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A Glimmer of Hope in the Gloom of Bad Design
by Robert Shurell
On October 25, 2008, the newly refurbished Fillmore Center Plaza officially opened. Located on the west side of Fillmore Street between O’Farrell and Eddy Streets, the plaza has clearly had a major renovation. Amid the bands playing and the farmers’ market vendors selling fresh fruit and vegetables, one could feel the newness of the benches, colored hardscape paving and stainless steel sculpted fountain.
The plaza felt safe. There were people everywhere, enjoying the sunshine and the music. A girl was selling popcorn from an old-fashioned pull cart. The grass was manicured and the flowers landscaped. But something felt strange, and it wasn’t until much later that I began to figure out what it was. What felt strange was everything else around the plaza: the stained and discolored sidewalks and oil-stained streets; the boarded up storefronts and the telltale check-cashing place—always a sign of desperation; and the filthy guy sleeping on his back, bent at a strange angle, his head and torso sprawled in the street and his hips and legs up on the sidewalk.
Certainly, the Fillmore district is a happier place now that the new Fillmore Center Plaza is up and running. The area has been troubled by violence, crime and a general low quality of life for about 60 years, ever since the questionable redevelopment decision to demolish large quantities of Victorian homes and replace them with blocks of cheap rental housing. The typical mistake of mid-century city planners was to believe that removing blighted historic city fabric and replacing it with housing monocultures termed “modern” structures (but really just “nondesigned” for low-cost) would create a place with instant history and a neighborhood with shared values.
In reality, the success of cities usually stems from the continued use and adaptation of historic places to new conditions. This allows the long-time residents to continue living there, passing values on to new members of the community. When the Fillmore district’s housing stock was demolished and the apartment complexes slowly went up, everybody was on the same footing; the elders had been living in the complex just as long as the newcomers, and therefore lost their positions in the neighborhood. They became just some other people living in a little apartment. Many of the original inhabitants who were forced to relocate due to the redevelopment never came back, making room for newcomers who didn’t share in the history of the area.
Dense Housing, Open Space
Density of housing works hand in hand with openness of space. In legendary
modernist architect Le Corbusier’s famous perspective drawings of giant, repetitive cruciform-shaped apartment housing structures marching to a distant vanishing point on the horizon, the buildings are not designed to be constructed on standard city blocks, bounded on all sides by roadways. Instead, there is an extremely generous amount of open public space between each massive structure. This open space is green parkland, provided for the communal use of the inhabitants. The logic is that the units for living are very minimal, providing only enough space inside to conduct activities of daily living, with outside space to stretch out and exercise. Mid-century American planners took Le Corbusier’s idea of a densely populated apartment complex, but then “forgot” to include the public open space. This type of construction was incorrectly termed “modern” and was a major contributor to modernism being considered a complete philosophical failure by around 1968.
The redevelopment of the Fillmore district is an example of a failed urban intervention by pseudo-modernist city planners that destroyed common historic and cultural resources and replaced them with monoculture. The concept of “superblocks” and strict zoning prohibiting mixed uses (an entire city block without a corner market or laundry) promoted the construction of poorly designed and built structures, meant for the subsidized use of the very poor. More recently, housing developers have created projects at market rate rather than for those with low incomes. The resulting disparity of rich and poor has created stresses on the population living in the district.
The Fillmore has long lacked the proper open space to function as a high-density housing area. This is a failure of urban planning and architectural design to adequately address the needs of the “customer.” Persons suffering from poverty do not have the housing choices that those financially better off do; they do not get to choose whether their homes have been well designed, or whether ample open space is provided. Usually, their dwellings are minimally designed, with little meaningful open space. The residents are crowded and have nowhere to release the pressure and stresses that overcrowding perpetuates. The release comes in the form of crime, violence and a culture that both supports and is subservient to those negative aspects. The positive aspects of the culture, in effect, cannot change or escape the negative aspects and become drawn to it in awe and fear, circling it slowly as if in a trance
Certainly there are other factors at play (improper zoning, poor construction quality, disparity of wealth), but well designed and implemented public open space is a driving factor in allowing a community to realize its potential. The plaza at the Fillmore Center has existed since 1992, when the Fillmore Center apartment complex was constructed. The plaza was little more than functional during its first 16 years of existence, and never achieved the goal of a true public space: privacy in the open.
Privacy in Public
What does this mean, privacy in the open? It requires a variety of locations for sitting down, each location with a unique personality (sunny or shady, on the street or set back from the street, bench with a back or seat wall). It means that you can sit down in a variety of places in the plaza, and begin doing your thing—reading the paper, talking to an acquaintance, people watching, taking a nap. At first you are noticed by the other people using the plaza. Everybody is sharing a limited amount of space, and people take notice of newcomers into the area. After a couple of minutes, however, you have been accepted into the area, and become one of the people taking note of newcomers. You have become invisible. You may as well be a bench or a tree. You are free to do whatever you want, as long as it is within the accepted range of behavior for this type of space.
How does one achieve this goal of public privacy? Provide plenty of shared space (Fillmore Center Plaza provides seating for 300) and seating options with unique personalities, as described above. Design to the “see and be seen” philosophy. Watch out for design features that allow someone with evil intentions to hide or a victim to be cornered. The idea is that most users of the public open space should be able to see most of the other users simultaneously. Provide a centerpiece that asks the community to take care of it and treat it as an icon (the plaza has a new sculpture that looks like the tuning pegs on the end of a guitar neck). These aspects of plaza development have been taken care of in this $2 million revitalization scheme.
There remains, however, a problem. What I couldn’t pin down when I was visiting, but was able to visualize later, is the plaza on a regular day. No crowds, no stage and bands, no girl with the popcorn cart. I am afraid that the center will become just like those sad and desperate streets around it, unused except by drug addicts, muggers and gangsters. The sad and dangerous element in society has no respect for a brand new plaza if there aren’t enough eyes on the street to keep them at bay.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the viewpoint of the SFAA or the SF Apartment Magazine. Robert Shurell is a licensed architect with Stantec Architecture and can be contacted at robert.shurell@stantec.com. Copyright © 2008 by Black Point Press. All rights reserved.