Urban Design

Two months after hijacked airliners took down the twin towers of New York's World Trade Center, killing thousands and shaking the nation, it's clear that long-held notions of urban design were shattered as well. Even as the tragedy still resonates, a growing contingent of architects and urban planners has begun to question many of the tenets that led to the design of the 110-story towers, the world's tallest buildings when they opened in the early 1970s. As New York moves to rebuild lower Manhattan, they say, city and state leaders have an opportunity to benefit from experience and build something even greater than what the terrorists destroyed.

Baltimore's urban design panel on Thursday approved a developer's request to build townhouses on land in Locust Point that had been slated for residential towers and a mixed-use complex. The two parcels, on either side of the Silo Point condo building, will have about 50 townhouses divided between them, according to plans presented to the panel by the architects for Mark Sapperstein, the developer of McHenry Row. The decision to build townhomes instead of taller residential office buildings was a reaction to market demands and input from the community, which would prefer shorter structures on those sites, Sapperstein said.

In Randallstown, the plan calls for a community center and bustling town center where there are now vacant parking lots and empty shops. In Essex, the vision is a gleaming waterfront destination. And in Dundalk, building a marina district that would include an amateur sports center, a cruise ship terminal, a hotel and a park is among the goals. Now, Towson is taking its turn with a team of out-of-town community planners known as a UDAT -- or Urban Design Assistance Team -- that is to help Baltimore County officials and community leaders create a plan for the county seat and college town.

Developers in downtown Baltimore seek tax breaks and infrastructure improvements for their projects. In return for those benefits, Baltimore should require an architectural design competition in an effort to make the city a center for world-class architecture. A good place to start would be the project at Harbor Point being developed by John Paterakis, where the city will build a bridge from Harbor East to the Point and grant tax breaks for the development. But this requirement should be required of all downtown developers - and the city should also use design competitions for its major projects.

WITH development activity heating up east of Baltimore's Inner Harbor, civic leaders plan to hire an urban design expert to help coordinate it all.The Baltimore Development Corp. sought bids this year from urban experts who would like to be consultants for the design study, set to begin this spring.The study area is bounded by the Inner Harbor on the south; Frederick Street on the west; East Baltimore Street on the north; and Central Avenue on the east. Attractions include the old city fish market; the Brokerage at 34 Market Place; the new city police headquarters annex; Museum Row and the Inner Harbor East Metro stop.

With the success of Harbor East, city planners are shifting their attention to redeveloping the industrial shoreline of the Middle Branch in Westport, a 50-acre swath some have dubbed "Harbor West." City planning staff are to present proposed development guidelines today at a working session of the city's Urban Design and Architecture Review Panel, with the goal of having City Council adopt a new urban renewal plan for Westport's waterfront by late summer. Planners have been working with Patrick Turner of Baltimore-based Henrietta Development Corp.

A fresh vision of suburbia is headed for the Baltimore region. Small lots. Narrow streets. Condominiums near townhouses near houses, each looking a little different from the one next door. Garages tucked discreetly out of view, facing alleys. Stores, offices, parks and a field filled with schools just a stroll away. No cul-de-sacs. Not one. If it sounds more like a city than the suburbs, that's because its planners are taking their cue not from post-World War II living but from old-time places like Roland Park and Annapolis.

FIVE MONTHS after construction began, the new Lafayette Courts development in downtown Baltimore has won national recognition as a model of sensitive civic architecture.A jury of the American Institute of Architects selected the 374-unit development as one of five projects to receive 1997 honor awards for excellence in urban design.The master planner for Lafayette Courts was CHK Architects & Planners of Silver Spring. The owner is the Housing Authority of Baltimore City. Their project was chosen to receive the same prestigious AIA award that the master plan for Camden Yards won in 1992 and that Baltimore's Inner Harbor East community won last year.

When it opened in 1970, Center Plaza was hailed as a model of urban design - a public open space critical to the success of Baltimore's 33-acre Charles Center renewal district. But less than 30 years later, it had become so bleak and desolate that some city officials considered turning it into a parking lot. "We're tossing the plan around," former public works director George Balog admitted in 1998. "Our observation is the plaza isn't being fully utilized." This year city leaders are looking at plans of a different sort.

Baltimore's urban design panel on Thursday approved a developer's request to build townhouses on land in Locust Point that had been slated for residential towers and a mixed-use complex. The two parcels, on either side of the Silo Point condo building, will have about 50 townhouses divided between them, according to plans presented to the panel by the architects for Mark Sapperstein, the developer of McHenry Row. The decision to build townhomes instead of taller residential office buildings was a reaction to market demands and input from the community, which would prefer shorter structures on those sites, Sapperstein said.

