Who is the project for and how is it experienced?

During the past few days I have continued the research about urban sprawl and how communities that have and continue to experience this problem are dealing or have dealt with it. Some of my findings include information about a movement and a type of community design called smart growth. The idea of smart growth is basically designing dense communities that meet all the necessities of a successful community. It includes living, shopping and amenities in a densified area, making this possible by utilizing mixed use developments to accommodate all these components into a smaller area than a suburb or groups of suburbs. I also found information about ways to counteract sprawl and revert the inefficient land use caused by sprawl. In the examples I found about how to counter act the negative effects of sprawl, there they were infilling spaces in the extensive land lots use for some of the buildings and developments. They specifically where focusing on infilling large parking spaces or green areas that were between building complexes or large city mall centers. They infilled those spaces with new buildings that were dedicated to mixed used instead of having them be single use buildings.

After finding out about these, I thought it was interesting how they were trying to better the build environment by utilizing the wasted space left by urban sprawl. It was also interesting how they took advantage of this aspect of urban sprawl and use it to in some form, densify the areas and from what was there, create communities that are self-supported and better connected with their contexts and the population that occupy them.

The project takes place in the Boise, Idaho area; meaning that the project will be dedicated for the Boise community as a whole. I still do not have a specific location for the project but it will remain within the city limits of Boise. At this point the targeted audience and population remains general, but as I progress in the investigation of the topic I want to create a project that impacts the community of Boise, the surrounding cities and towns, and hopefully people from farther regions. I want to produce a project that has a positive effect in the community and that can potentially serve as example to follow as we think of new designs or existing ones.

I think the way that you experience the project is by understanding the thought behind it and why it is being completed. It could also be experience by seeing the difference of the before and after of the changes that were made; having the opinion of what worked better if the previous or the new design. It would be interesting to record how the community of a suburb reacts and changes its behaviors, if changes were made to their living environments. How would people that have lived in suburbs for long periods of time would react to living in denser areas? How would their behavior and daily activities would change? How would their living experiences would change? 

Location of Project/Forces acting on the Project

As discussed on the critique during the exhibition showcase, the major factor that I am missing to start defining my topic for my thesis is a location. Aside from this, I still don’t have a clear idea of what and where I really want to go with my research and my project. I have been following the idea of doing something related with the problem and concept of urban sprawl. I have been discovering that it can be and that it is a broad topic to start off from, but I have not been able to generate a starting point to focus on from this broad idea yet. As I have been writing in the past blogs, I want to focus on something that can potentially help counteract urban sprawl and how to educate ourselves as students and professionals to know how to start creating communities that are more sustainable within the environment in which they exist.

After having the discussion with you during the exhibit about defining the location of my project and the ideas that you suggested, I think it is a good idea if I focus in the Boise, Idaho area. I have lived in the Boise area, more specifically Nampa, since I came to this country; I have lived there for more than 10 years now and I have noticed how the area has changed with the expansion and growth of the suburbs in Boise as well as the neighboring cities. Sine I have experienced and spent a long time living in this area, it could be beneficial to project because I am familiar and I have a direct connection with the place and context.

Now that I have somewhat defined the location of my project, I think the next step is to start narrowing down more the location. Boise and its surroundings have been greatly affected by the problem of urban sprawl. It is not a large city per say, but it is a state capital that in my opinion needs to be densified and that it is a city that has to start thinking about a solution or a regulation system to try to minimize and if possible stop the urban sprawl problem that the city and area as a whole has been facing. A starting point could be by taking a look and examining the city as a whole and from there I can probably focus on a specific are that has been mainly affected by the problem of sprawl.

I do not know much about the historical background of Boise as a city or how it started; doing research about the historical background of the city could be of much help to try to understand what or who helped to shape the city. Also what actions or ideas influenced the design of the city and the reasons why the decision to create a city that grows out of the center limits instead of building up and densifying the center of the city.

In brief, I think the forces acting on this project are my desire to learn more about the sprawl problem, especially in the area where I have lived for almost half of my life; also how we can fix or prevent this problem in the future. Learn from these mistakes that we have done as: professionals, designer, citizens and start applying solutions to the problems we have created. 

What is interesting about the project?

Urban sprawl is taking over our land by growing uncontrollably; what surprises me is that it is nothing new, it is a problem that we have been facing for years and have not been able to control.  We all make part of the problem and it seems that we are not be aware of it. We leave in houses outside of the city were we go to every day after work, school or any other activity we might perform within the city. Every day we drive long distances commuting from our homes to perform our daily routines. We stop at the gas station once or multiple times a week to fill out our car tank to keep our lives going. At the end of the day we complain about the traffic congestion, gas prices going up and things like that; but what we do not see and complain about is us being the reason for these problems

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What is interesting about the project is that it analyses the performance of the society and the dependencies that we have in order to access resources. Transportation is a big issue that we face as we move out of the city into the suburbs. Urban sprawl is uncontrollably moving outwards, every time disconnecting us more and more from the center where we can achieve all our needs. Now families need multiple cars to perform their daily activities because they commute to work and it is necessary for every individual to have their own means of transportation due to the inefficient location of the places we live in. More cars on the streets, more streets needed to accommodate the excessive number of vehicles transiting, more fuel demand to keep us moving. It is all a chain that from one things leads to another and it never stops.

