The Open Office

This snapshot of The ArchPlan office recently taken with the mobile phone shows that there is no reception desk and that walking in from the elevator the visitor is right in the workspace that everybody at ArchPlan shares. No partitions, no cubicles. Clutter shows that this office is not a showcase but a place of exploration, improvisation and experimentation. Everybody can see and hear everybody and the boss has the same space allotment as everybody else. This allows easy collaboration, information sharing between different projects and team building in various formations, all aspirations and goals that express the firm's values.

The space is tall and allows lots of light through 20' high windows. For meetings and conferences there is a mezzanine from where the shot is taken.

Fellow at the American Institute of Architects

January 27, 2011
Nikolaus Philipsen, FAIA
ArchPlan Inc.
429 North Eutaw Street
Suite 2S
Baltimore, Maryland 21201

Dear Mr. Philipsen:
Congratulations! It is our sincere pleasure to inform you that you have been elected to
The College of Fellows of The American Institute of Architects. The Jury of Fellows
selected you for elevation to Fellowship in the Institute because of your notable
contributions to the advancement of the profession of architecture.
You will receive your Fellowship medal during the Investiture of Fellows Ceremony at
the 2011 National AIA Convention and Design Exposition in New Orleans. The
Investiture Ceremony will be held at 4:00 p.m. on Friday, May 13, 2011. The specific
location and other Investiture details will be forwarded to you as they become finalized.
The national AIA staff is preparing a press release that can be used by your component in
its public relations efforts to notify the local media of your recognition on February 4.
Questions about the press coverage should be directed to your local component.
On behalf of the Executive Committees of both the Institute and the College of Fellows,
and the Jury of Fellows, we welcome you into this most distinguished group of members.
We look forward to seeing you at the AIA convention in New Orleans.
With best wishes,


Helene Combs Dreiling, FAIA
Chester A. Widom, FAIA Secretary Chancellor, College of Fellows

From the AIA website:

The AIA Fellowship program was developed to elevate those architects who have made a significant contribution to architecture and society and who have achieved a standard of excellence in the profession. Election to Fellowship not only recognizes the achievements of the architect as an individual, but also honors before the public and the profession a model architect who has made a significant contribution to architecture and society on a national level.

Grassroots Planning

Quite under the radar screen of public awareness one can see one of the nations largest excercises in public involvement and planning unfold, right here in Baltimore. What is happening?

The Maryland Transit Administration (MTA), the City of Baltimore and Baltimore County formed a partnership and solicited participation for the 20 station areas along the planned east west "Red Line" rail transit. All stakeholders and communities in the corridor were invited to nominate participants in this large effort. Hundreds of people were appointed to 16 Station Area Advisory Committees ("SAAC"). Work started in November, most planning committees have by now met at least two times. In December over 300 people gathered at Coppin University's large new gym to attend a half day information event in which planners and officals from across the country reported on best practices in transit and community planning.
The almost revolutionary new twist: Citizens were not merely asked to help design their planned transit station, they were also asked to think big. 1/2 mile big, to be precise and consider the communities, the land use, the circulation and just about everything in the area around the transit station. "If we just build a transit line, we have failed" says Danyell Diggs, the special envoy of the City, appointed by previous Mayor Sheila Dixon to leverage maximum benefit from the transit investment.
The city and to some extent the County have discovered the famous "transportation - land use nexus", the chicken and egg relationship between land use and transportation. Road builders have always maintained that they just build the roads to places where people want to be. Developers, in turn, build where it is easy to get to. Subsequently, "induced demand" has often absorbed the added capacity in no time. For example, the I-795 expressway to Owings Mills brought Carroll County much closer to the urbanized center and has opened the floodgates for sprawl in this formerly rural county to the point that Route 140, Westminster Pike is eternally congested.
In transit matters were more complicated: Many station areas of existing transit remained undeveloped "holes in the doughnut" and even new transit often had nothing going on around stations. In a time when public funds are scarce, this is even more wasteful. The effort to make best use of the land around transit stations with lively mixed use centers rather than dull extensive parking lots is long overdue. It is called transit oriented development. In the case of Baltimore City, this also means re-investment in those areas ravaged by disinvestment and blight.
All through 2011 16 planning teams consisting of citizens and stakeholders will work on visions and ideas for their station areas. They will get all the support they need from City and County agencies and the MTA. Newly hired community liaisons will ensure ongoing and stable contact between the communities and the transit agency from now on until the new transit line will be in operation in (planned for 2018).
For for more information see also www.gobaltimoreredline.com

ArchPlan is a consultant to MTA and a facilitator for the three station areas of West Baltimore, Harlem Park and Poppleton (with Mahan Rykiel).



