Buildings - Forming the Public Realm
Winston Churchill once said: “We shape our buildings, and then they shape us.”
The massing and architectural design of buildings is incredibly important for shaping thriving, walkable neighborhoods. If buildings are thoughtfully placed, well-scaled, and designed by talented architects who understand the urban role of these buildings, then the public realm can become the life-blood of commerce, livability, and personal connection for the community.
Urban buildings along a street corridor should be team players. Some of the most wonderful urban street corridors in the world are formed by buildings which may be architecturally unremarkable on their own but, when put together, form a vibrant cohesive place. In fact, when a single building along a street corridor is designed in such a way that makes it scream for attention, that effort often detracts from the entirety of the street. Great urban streets are very often made from a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.
The massing of buildings helps determine the feel and intensity of a street corridor. Whether buildings along a street have residential, office, entertainment / retail, or institutional uses within them, the size, placement and form of buildings gives the level of intensity to a street corridor. Taller, narrower buildings that are placed next to each other give a more intense feeling, whereas buildings that are shorter and spaced farther apart give a more relaxed feeling.
The rhythm, proportion, and scale of a building will determine how well it produces desired emotional responses from those who visit or pass by it. Buildings with a strong sense of verticality tend to break up the scale and monotony of a long street corridor and offer a more pedestrian-friendly public realm. Buildings with blocky proportioning tend to be felt as objects. While large urban buildings don’t have to be designed to look like a bunch of different buildings put together, they should be designed with attention toward human-scaled proportioning, depth, detailing, and quality materials.
Large buildings that have flat façades can create an uncomfortable, inhumane environment. If all of the architecture of a building is in about 4” of depth, that building can seem cheap and banal. If that building is large and flat, the wall it creates can be unrelenting. Even if architectural elements with depth are introduced, such as decks, large buildings with simplistic detailing and monotonous materials can present unwelcoming street corridors.
If, however, a building has depth in its design, its massing can still fill a block and create a humane street corridor which encourages pedestrian vitality.