It is interesting to learn how we are negatively impacting our environment with our poor choices; in this case poor choices as we design new “communities”. We as designers should start designing in response to these problems; counteracting urban sprawl and starting to condense our communities to make them more self-dependent. Creating communities that directly connected to our existing urban environments instead of separating them from them. We need communities where we do not have to depend on a vehicle to go to work, to school or to the store; we need to strive to create communities where we can depend on our own means to perform activities as such. I think it would be interesting to learn what it takes or if it is even possible to create a community that is self-dependent.

It is interesting that we are aware of the problem that we are facing, but we seem to not care about it or simply ignore it. The construction of homes and the designing of new suburban neighborhoods continues every day. It is time to start changing our ideals regarding the way we live. Why can’t we adapt to live closer to each other? Why can’t we learn to live more sustainably? Why do we have to move out of the city if we end up going back?

What Is The Importance of This Project?

Re-thinking about the project topic and trying to define its importance, I have come across the idea of urbanization. Mixed used development has helped urbanization of cities to tie together and become better defined communities. It is a tactic for citizens to integrate into the environment of the city in a successful way.  

Urbanization has been taking effect in most of the cities around the globe. In some cases it has had a positive impact for the city itself, citizens and the urban environment as a whole; but there are also cases in which urbanization happens in a way that instead of benefiting the urban environment of the cities it creates a negative result. A negative effect caused by urbanization is sprawl of the cities; suburbs in the outskirts of the cities generated to support the people coming for opportunities in the cities. As they come to the cities, they cannot afford the high housing prices within the city limits; usually ending up living in the suburbs outside the city.

The suburbs in which this people move in to live, bring with them a high demand of resources required for day to day living. Each time the properties on these suburbs get larger, using unneeded land. Transportation issues is another issue that comes with this, large quantities of fuel are needed to transport people to their jobs in the city. The consumption of fossil fuels and large quantities of motored vehicles contribute to the pollution of our environment and the congestion of circulation.

This project matters because we need to create and design better cities, we need to learn how to create better communities and better urban environments for our cities. If we take the suburb as an example, it might not be a good definition of a well design community, because everyone is separated; everyone is given their own separate piece of land where they perform all their daily activities. On the other side a better community would be in the city, when you can leave separated but in the same building with other people. In the city we get involved with our surroundings, we do not have a backyard where we can perform outdoor activities; there we have to go to a park or a public space to do so and that enables us to interact and engage with different people, helping the city to diversify and create a sense of community and identity.

With an integrated design of a city we achieve more than just a better community, we also promote sustainability throughout it. It is important to start thinking about the sustainability of our cities. By designing communities with developments that incorporate different typologies of buildings and uses together, in some way we start to depend less in modes of transportation that harm our environment. We stop using vehicles to go to supermarkets from a suburb to the city, because the supermarket could be located in the same building we live or work in, or it could be located across the street from us.

From these ideas in mind, questions comes to my mind; how to we counteract urban sprawl? With the implementation of mixed-use developments in our cities? Is mixed-use the answer to create better cities?

What is the project About?

The topic for my graduate thesis project is in regards of mixed-use developments; the interest on this topic began through my undergraduate career and from the fieldtrips we had through the university architecture program to cities such as Seattle and Portland. In these fieldtrips I got the opportunity to experience the urban environment of the cities and the form how they function architecturally. The way that buildings work in large urban space is fascinating; how different activities and functions are arranged and put together in the same space while maintaining the performance efficiency.

In addition, I have done research about the topic and from my findings I have discovered that mixed-use development is not a new topic and design typology. This building or design typology has been around throughout human history by giving multi use to homes and settlements. Mixed-use has had its shifts, there was a decrease when industrialization took place. During that time the focus was on the design and construction of single-function buildings, factories and manufacturing plants in particular. Now, this type of development has been put aside and the reappearance of the mixed-use development has been prominent once again during the past few decades.

What intrigues me about this type of developments is the level of complexity of the buildings’ programs, and how architects make them work efficiently. Imagining the amount of research and understanding that the architects have to do in order to integrate every aspect of the content of the building, and the demographics of the users comes to my personal interest. It becomes something I want to be part of as well.

Thinking about the central question for my project has been harder than what I thought it would be, nonetheless I have some set ideas that will help define the purpose and the question for my project. I have not yet defined the central research question for my graduate thesis project, but its content will involve topics regarding the impact that this type of development has in urban living, environment and the people that are part of them.

A question that I have thought of for my project is: how does mixed-use development affect the efficiency of the urban environment and life? This question intrigues me because it can take me into different directions. It can take me into the financial, business or community aspect of it. With these, another question generates and it is about if all these and other aspects tie together at some point.

The location of my project has not been decided on yet, but my idea is for it to take place in the city of Seattle or Portland. This is due to the fact that I have visited these two cities and their urban environment exhibits good examples of projects that relate directly to my topic of interest. Also, from my perspective, they are cities that have done a good job in their urban development. These cities have set a standard for their urban environment that has led to defining their identity.