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| Communities by Design Built Works: Architects Demonstrate the Value of Community Design | | > | A Civic Vision for Turnpike Air Rights Boston, Massachusetts | | > | East Baltimore Comprehensive Physical Redevelopment Plan Baltimore, MD | | > | Inner Harbor East Baltimore, MD | | > | Lafayette Courts Baltimore, MD | | > | Mid-Embarcadero San Francisco, California | | > | Landmark Lighting Master Plan Milwaukee, WI | | > | New York State Canal Recreationway Plan Albany, NY | | > | Pennsylvania Convention Center Philadelphia, Pennsylvania | | > | The Village of Park DuValle Louisville, KY | | > | Riparian Meadows, Mounds, and Rooms Warren, Arkansas | | > | UrbanRiver Visions seven communities, Massachusetts | | > | West Harlem Waterfront Park New York, New York | | > | R/UDAT Built Works | | > | R/UDAT Austin, TX | | > | R/UDAT Moose Jaw, Canada | | > | R/UDAT Salt Lake City, UT | | > | R/UDAT San Angelo | | > | R/UDAT Springfield, IL | | | |
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Project Details
Architect: Torti
Gallas and Partners
Award: National AIA Award for Regional and Urban
Design 2001
Implementation Status: Completed in 2001
View Communities by Design Built Works: Lafayette Courts (requires Google Earth)
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Background
This downtown Baltimore neighborhood, north of East Fayette
Street and four blocks from the Inner Harbor, is the center of an
African American community whose ties go back to settlement
following the Civil War. In April 11, 1955, low and high rise
public housing was constructed on condemned property as apart of
the infamous nationwide “urban renewal.” This and three
other housing developments “quickly became one of
Maryland’s worst housing problems. Decades later, his
neighborhood became a “project,” suffering from high
concentrations of poverty, economic and social isolation, and high
rates of crime. With its indefensible open spaces surrounding the
10 and three story buildings, the project was completely out of
context with the surrounding Baltimore rowhouse neighborhoods.
Implementation Status
Lafayette Courts or Pleasant View Gardens, as the newly created
neighborhood was renamed, was funded in HUD’s first round of
the HOPE VI grants in FY 1994 for $49.6 million dollars. The
project received an additional $65.5 million dollars in state,
local and federal grants. The architectural and construction
schedule was accelerated in order to meet the commitments of city
residents needing new homes. This multiphase program has been
completely built and occupied in 1997. This revitalized
neighborhood included 228 rowhouse units, a 110 unit elderly
midrise building, 36 renovated apartment units, a daycare,
recreation, commmunity and medical centers, with 5 acres of
landscaped, active park space.
Public Process
Citizen workshops and design charrettes were instrumental in
creating the new neighborhood plan. Their recommendations included
locating a new senior building adjacent to the community center,
developing housing for young single mothers near the senior
building, creating mentoring opportunties, keeping the community
center as the one building to remain on site and creating a park at
the center of the neighborhood. These workshops and meetings
occurred in 1993 and 1994, following the reception of the grant.
These meetings as well as other public events – the zoning
process, the demolition and opening of the new community were
actively covered in the Baltimore Sun newspaper.
Community Impact
The redevelopment of the Pleasant View Gardens neighborhood
spurred the Inner Harbor and surrouding neighborhoods renewal, and
this revitalization spurred motivation for the renewal of the other
three housing developments reaking havoc for the city. Today, the
visitor will find these pleasant communities easily mix with the
newly revived surrouning ethnic neighborhoods. Baltimore’s
Inner Harbor is also on a rebound with new hotels, shops and
attractions moving to waterfront locations. All this activity has
returned the city’s downtown into an attractive, economical
place to live and work.
Lessons Learned
• Working with the community makes a better plan.
• Making good streets is the most important part of a new
neighborhood. Architecture and urban design need to work together
to accomplish this goal.
• Designing houses in a row rather than as individuals makes
more meaningful streetscapes.
• Traditional house types, here the rowhouse, are still
valid.
• Respecting the transect in all neighborhood components
– urban, landscape, architectural – essential to creating
new communities that will integrate with their larger contexts
– here a primary goal of the new neighborhood.
Principles for Livable Communities
The stigma of the living in the “projects” created by
its physical isolation from the surrounding the community was a key
problem for its citizens. The previous high rise development became
vertical slums that were surrounded by bleak open
spaces—indefensible spaces that was left to a wasteland of
weeds and ill maintenance. Following the citizen meetings, there
was definitly the notion that a neighborhood what was lost needs to
be restablished but adjusted for the circumstances of the
today’s reality. Repairing the urban fabric with a contextual
neighborhood would reinforce not only the surrounding neighborhoods
but strengthen the adjacent Inner Harbor—downtown
Baltimore.
Following the philosopy of New Urbanism, the new neighborhood
design weaved the new streets to connnect the adjacent
assets—the Elementary School, Senior Center, nearby
market—to the site’s new assessts. This included housing
constructed around a new central community park. The designers also
realized the formally unidentifable reptitive housing units were a
contributer to the bleak conditions before the revivial. The idea
of home identity and uniqueness was designed into the individual
rowhouse units. This included varying unit types to allow for
housing choices based on the many family configurations, with
public enties and backyards for every unit as the new norm. The
public park has clear visiblitity from the rowhouse front doors
facing the park; this creates a safe, active center for the
community. The creation of new streets gave not only a street for
kids to play and walk to their adjacent elementary school but gave
adults the easy ability to walk around there community for face to
face interaction with their neighbors. The reinsertion of the
street grid allowed walkability to the bus lines or easy locations
for on-street parking.
With the designers thorough anaylsis of the neighborhood before and
urban renewal, the designers relying on citizen input created a
sensitive infill strategy integrating the many assessts and support
systems for the neighborhood. This human-scaled, walkable master
plan with the designer’s skill for implementation and
constructability revived the neighborhood in record time.
Overall Sustainable Contribution
The revived neighborhood made a critical goal creating a
walkable neighborhood that could utilize on-site and adjacent
assets. Inserting a street grid system gave easy access to bus
lines that connects to the downtown and the adjacent schools. This
enabled not only safe streets but getting people out of the car and
walking or using public transit. Although this is probably the
largest contribution to its sustainable goals, there was also reuse
of street and sidewalks where appropriate, and the neighborhood
also planted new trees where there were bleak open spaces.
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| Lafayette Courts After |
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| Lafayette Courts Aerial View Postconstruction |
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| Lafayette Courts Before |
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| Lafayette Courts After |
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| Lafayette Courts Demolition |
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