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The Three Ds Of Urbanism

Carpool in Ballston

Diversity, Density, Design. You need them all if you want a great urban neighborhood. Diversity of land use and architecture to keep things interesting and alive, density to populate the streets and design to keep people walking rather than driving.

20-somethings the city over are steaming mad about plans to tear down and redevelop as a condo tower Carpool, a former car dealership now popular bar and pool hall in Ballston.

But Ballston has other bars, so what’s the big deal?

The problem in Ballston is diversity. Or rather its lack thereof. An unextraordinary suburban strip until Metro arrived, everything in Ballston is big and new. It’s got the density. The design is clearly urban, though not quite perfect. It even has a good mix of commercial and residential uses. The problem is the architecture. Individually most of the buildings are reasonably attractive, but they’re also all very similar, and few are very detailed. Perhaps even more of a problem, the properties are too large. Each block has only three or four different buildings and therefore little visual diversity as one walks along beside them. The result is a neighborhood that comes off as banal to those used to more finely-grained DC.

Carpool, being one the last remaining smaller, older buildings, increases Ballston’s visual diversity and thus improves the streetscape.

But it ain’t that simple. Carpool is also a horribly suburban piece of building. The parking lot takes up more ground than the structure itself. There’s no door from the street, only from the side closest to parking, set far back into the interior of the site. It treats an otherwise nice enough side street like an alley. It’s one story and horizontal. Where similar bars in DC fit into the basements of other buildings, Carpool takes up a quarter of its block all by its lonesome. Simply unacceptable for a neighborhood trying to be urban.

Carpool improves Ballston’s diversity, but at the expense of its density and design. The challenge in Ballston and all other redeveloping areas is to find a way to make sure the three Ds meet in the most constructive way possible. In this case the onus will be on the architects to come up with a design that looks good from the sidewalk. If the building adds color and vitality to the pedestrian perspective, the loss of Carpool will be forgiven.

June 9th, 2006 | Permalink
Tags: urbandesign



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