Suburban Nation - Andres Duany [79]
We know better now, and there are many justifications for preserving a site’s natural qualities, aside from the obvious ecological benefits. First, natural features—not just waterfront and hillsides, but wetlands and trees—can add significantly to property value. Second, the character of the landscape can help people understand and negotiate their environment. It is much easier to give directions, even in cul-de-sac suburbia, if one can say “take a left at the pond.” Finally, for planners, varied and idiosyncratic sites are actually easier to design, and much more interesting. While flat and featureless land gives few hints as to where to begin, a complex site tells the designer pretty clearly what it wants to be. A good example of this phenomenon is the quirky plan of Middleton Hills, in which every major decision arose directly out of the site’s topography and watersheds.
Entering from the south, one passes through a sequence of two forks. At the first fork, which frames the corner store, veering right allows the visitor to bypass the neighborhood and continue north on a country highway. The left fork leads to the base of a hill, like the hull of an overturned ship, that splits the road again. This prominent site has been reserved for a civic building. Here, a left turn leads along the “low road” to the west—the retail main street—while a right turn ascends the “high road,” along the crest of the eastern hills, which provide views of the state capitol across Lake Mendota.
The low road ends at the wetlands preserve, a swamp that has been expanded into a fifty-acre natural park. As in most historic neighborhoods, this park is not privatized behind the backyards of houses but surrounded by a public parkway so that it belongs to all residents equally. The wetland is fed by a watershed that sits in a saddle to the northeast. The saddle’s shape has determined the diagonal orientation of this part of the plan, which recalls the same condition in the nearby Madison grid. Running down the middle of this saddle is the swale-centered avenue, which terminates on a second civic site at the peak of the hill. At the top center of the plan, at the very highest point, a third prominent site has been reserved for an elementary school, surrounded by a hillside prairie. The rest of the plan is an attempt to connect these unique features efficiently without damaging the natural slopes of the hillside.
The village on the hill: the plan of Middleton Hills was largely determined by sloping site conditions
Middleton Hills: the southern entry and downtown
Middleton Hills: the wetland park and “saddle”
The Middleton Hills plan demonstrates the approach demanded by distinctive sites. Wetlands, lakes, ponds, streams, hills, tree stands, hedgerows, and other significant features are not only retained but celebrated. Fronted by public roads rather than by private yards, they are formalized into greens, squares, and parks, the kinds of traditional public spaces that add value to the surrounding blocks. In larger developments, green areas between neighborhoods are carefully connected into continuous corridors, in the manner of Olmsted’s Emerald Necklace in Boston. These greenways can serve as natural drainage ways and areas for habitat continuity, and often provide recreational opportunities and pedestrian paths.db
THE DISCIPLINE OF THE NEIGHBORHOOD
Middleton Hills is a good example of a single neighborhood, sized around the measure of a five-minute walk from its edge to its center. The five-minute walk—or pedestrian shed—is roughly one-quarter mile in distance. It was conceptualized as a determinant of neighborhood size in the classic 1929 New York City Regional Plan, but it has existed as an informal standard since the earliest cities, from Pompeii to Greenwich Village. If one were to map the