A few weeks ago Caleb posted this comment to my post on the Grand Ellipse park at Atlantic Station. I thought it contained some really good observations so I'm escalating it to the top of the blog here:
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Caleb writes:
Last night at 11:00 pm I went for a bike ride from my home in Downtown to Atlantic Station. Unlike at daytime, the place felt surprisingly good - with the darkness forgiving the cheap materials and poor building design. Along 16th Street, the townhomes and duplexes framed the street and created a pleasing enclosure. The homes were glowing softly, and people were actually using their porches, walking their dogs, and doing all the things that urbanites do at night. There was even a party going on one of the front porches – and they WEREN’T Georgia Tech kids.
My greatest surprise was the apartment district to the west, around the lake. As I biked around, I felt for a brief moment like I was in one of the newer parts of Amsterdam, an impression birthed by the fusion of building, water, light and sound. The night had cooled, and above the splash of fountains voices could be heard as they drifted down from the open balcony doors. The finished buildings looked brilliantly juxtaposed, with their brick, quasi-industrial bases contrasting sharply with glowing glass and stucco above (OK, so I know it’s really EIFS). Most importantly, their facades aligned with the street and gently bowed to form two crescents that defined what is destined to become one of Atlanta’s only grand urban spaces.
At the center of this outdoor room was the Grand Ellipse Park. Originally conceived as a retention pond for stormwater, the pond and surrounding land had been masterfully transformed into a celebration of the site’s past and future – with gracious paths and trees running between strategically located follies from the Atlantic Steel mill. From the bridge at the center of the lake you could see out across the whole of Atlantic Station, with the northern European flavor of the immediate vicinity giving way to the looming 171 17th Street tower in the distance. But more striking than the sight was the sound. It seems that hundreds of mating frogs had made the pond their home – their shrieks filled the air with a sense of the Gothic usually not reserved for places so new.
After several minutes standing on the bridge, listening to the water and frogs, and accounting for what I had just experienced, it once again occurred to me that I often confuse the relationship between good architecture and good urbanism. I believe that I, and many urbanists, write off perfectly urban spaces because we don’t like the architecture, materials or the like. But what really matter, as evidenced by my experience tonight, are spaces and the relationships of buildings to them. Mediocre buildings of EIFS and brick with adequate street entrances, windows and mix of uses can create as vibrant, vital and living streets and parks as the finest Parisian block, provided they occur in a framework that supports accessibility and change. It is our primary responsibility to create an urbanism that enables this.