Lloyd Alter on the City

Kaid Benfield has a great interview with environmental thinker Lloyd Alter. There is a lot of thought provoking material in the interview, but what particularly jumped out at me were a few choice quotes:

I used to be a committed modernist; then, while studying historic buildings, I learned how well they work. How windows could be tuned for maximum ventilation; how shutters provided security and privacy while maintaining ventilation; how really bad modern buildings are when it comes to being green and healthy. Those clean lines, lack of roof overhangs and walls of glass didn’t look so beautiful any more.

What makes a great building? A great city?

I am not certain that there is a great city in the world that wasn’t great a hundred years ago. I haven’t been to Singapore, but that is about the only example I can think of that might break the rule. But almost all of the cities we admire today were designed before the automobile became the motivator for every planning and urban design decision.

Cities that were built in an era of human focused design are the ones that we love to visit. They also tend to follow Alter’s philosophy of density:

I am convinced that they are wrong, that there is a “goldilocks density” that is high enough to support a vibrant, walkable community, but not so high that you can’t walk up to your apartment when the power goes out, that needs expensive infrastructure like subways and huge underground parking garages. Dense enough to build a sense of community, but not so dense as to have everyone slip into anonymity.

My favorite places tend to average 5–10 stories and are in cities that were great 100 years ago. There is a beautiful human scale and incredible versatility in the mid-rise urban typology.