big box coda

This is an old item, but its a timely old item, as it relates directly to the postings from last week on big boxes and urbanism (see big box flip-a-strip and darwinian retail and big box urbanism). From an interview on Archinect, images by Martha Schwartz's office, analyzing the landscape condition of big boxes:

[image via Archinect]

Schwartz and the interviewer, Quilian Riano, discuss the possibility of working in the strip:

QR: What do you say that we switch gears now and talk a little about some of your work. I was particularly interested in the visual analysis you did of the big box landscape. Is your firm beginning to pursue work in the strip malls?

MS: I have to say that right now our firm is getting larger and more urban civic and commercial projects than those in strip malls. We are now getting the signature spaces within cities that afford a lot of flexibility. The problem getting the strip-mall like projects is that developers are not willing to pay for real landscapes and are content with the minimum token landscapes that codes require. In the case of highways and other civic projects in the suburban landscape, there is a lack of political understanding and will to spend the money to humanize those spaces. The main problem is that there is an abundance of design need in the bland landscape but the client just does not exist. So for now I feel all we can do is bring up the issues and maybe through academia begin to engage leaders in government and business to take the improvement of the landscape as a real challenge.

QR: Your other analysis of the lack of power that architecture has in the strip seems to me similar to what Venturi has been saying, but then he returns to the architectural object to address some of those problems. You are telling us that it is the landscape that will really make a difference in these areas.

MS: That is right, in the suburban landscape architects are stuck on the object, which, although nice, lacks real power. Architects seem to have retreated to signature buildings in the middle of cities that are irrelevant to the majority of people. It is the responsibility of architects and landscape architects to care about the spaces that people actually inhabit. Without our collective advocacy cities and developers will do nothing.

To illustrate the notion of the powerlessness of the object to overcome its context, Schwartz provides us with these telling photoshops:

[image via Archinect]

Posted by eatingbark at November 3, 2008 12:00 PM