INTRODUCTION

The quest continues to create great people places, neighborhoods, and streets. The American Planning Association recently launched a Great Places in Americaprogram to celebrate areas of exceptional character, quality, and planning. APA has issued guidelines for identifying great neighborhoods and streets. Places selected this year showcase the best existing places in the United States and embody values for future planning and design.

On a personal level, we all have images in our minds of special locations around the world where the experiences are exciting, rich with activity, and highly memorable. We recollect the total environment: the wonderful fountain sound, the scent of fresh baked goods or flowers, and the spiritual lighting that captured all our senses. The success of those places lies in their ability to forge lasting memories through the interaction of their physical features with our human senses. Some of these places have come to be this way by chance, while others have had intentional design lend a hand.

What is seen is also what is heard, smelled, tasted, and imagined over time.

When planners embark upon new planning and design challenges, we seek to apply the "great place" characteristics we know and incorporate them into the vision for a new development master plan or urban revitalization design. But only some schemes are truly successful at standing out as quality, extraordinary environments. What is the magic of place-making, and how can we achieve it more often? How can we create what is so cherished?

Those great places found around the world are resources for design inspirations. Their composition can be analyzed, and the findings applied. Discovery of those magical ingredients of each place is at the heart of a technique I call Site Seeing.

SITE SEEING: A TOOL FOR GREAT PLACE-MAKING

Site Seeing is recognizing relationships and integrating them into a larger view. The technique focuses upon a specific physical setting (the site) and determining its uniqueness, which is then expressed and enhanced through design (the seeing). The approach simply requires critical observation and sensory exploration to gain the insight. The most important step is then to add the broader public values and benefits to the perspective. Mix all this with your creative imagination, and the recipe is complete.

Big ideas come from big-picture viewpoints. Details add important intimacies. Site Seeing distills design insights to craft great places by discovering and leveraging the uniqueness of location.

Critical observations reveal potentials and constraints of development and character secrets. The skill is the imagination to make linkages with broader physical and human characteristics for better buildings, sustainable environments for people, and better cities. Development can reinforce the positive aspects of a location and introduce new features that stimulate interaction, safety, convenience, and attractiveness. All contribute to the vibrancy and character of great places. There are traits common among great places: dynamic densities, scintillating streets, human scale, defined spaces, lifestyle, diversity, history, compactness, and distinct character.

Character is the spirit of a place. It is seen in the physical setting and felt through all the senses so it is both real and intangible. It is what makes a location memorable yet it is elusive to define or explain.

Site Seeing is a translation tool — a Rosetta Stone for urbanists. It unlocks symbolic thinking by stimulating mental images of site influences. Visits to the particular site — including lingering to experience and absorb the conditions — are an essential source of inspiration. Inspirations can transform a location into a special place by adding content, meaning, and values. Planners and designers often record these inspirations on a napkin or paper scrap with a quick sketch and a note with "ideograms" of inspiration. "Ideation" can then be enhanced by diverse group work sessions where juxtapositions trigger thoughts. Ideas typically evolve into design principles, patterns, guidelines, or precepts, accompanied by idea diagrams. Many are springboards to architectural or urban designs that are enriched by being grounded in, and distinct to, their particular place. This big-picture perspective is for big ideas that inform designs to make the connections and to create the character of great places.

The following six examples of Site Seeing represent a variety of planning and design projects. They are intended to illustrate the Site Seeing technique as part of the planning process rather than feature the individual project or the resulting design. (Specific project identity is purposely omitted.) The planning patterns provided design direction, reflecting local values and unique site conditions. Most developments have been built or implementation is under way. All are connected with and distinguished by their special location:

1. Commercial Mixed-Use Project
2. Riverside District Renewal
3. Hospital and Neighborhood
4. Public Housing Transformation
5. Federal Building
6. University Campus

The diversity of the examples illustrates that application of the Site Seeing tool is not dependent on the type of project or its scale. The examples of Site Seeing are followed by a discussion of lessons learned and tips for applying the tool.

Example 1: Commercial Mixed-Use Project

Multiple upland blocks in a city-center lakefront location were ripe for private commercial redevelopment. A new urban neighborhood public park and major roadway reconfiguration already are being implemented. Mixed-use development with housing, office, retail, and entertainment was envisioned for the multiple city blocks. A city icon for the landmark location was sought. Unique site qualities were revealed using Site Seeing techniques to distinguish the place, including:

Water-Upland Ties: Development should interweave lake and land. Two blocks have an affinity with the park and can connect the water and upland. One block can reach out into the lake. The existing waterways knit together the upland and water development.

Catch the Lake: The development bordering the open spaces (park and lake) can shape that space by building facade orientation and alignment. The towers will be prominent from the water and surrounding basin. A landmark would denote a gateway to the city center.

