For the past few months, we’ve been mulling over our feelings about the celebration of ‘parkitecture’ that has been happening in Miami over the past year.  In celebrating parking garages as civic structures architects Herzog & de Meuron put an interesting spin on a usually under-utilized land use.

While the New York Times gushes over the facility, we still have questions — mainly about the ethos of an auto centric society embeded in the structure.  Sure it has retail spaces and can double as event space; sure it is big airy and light-filled, but something about it feels wrong given the alternative dialogues being had carbon reduction (See the 2030 Challenge).  The building predicament. As stated in the times,

It is, in many ways, an ode to Miami’s flashy automobile culture. Rather than seeking to hide cars, as garages have done for decades, it openly celebrates them.

And therein lies the paradox; how can we realistically celebrate the auto, and retain a firm commitment to address climate?  And hence our internal struggle.

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“Mr. Gehry’s design is about bringing that same sensibility — the focus on refined textures, the cultivation of a sense that something has been shaped by a human hand — to the digital age.”

So the New York Times reviews the new building at 8 Spruce Street designed by star-chitect Frank Gehry — the tallest luxury residential tower in New York City.  And it appears to be true from the inside and out – a beautiful and sculptural exterior with a function, cozy interior based on Mr. Ouroussoff’s assessment.  Many of the architects earlier buildings had beautiful exteriors but poorly thought out interiors, “criticized for creating wildly sculptural forms that are nothing more than masks.”  But this building appears not to do that and, if so it is likely to be some of Gehry’s best work.

But given the beauty of this facade as it reaches from Gotham to the sky — one has to wonder if the beauty is skin deep.  Nothing is mentioned in the review about the building’s performance.  Gehry is not known for producing the most green, high performing buildings, but one has to wonder — if this building is to provide a reference point for design for the digital age, then how does it speak about sustainability.  Does it make any kind of statement other than reinforcing the consumption of the “pampered young professionals” who will reside there?

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Given these realities, it seems more practical not to work against such aspirations (of greening suburbia) but instead to evolve intelligent policies that would reconcile them with our long-term environmental needs. Suburbanites like their suburbs but would also like to find a way to make them greener as well as more economically and socially viable. Right now neither party has developed such an agenda, and so the suburbs, now clearly leaning right, remain up to grabs. To win suburbanites over, politicians first have to respect the basic preferences while offering a realistic program for improvement. This remains a key to building a sustainable electoral majority, not just for the next election, but for the decades to come.

So what is your opinion?  Are we not working enough to retrofit and green suburban communities?  How we might work with the suburban landscape to make it greener?  Suggestions?

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