Suburban Nation - Andres Duany [80]
The first step in designing an open site is to use its natural features to locate the centers and edges of five-minute-walk neighborhoods. Neighborhood centers are typically located at the geographic center of the available land, but can be shifted in response to site conditions, such as a view or a major road at one edge. At Seaside, where Highway 30-A passes to the southern edge of the property, the center sits on the highway, which is also the gateway to the beach. For sites large enough to hold multiple neighborhoods, two organizational options are available: the neighborhoods can be distinct, separated by a greenbelt, in which case each remains a village, or the neighborhoods can be directly adjacent, sharing a boulevard at their seam, in which case they can coalesce into a town or even a city. In both cases, the overall structure links neighborhood centers with avenues in a fairly direct transit loop. This approach can be clearly seen in the design for Cornell, a new town in Markham, Ontario. Cornell is a fairly pure application of the neighborhood concept, the only modification being that a high density allows several of the neighborhood centers to stretch out into longer main streets. The result is three pedestrian sheds that are ovals rather than circles.
The plan of Cornell, Ontario: a new town divided into distinct neighborhoods
Cornell is an interesting story. We designed its 2,400 acres over two years for the Province of Ontario. When we had almost finished it, a newly elected government decided to sell it for revenue. The unbuilt project was purchased by a powerful conventional developer. It is as yet unclear how faithfully he will implement the original plan; so far, construction has largely followed the original urban design, but the architecture is much busier than what is advocated here. Using an anti-sprawl sales pitch—“Cornell will be a complete community”—the developer sold over three hundred houses in the first five months of operations.
The “pedestrian shed” of the five-minute walk applied to the plan of Cornell: almost every residence is within five minutes of shopping and a hus stop
Cornell is located at what may be the international epicenter of anti-sprawl activity. Led by a strong planning commissioner named Lorne McCool and several visionary councilors, the Town of Markham decided eight years ago to take a proactive role in fighting sprawl, a remarkable stance given that Markham mostly was sprawl. The town retained our firm to design two large sectors, and established a neighborhoods-only approach for new development at the periphery. The resulting land plan reads like an uncanny inversion of the typical North American city: classic sprawl at the center, surrounded on all sides by a consistent gridded urbanity. Ideally, these new neighborhoods will follow the rules laid out in this chapter, but we must remain skeptical, as some of the town’s best efforts are being contested by a clever and recalcitrant homebuilding cartel.
The radical innovation: a street of single-family houses in Cornell
Once the center and the edge of a neighborhood have been located, the distribution of uses follows naturally. The areas of highest density and urbanity surround the center, which is the location of a major public space such as a plaza, square, or green, depending on the local tradition.dc The center