North-Side Street: Wider sidewalks and increased street trees can distinguish the expanded and sunny side of the major street. Building facade setbacks can further strengthen the lake gateway through the site from the city side.

Example 2: Riverside District Renewal

Public and private development visions required alignment for a vacant, former warehouse and distribution district. The 15-acre site with a quarter-mile of riverfront was envisioned as the new mixed-use downtown. Several fundamental design values discovered during the process are shown (Figures 4 through 7). They were one basis for the resulting master plan that created a public-private partnership because of a shared vision.

Permeable River Edge: The street grid and block pattern to be created is oriented to the river. The riverfront buildings should not wall-off the riverfront and should be physically and visually permeable.

Movement: The new functional street hierarchy is defined. The circulation system binds development together plus links with the existing downtown.

View Corridors:Primary and secondary view corridors connect the upland to the river and beyond

Public Realm: The open space system extends beyond the river walk and includes all public streets and spaces. The network is varied and supports public river access.

Intensity Gradient: A core density with greater heights is patterned around an upland center rather than a linear form along the river.

Urban River Oasis: The varied river edge conditions, water flow direction, and light/wind exposures all support a sheltered riverfront place. Multiple nodes with different functions and public orientation are identified.

Example 3: Hospital and Neighborhood

A regional medical center treating the underserved plans to add more than 1 million square feet of additional development that would impact a fragile lower-income neighborhood. The hillside location separated from downtown by a freeway has limited access. The collection of medical facilities evolved throughout the decades and is a confusing maze. Construction of the initial two projects is nearing completion and is embraced by the local community. Substantial public art and streetscape improvements are included consistent with master plan principles, including:

Fit with the Neighborhood: The unique hospital setting is its urban neighborhood. Giving public benefits back beyond health-care services may include public parks, safety, convenience retail, and community services (day care, self-help education, training, jobs). Mixed uses serve as a transition to the more intensive medical core. Medical development does not divide the neighborhood but rather, fits in with common elements that improve living.

Reveal Hill Access: The hillside landmark is visible from miles away but is obscured locally due to topography and freeway separations. Recognizing that the hospital is tucked away and a source of access confusion changed the master planning. New directions focused on unveiling the site with more direct and continuous movements.

Clarify the Neighborhood Campus: A unified and clearly recognizable place features not buildings, but a major landscaped open space. The linkages from arterials to parking and destinations are simple and direct. The two major gateways distribute traffic. The park serves both the neighborhood and the medical campus. It is the heart of the campus and neighborhood.

Example 4: Public Housing Transformation

A local housing authority project embarked on a renewed vision to meet the housing mission and make better use of the property resource. The past plan of concentrating public housing was updated to become a diverse mix of incomes and uses. The strengths of the site were explored and included a number of design precepts, including:

Fit Naturally: Respond to and embrace the sloping topography, southwest solar exposure, winds, noise, and mountain and city views.

Potentials

• Reduced scale and massing with stepped hillside development form
• Favorable views and light
• Prominent, visible location from downtown
• Sustainable site design strategies (heating, drainage, materials, waste, etc.)

Challenges

• Handicap accessibility and elderly movement with grade changes
• Construction cost premiums
• Noise insulation
• South and west facade heat gain exposures

Connect the Grids: Resolve multiple platting patterns by identifying an existing arterial as the Main Street, the new community center and protect the place from traffic intrusions.

Potentials

• Human-scaled blocks connected with the context
• Improved local access
• Expanded infrastructure distribution and service locations
• Eliminates large parcel isolated housing project image

Challenges

• Reduced net developable land area with additional streets
• Public vs. private streets
• Topographic grades and street configuration

Compatible Edges and Transitions: Varied adjacent conditions include the major separation by the freeway corridor, the intensity of a nearby medical center, fragile residential neighborhoods, and the gateway to another major residential area.

Potentials

• Opportunity for transitional uses and mixed uses supportive of housing
• More convenient; reinforcement of retail/commercial along major streets
• Soft, permeable edges that blend into the surroundings
• Health care proximity

Challenges

• Must protect redevelopment from adverse freeway exposures (noise, air quality, glare/light)
• Redevelopment impacts to existing nearby fragile uses

Example 5: Federal Building

A site selection study identified a site for a new high-rise federal building in an area in transition, and dominated by parking lots and older low-rise, auto-oriented commercial buildings. The area was designated for downtown core expansion in the future. A trend-setting development, appropriate for the civic importance of the use, was needed. The building's siting, its open space, and how the public accessed the location were found to be important urban planning and design parameters. The vicinity is currently experiencing a redevelopment boom.

Key Public Places: A one-way street fronting the site is a major downtown gateway from the freeway. Another street is the major connection to a bio-tech district and a university. The site is highly exposed to the public at these two locations.

