Urban Pre-Planning

Well-known design firm IDEO branches into urban planning, but "not in any conventional sense." The result is a fascinating departure from conventional planning/urban design prescriptions:

Instead of doing massing studies or land-use plans, laying out infrastructure, writing zoning codes, or proposing blockbuster museums, IDEO’s Smart Space group articulates the spirit of a place but leaves its realization to the clients: developers, park conservancies, hospitality companies, and—Williams soon determined—the JDRC, with the Kauffman Foundation footing the bill.

Roshi Givechi, a frequent collaborator in the Smart Space practice, first came to Kansas City in April 2005. Soon after, she and her team, ­including IDEO designer Joe Graceffa, immersed themselves in “the Vine,” applying the multidisciplinary method they bring to nearly all their projects, whether bathroom cleaners or hotel rooms. They hosted “whine and dines” (focus-group dinners), walked the streets, ate in the restaurants, did historical research, took photographs, and interviewed dozens of people about the neighborhood, sometimes on videotape. Part anthropology (with IDEO’s trained anthropologists), part site exploration (with IDEO’s trained architects), part documentary filmmaking (with IDEO’s trained media artists), their approach is to seek the qualitative essence of the community from the perspective of the community.

This multifaceted approach yields broad guiding principles rather than strict guidelines. Vision, rather than execution, is the goal:

The firm deliberately dodges all the “technical” parts of urban planning: arranging infrastructure, determining financing, and navigating the public process. Instead it practices urban planning as branding: define the spirit of a place and then let others articulate that spirit—whether in bricks, mortar, tax breaks, or billboards. IDEO claims accountability only for its ideas.

It’s not clear that works, mostly because it’s too early to tell—but also because the team at IDEO is messing with the DNA of the planning process. They’re changing it from a concrete process of infrastructure and building to an imagined one of narrative and identity; they’re exchanging the idea of a place for place itself.

Why is this an important point? Because planning typically ignores experiential qualities of place, too often favoring dry analysis of things like traffic counts, population figures, cost per square foot, and travel distances. These may all be important, but equally as important is how they are conveyed and sold in ways that can appeal to those outside the planning/design/development community (in other words, the people that live there). It's not just how the place is put together; it's also what it could possibly mean.

The main product of IDEO's study of Kansas City's 18th and Vine neighborhood was an elegant 8" x 8" flipbook of strong images and sparse text--some sample pages below--that nonetheless speaks in an approachable way to the area's historical background, present issues, and future aspirations:

Its voice is equal parts travel guide, self-help book, and manifesto—as if Oprah took a semester at the Bauhaus. Unlike an annual report or a university’s “view book,” it is self-conscious enough about the challenges the neighborhood faces to feel sincere and authentic; unlike many planning documents, it ducks dogma of any stripe. The specific design suggestions may come straight from urban planning’s current toolbox, but IDEO synthesizes them into snappier slogans: Create borders to create bonds. Communicate community. Densify and diversify. Unpack the museum.

Another strong thread running through IDEO's work at 18th and Vine is that of temporality: that a successful place is characterized by its unique metamorphosis over time--even if its different manifestations aren't tidy (in fact, they shouldn't be). It's unrealistic, and therefore pointless, to view place as static:

Experience, rather than place, is what's being evaluated and reinvented:

The firm’s research in Oakland, California, conducted to aid Forest City in the planning of a 665-unit housing development, is remarkable for how well it captures the grit of the place. The combination of talking heads, facts, and photographs—all expressed in a snappy book with a strong graphic voice—has a humanity and emotion unheard of in a planning analysis, much less one sponsored by a developer. IDEO makes no apologies for that. “At IDEO I always consider myself a social worker for the consumer,” says Amy Leventhal, who worked with Forest City but has since left IDEO to pursue a career as a vegan chef. “I just really wanted to make sure we were respecting the communities we were moving into, respecting the people who may move in, and respecting the client and helping them to understand.”

Siegal loved it. “They’re an amazing interpreter of the voice of the people,” he says, raising his voice in excitement. “You can yell about the fact that they’re not urban planners and they haven’t studied the separation of transportation nodes. But by the same token, the extent to which they misfire in their recommendations because of that, they make up for in freedom of thought.” But is it urban planning? Not really. Is it about making places? Certainly. But does that freedom of thought translate into new kinds of place-making or a new process for urban planning?

Comments

[Frank A. Mills]

My hat's off to IDEO for their "urban pre-planning," but this is something that radical urban planners, including my company, Urban Paradoxes, have been advocating and practicing for quite some time now. Now maybe that IDEO has entered the fray urban neighborhoods and community development corporations will begin to reconsider how they go about neighborhood revitalization.

Frank

[Chris]

Frank, thanks for the comment!

I was inspired by IDEO's work, and hope that IDEO's example (and yours) will help broaden the scope of what is considered urban planning.

Readers, check out Frank's website at: urbanparadoxes.blogspot.com.

[Juno888]

Readers would take a closer look about this site.