Baltimore Links: SAAC members assembled to hear about best practices across the US

Westside Stories (2)

The ink on the report of the Urban Land Institute Advisory Panel can't be dry yet because it hasn't even been written yet (just verbally presented, see older blog below) and already it has been cast to the wind. Just a few days after the Mayor listened breathlessly to the ULI panel reporting back on the task the Mayor had given it, the most specific recommendation issued by ULI has been relegated to the dustbin. Several members of the ULI panel had very clearly stated that the Westside should be developed based on "thousand flowers blooming", based on a "preservation strategy" and that the "Superblock Developer" should either comply with the (preservation) Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) or be fired. The expectation was that the ULI had delivered the final blow to Lexington Square Partner's development proposal and its agreement with the City which was set to expire by the end of 2010.

Instead, the board of estimates of the City followed apparent mayoral pressure to extend the land disposition agreement by six months. Since the hang up regarding Lexington Square's proposal for the Superblock has been the lack of preservation and the missing approval from the Maryland Historic Trust (MHT) attesting compliance with the MOA, everybody thought the six months were needed to find some kind of compromise.

However, this expectation, too, proved to be false. Just after granting the extension the MHT chief Rodney Little published a letter in which a hedged assertion was provided that under the given program the development team had achieved the preservation optimum. Essentially a green light. The biggest hurdle seemed removed.

The developer wasted no time and appeared right away in front of the Urban Design and Architectural Review Panel (UDARP) for his second review meeting (the first had taken place in 2008). And this, too, was good for surprises: Unusual for UDARP, they allowed public testimony from numerous authoritative voices on civil rights issues. Civil rights? yes, not the design or the non compliance with the MOA but the planned demolition of the Read's Drugstore turned out to be the new hurdle. Baltimore Heritage had found out, that this Drugstore had been the place of possibly the first lunch counter protest in the nation as early as 1955. Eight people of various backgrounds and coming from Morgan College staged had a protest against racial discrimination in the headquarter of the local drugstore chain and quickly achieved that Read's changed their policy. Lawyer and law professor Larry Gibson, citizen activist Arlene Fischer and museums director Dr. David Terry as well as past NAACP president Marvin Cheatham all testified and stunned the UDARP panel. The proposal was rejected. In addition, CHAP (the local historic district commission) discovered, that they have a say in City owned property located in a designated Regional Register District. So another hurdle appears before the developer just when they saw themselves coming into the homestretch after five some years and significant moneys spent.

The last chapter of this Westside Story has not been written. It remains to be seen if this development team can be ever brought to the point to include serious preservation into their concept. So far, it didn't look that way. Instead, they tried to skirt the issues and force the thing through politically with. It remains to be seen, who has the longer breath here. Meanwhile, the big hole of derelict and empty buildings in the middle of the Westside continues to drag everything around it down.

See also Rodricks' Midday show on this topic with me as an invited guest.

http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wypr/local-wypr-945317.mp3

Urban Form, Landscapes and Sprawl

How human settlements occupy the earth as seen from an airplane window has always been fascinating to me. Below a few impressions from recent travel. (all photos taken by me. For use please ask permission).





Relentless Phoenix, Az



Phoenix, downtown

Phoenix, growth boundary 1

Phoenix, growth boundary (natural)

Small town south of Portland near Mt Hood

Mall near Atlanta, Ga

Sprawl near Atlanta

Where arid desert and agriculture meet (Arizona)



The Mississippi flooding near Lake Pontchartrain Lousianna (May 2011)



Small town near Stuttgart, Germany

Interchange near San Diego

Large lot sprawl east of Denver