I appreciate Gregory Stocks comments, and will check out the Box City program.
However, I think we need first to reconsider the profession's committment to urban design as a primary discipline within architecture. All the design symposia and conventions I've attended, most of the articles and technical essays seen in the architectural press, the design competitions, and, of course, all those coffee table books are about one-off buildings or building complexes. When the occasional urban design feature appears, it typically looks more like an abstract painting or the striping and decals on a hot rod than an urban plan - even less like a plan that starts with ordinary folks and families rather than middle-eastern princes or the grandiosity of a totalitarian state.
We are architects, so of course we have an affinity for buildings. However, most buildings are de facto elements of an urban plan. Hence, we should always think of them as such, and as subsidiary to the larger urban picture - not obeisant, but of secondary importance.
Maybe we need to get our own urban act together before we take it on the road.
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Gary Collins AIA
Principal
Gary R. Collins, AIA
Jacksonville OR
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