Phillips Seafood is scheduled to present its exterior plans for a new restaurant at the Inner Harbor's Power Plant at a July 14 meeting of Baltimore City's Urban Design and Architecture Review Panel. The meeting's agenda, released Thursday, confirms a report that the restaurant would move to the Power Plant on East Pratt Street. Restaurant owners announced in June that they would close the location at Harborplace at the end of September. Two weeks ago, the Cordish Cos. met with the Baltimore Development Corp.

Members of a Baltimore design committee urged the city slots developers Thursday to consider a bolder design and do more to enhance the Russell Street corridor. "We have expressed a bit of concern that the concept is not quite what we're looking for," said City Planning Director Thomas J. Stosur after listening to a one-hour presentation by Reich & Petch, the Toronto-based architecture firm that will design the casino. The Urban Design and Architecture Review Panel advises the city's planning department on major projects but does not have the authority to veto a design.

The proposed design for a redeveloped Morris A. Mechanic Theatre in downtown Baltimore includes an inviting outdoor plaza and preserves much of the shuttered theater's architectural significance, but it falls short in its concept for a new 32-story hotel and residential tower, members of a city design panel said yesterday. Members of the Urban Design and Architecture Review Panel weighed in on the design proposed by Washington architect Shalom Baranes for redevelopment of the theater at Baltimore and Charles streets, built in 1967 as the centerpiece of one of downtown's earliest urban renewal efforts.

Baltimore's Morris A. Mechanic Theatre will not be added to the city's landmark list, even though the city's preservation commission determined more than a year ago that it met the criteria for designation and recommended that it be listed. Baltimore's Planning Commission voted 7-0 yesterday to keep the shuttered theater at 1 W. Baltimore St. off the landmark list, after hearing testimony that its owners didn't want it to be added but do plan to preserve "80 to 90 percent" of its shell as part of a large redevelopment project.

Paris has one. Copenhagen has one. San Francisco just opened one. Should Baltimore have a design center? That's the question local architects and planners are asking as they seek ways to improve the quality of architectural design and urban planning in the city. The Baltimore chapter of the American Institute of Architects will sponsor a free public forum from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. June 26 to give participants a chance to discuss what a design center could do for Baltimore and see how much local interest there is in creating one. The forum will be at the Load of Fun studios, 120 W. North Ave., in the Charles North arts and entertainment district.

If you ask Alan Ward what's lacking in downtown Columbia, the landscape architect and urban designer working on the Town Center master plan will tell you that it's pedestrians, along with a sense of connection and vitality as you walk. "What's missing is an urban, residential environment," Ward, a principal with Sasaki Associates Inc., said in an interview last week. "There are pockets of residential, but it doesn't add up to the street life like you'd expect in an urban neighborhood. I think the expectations are to make it more lively and to make it more of a destination."

BAYWOOD DESIGN PICKS UP 3 AWARDSThe Baywood Design/Build Group of Columbia recently won three awards in a competition sponsored by the Remodelers Council of the Home Builders Association of Maryland.Baywood Design received "best of class" awards in the categories of best bathroom remodeling and best deck. Its third award was an honorable mention for residential remodeling.LDR FIRM HONORED FOR BRITISH DESIGNLDR International Inc., a Columbia-based urban design firm, has received a Merit Award from the American Society of Landscape Architects for its Strategic Development Initiative for Manchester Regional Centre.

A sweeping vision for the renewal of East Baltimore is years away from completion, but it has already impressed one influential group. The American Institute of Architects selected the East Baltimore Comprehensive Physical Redevelopment Plan to receive a 2003 Honor Award for Urban Design. The prestigious national award, to be presented at the AIA's annual convention in San Diego in May, honors a two-year effort by the city of Baltimore and Urban Design Associates of Pittsburgh to create a master plan to guide $800 million worth of redevelopment in a depressed area north of the Johns Hopkins medical campus.

It has designed new housing to replace Church Home Hospital on Broadway and laid the groundwork for the biotech park taking shape north of the Johns Hopkins medical campus. Now a nationally prominent team of urban designers has been hired to recommend ways to revitalize another large swath of East Baltimore - the Old Town renewal area and surroundings. Urban Design Associates of Pittsburgh heads a group that was selected this year by Mayor Sheila Dixon's administration to create a master plan to guide redevelopment of 400 acres that lie between downtown Baltimore and the medical campus.

If Baltimore wants to get more people to live and work downtown, it needs a greater variety of stores, better restaurants, more to see and do in general. It also needs more attractive public spaces - not just passageways between office towers, but inviting parks and plazas where people will want to linger, meet friends, and get some fresh air, after work and on weekends. Toward that end, the city took a giant step in the right direction with the recently completed, $7.5-million makeover of Center Plaza, a once-barren open space that has been transformed to an oasis of greenery in the heart of downtown.