edges running along the sides should be well thought out to allow a certain amount of public strolling. This is easy if an 8 foot strip along the water is open for walking along, exceptions made for actual work such as unloading fish, etc., which would pose a danger to the public. Thus, the public could walk along most of the waterfront edge for a magnificent experience and lure tenants better than any brochure owners could come up with.

So we see that the solutions to our needs at our waterfront are simple: a street down the middle with no building to block the end view; buildings like Thomas Block along Commercial Street with storefront on ground floor; a human building height along piers; access to the edges; marine only ground floors; and buildings on either side of the ‘street’ that meet the sidewalks.

It is the unique street space that we love in our city. Pier streets have always been Portland’s essence.

Michael Belleau is principal of Michael Belleau Architect, an architecture and urban planning firm in Portland. He has worked since 1992 on Portland urban design issues, writing many articles for this paper. He is a fourth generation Mainer, former fisherman and Portland resident and can be reached at www.michaelbelleau.com or his blog: www.mainearchitecture.blogspot.com.

20 Years of Urban Design in Maine 18

Historically Portland's piers acted as extensions of the streets with buildings on both sides only with water underneath.

In 2010 Portland Maine's waterfront code and future was a big topic and having analyzed it from the beginning of my career, I wrote this July 2010 Maine Sunday Telegram article to lay down a blueprint for a successful approach to development there. Using that same analysis as my thesis combined with a form-based approach I suggested we treat the piers as streets with buildings along the sides of the piers. Great read for those who care about building better places to live especially those with waterfronts. Here's the article text first half:

My July 2010 article and excerpt.

 Portland Piers Are Streets

By Michael Belleau copyright 2010

Special to the Maine Sunday Telegram

July 7, 2010

When we walk down to Portland’s waterfront and stroll through the fabric of the Old Port or meander along Commercial Street, our senses are focused inevitably on the water. The smell of the ocean when the weather warms up and the sounds of boats and birds beckon but the site of the water is what we yearn for. Our visual connection to this place is constantly broken by buildings and then re-established through view corridors. Views from a distance are balanced by walkways along the water’s edge. This variety of water view experiences is what makes Portland itself a distinct place. In order to answer the question of how to build here we need not get too complicated. We just need to acknowledge the deep structure formed by history here that has worked all along.

A map of Portland in 1690 shows just three roads: one along the shore (Fore St.), one going from this one up hill (India St. now), to one along ridge (Congress St. now). When Captain Moet burned the city down in 1775 piers had begun to sprout along the waterfront, a few of them aligned with the streets coming down from the spine of Congress Street. By 1823 many more piers had sprung up, most of which were extensions of the cities street fabric coming down from Congress Street, across Middle and Fore and out into the harbor. Starting at the west end and moving east we can see streets becoming piers at the streets State, Anne, High, Center, Cotton, Cross, Union (the largest wharf, Union Wharf), Plum, Exchange, Market, Silver, Willow, Deer, Moose, Tyng, King (India), Hancock and Monitor. Tyng Street actually went out into the water as a pier and came to an end at an ‘L’ intersection over the water with Thames Street’s pier extension!

As these piers grew longer they began to differ little from the same streets on land with rows of buildings along both sides of a street at the center of the wharfs except the back of the buildings were at the waters edge with ships tied up. The street fabric of Portland was one of the city running right out into the sea.

The Portland experience was of walking down a street seeing the water at the end, and as you approached that end, glimpsing the water on both sides between buildings and realizing you were over the water. If you walked along the waterfront down and between wharfs you could experience a myriad of building forms, views, wharf edge depths, site lines, people, ships, etc. However, as with many human scaled environments, the Industrial Revolution inadvertently removed a large portion of this experience.

In 1852 the railroad tracks to Montreal were laid across the wharfs out in the water close to land. This line of tracks became Commercial Street when the water between the tracks and Fore Street was filled in. The crenellated outline of the waterfront edge was replaced by a monotonous straight one. Piers still multiplied (I count 36 total from 1866 map) and grew further into the harbor while railroad track spurs ran out down the piers to expedite the movement of goods. The new tracks divided the waterfront into a city side and a wharf side. You knew if you were out in the water and if you were not because you had to cross the monotonous tracks first. Mystery and intrigue, essential components to the heightened urban visual and spatial human experience began to evaporate.

Now, with trains long gone, we see the gradual restoration of the street fabric of Portland especially down at the east end of the waterfront. Commercial Street has become a sort of Main Street of the waterfront area. 100 Commercial St., the Thomas Block, exemplifies the kind of building form we generally enjoy along the water side of this street. At four stories it is not too tall, curves along the sidewalk forming a wall to enclose the street so that we experience the street as an outdoor public room, and has storefronts at ground level to engage the pedestrian and provide a sense of safety and activity. We can use this building as a model for development along the water side of Commercial Street to the depth of the Thomas Block. It is the building overall form that we wish to guide to meet our collective needs, not strictly the use.

Next post will have rest of article and diagram explaining concept.

20 Year of Urban Design in Maine 17

We must move from object-oriented thinking to public space-oriented thinking.

Continuing discussion of my generic good walkable urban design article I wrote in September 2008 just as the world was about to collapse: 

In my last post I talked about creating town buildings that formed great urban space and each building may be used in any number of ways. And that specific function buildings like libraries and gyms could be used by many ages and at all hours so we didn’t waste money and space on having a different one of each for each age group. I posted the article as well. 

For instance we might have a post office booth in a town building so there was a post office in each town without having to build a separate building. Essentially that focusing on walkable neighborhoods that contained life’s spaces made for a better quality of life.

Traditionally when we look to build a new public building we find a place for a building by searching for empty lots near the existing facility or greenfield sites near popular roads easily driven to. We create objects that are given a little extra care architecturally if they are important. This I call object-oriented city/town planning thinking. 

This sort of planning leads to facilities scattered about, each dressed up according to importance and not necessarily linked in any way. They are like objects placed randomly on a table. Some of those objects may be beautifully designed but as each one is built there is no greater space or experience formed by them; no link between adding and a overall experience.

When you are in Venice walking down a path along a canal and into a piazza or over a bridge, you don't care what is behind one door or another. If one door had a school and one a post office and one a facilities maintenance bureau offices that's fine. It's the urban space formed by the buildings that makes for a great experience. 

If you are making great spaces with your plan then every time a new building goes up a more wonderful public space is created. And each piece adds to the whole. With a good plan every time someone builds people of the area are happier as the public space becomes better and better; their place becomes better.

My mantra is, "Each piece adds to the greater whole."

We must break from object-oriented public buildings thinking and move to urban space-oriented public spaces thinking.