Vehicle Access/Egress: The site is bounded by one-way streets that form couplets. Site access cannot go around the block because of the movement pattern. The characteristic is important for vehicle access and loading.

Southern Street Edge: Perhaps the most significant site finding that was reinforced in the building and plaza design was to set the structures back along the one-way street along the south edge. Nearby future development would cluster to property lines to maximize capacity. One way to distinguish the public importance and approach was to set back along the south side and create a major entry garden and plaza.

Example 6: University Campus

A university campus sought to explore the next generation of continuing improvement. The campus location is in the city and streets had gradually been vacated to combine blocks. The landscaped open spaces were significant. The site strengths were explored and clarified to define what made the campus special, including:

Distinguish the quality landscape: The contrast of park-like landscape open spaces within the dense urban setting is a distinguishing feature of the campus. Expanding upon the unique vegetation and qualities of each space will strengthen their value.

Clarify campus gateways and frayed edges: The incremental campus growth and relationships with adjoining uses merit attention by better defining campus access and edges conditions. The urban campus should promote a soft edge to integrate with the neighborhood to avoid abrupt transitions (such as building scale, parking garage street-level use separations, etc.).

Strengthen campus connections: The basis exists for a central spine because of the former street grid. However, remaining sidewalks, curbs/gutters, and paving still appear as city streets and not a campus core. A simple and direct pedestrian circulation organization with university campus qualities is a direction.

Focus the "big idea" campus vision: Urban Oasis: The campus is obscure and its presence is not particularly clear from adjoining streets. The inward-focused development might better expose its wonderful landscape by revealing view corridors and bringing more landscape to the campus edges.

LESSONS LEARNED: TOPICS TO EXPLORE

There are at least seven topics to explore and discover the uniqueness of place: (1) movement, (2) activity patterns, (3) natural features, (4) history, (5) irregularity and ambiance, (6) hazards, and (7) expressed futures.

Discovering the particular site characteristics that distinguish and compose each place will typically include exploring the following. Planners and designers can initially target the topics. Just add creativity to enable the creation of great places.

Movement

The circulation hierarchy of roadways, access points, and variety of transportation modes (transit, pedestrian, bicycle, rail, water, air, etc.) merit consideration. Their perceived function and qualities, such as congestion, service availability, and safety, are as important as their physical structure.

Activity Patterns

The land-use types, density, distribution, condition of development, basic infrastructure, and the activity dynamics all contribute to the site environment. Open space and landscape are important. Trends, stability, susceptibility to change, proximities, amenities and compatibility offer insights. Perceived activity associations, such as quality, image, and other values, contribute to each place.

Natural Features

Topography, land forms, solar orientation and lighting, wind and noise exposures, weather, and water are examples of natural determinants. Some may have positive implications and others may be negative, but all offer design parameters. Site relationships and connections with the features include views, identity, and orientation. Sustainable values that respect the natural conditions are most noteworthy.

History

Looking back to find the future is often valuable. Notable places, events, people, and landmarks connect the past to future improvements. There may be a collective character, evidenced in the architecture and materials.

Irregularity and Ambiance

Natural and manmade conditions like the juxtaposition of a shoreline and platting pattern, grid shifts, or prominent urban edges or transitions are distinguishing. Qualitative conditions like lifestyle, great streets, human scale and vibrancy are less tangible and more difficult to recognize but can be extremely important. Physical quirks can be clues to serendipity.

Hazards

Flooding, seismic stability, steep slopes, contamination, and building problems are major form givers, vital to recognize and mitigate.

Expressed Futures

The public visions of comprehensive plans, city policies and implementing zoning express desired futures. Jurisdictional designations, requirements, categorizations, and other formally approved recognitions all provide insights to site and neighborhood values. Urban issues and public initiatives are clues to priorities. Desired public benefits can be identified to add value and facilitate implementation ease.

OBSERVATIONS

Identifying and mixing the ingredients that compose great people places is the designer's challenge. There is no standard recipe to make the whole greater than the sum of the parts. Site Seeing is one tool that uses symbolic thinking stimulated by so-called ideograms to help communicate, visualize and create solutions. Thrill all your senses in travels by looking even more carefully to understand and feel the experiences of great places. Inspire your creations with sketches on napkins. This may be just the right seasoning to distinguish a better future.

Vince Vergel de Dios, AICP, is a principal of NBBJ and has been with the design firm in Seattle for more than 30 years. He provides leadership in strategic development, conceptual master planning, and expedited project implementation. He is skilled in site planning, particularly environmental design, site analysis and feasibility, and implementation studies. His recent work has concentrated on pre-architectural design planning that assists in major development decisions, including numerous development potentials analyses. He is recognized for achieving regulatory entitlements for complex private and institutional projects, and for earning community support by providing public benefits. His project responsibilities reflect his understanding of cultural, social, and political forces.