The North Bay region is made up of a collection of communities with individual personalities that speak volumes about the people who live there. From the quaint town squares of Mill Valley and Sonoma to the bustling metropolis Santa Rosa aspires to be to the rustic spa-town mentality of Calistoga, each community is branded with a personality it markets to the world.
Seldom do we question why or how our community became known for one characteristic and not another. The answer is a complex equation, involving the communities’ historical roots, the all too capricious whim of rampant development and the resistance to change.
But change happens. When new growth or redevelopment upsets the proverbial apple cart, the fragile façade our communities have nurtured can be altered—slightly or drastically. How change occurs depends on the public’s will and the tenacity developers bring to the table to drive projects to completion.
Veterans of city council meetings, planning commission sessions and design and review board consultations know the process is often contentious, fraught with political intrigue and, at times, downright ugly. In the eye of the storm stands the one person who has the ability to calm the rough waters and restore reason and sanity to the process: the architect.
Patience is a virtue
As an employee of the developer, architects brings with them baggage that can cause even the most civic-minded residents to bare their teeth and set their heels in the ground to ward off any attempt to change the status quo. Yet architects, in many ways, are the only hope for either side. It’s their job to rise above the conflict, soothe ruffled feathers and come up with a workable solution. They must be gifted negotiators, expert designers and, above all else, educators who can dispel fear and resistance to create something the community can embrace.
Colin Russell of Russell + Davis Architects in San Rafael understands the sensitive role he and his associates play when tampering with a community’s identity. Russell says architects become involved in helping create a community’s personality by working with city officials within a framework of laws and codes that are in place to ensure safe and sane development. The process is not, however, always an easy fix. It’s often a staggered commitment that takes years to complete. He recalls San Rafael’s attempt in the early 1990s to clean up its downtown area. The presence of a large contingent of homeless people created a unique problem that had to be dealt with before any real progress could be made, he says.
“The idea was to transform downtown from a dismal place where few people wanted to shop to a more attractive area,” Russell explains. To their credit, city fathers did not ignore the homeless situation, he notes, but dealt with the problem to minimize the impact on all parties involved. “Basically, the city decided to clean up its act.”
According to Russell, the city underwent several years of research and goal setting to define the needs of the community . With the help of the Chamber of Commerce and an enlightened city council, the makeover included several street-level enhancements like sidewalk widening to allow outdoor dining, special codes to help downtown merchants meet their goals for their businesses and addressing the homeless problem that had held back revitalization.
The rush to rejuvenate a city’s core, however, creates a maelstrom that architects like Russell must navigate on a daily basis. “My job is to meld my client’s goals with that of city planners,” he states. “We’re finding that words and deeds aren’t always the same. Resistance from neighborhood groups over density and traffic concerns often make it difficult to implement projects. They don’t see the incentive to change but rather see a great risk in what might be created.”
Russell believes the resistance comes from residents who fear the unknown. The possibility of evictions, or even the threat of a city using its power of eminent domain—any change to the quality of life, even for the greater good—become real and threatening issues.
On the other hand, he notes, developers are constantly assailed with similar fears about their bottom lines. Recalcitrant neighborhood groups opposing redevelopment projects can make the cost of design changes skyrocket and keep a project tangled up in red tape for years. The result is burdensome for developers, sometimes shaving thousands of dollars from their profits.
As a representative of his client’s project, Russell says the architect must understand what the developer wants to accomplish. His job then becomes one of studying and researching existing municipal codes and design rules to come up with a plan so the review process can begin—an undertaking that can be both challenging and fruitful.
“You have to become a strong advocate for the developer’s project,” Russell says. “Keeping the [design and review process] costs as low as possible in an onslaught of criticism and citizens’ ideas is very important. Successful architects educate both the public and the city council on the merits of their clients’ project.”
The history of suburban sprawl gave developers a bad reputation for producing carbon copy communities noted more for their lack of originality than for good design standards. Developing a massive community depended on the developer making a profit while holding down home prices to make them affordable for a wide spectrum of buyers. In these cases, community branding became the whim of the developer, who employed architects to design for the bottom line and not for the inherent aesthetic quality of the development.
Russell believes inner city development and redevelopment rarely follows a predetermined set of design rules, which helps defend cities from the sin of blandness that’s often associated with older suburban communities.
Communities, however, value the old and familiar. For an architect to get his developer’s designs through the gauntlet of municipal hoops he or she must jump through requires a great deal of homework, he says.
“Architects have to know the formula they need to hit to get a consensus for approval,” he explains. “You don’t want to break new ground and frighten people, but you don’t want to be safe and boring either. Every once in a while, a design review board will take the lead, and something dynamic can occur.”
Soul searching
North on Highway 101, Warren Hedgpeth of Hedgpeth Architects in Santa Rosa sees the dilemma Russell refers to unfolding in his own city. He also thinks architects can be instrumental in creating a new paradigm for how cities look at urban development. First and foremost, he says, is the creation of a dynamic downtown by including affordable housing units, mixed-use districts and a cultural-friendly atmosphere that coexists alongside a vibrant, user-friendly retail zone.
“The downtown is the soul of a city. That’s what needs to be saved,” Hedgpeth says. “Planning commissions and design review boards don’t have the power to force different use [due to codes and zoning laws]. Architects need to be able to trade places. It’s their responsibility to think like a developer and like a city[’s residents] with vigor and vitality [to create change].”
In the late 1970s, Santa Rosa began to emerge as a major player in the North Bay, due in part to its central location within Sonoma County. Hedgpeth says the city began to evolve into a multi-tier community, accommodating a variety of lifestyles and business opportunities. Today, he believes the city’s challenge is combining corporate solvency with defined districts that reflect the community’s character.
Consequently, Hedgpeth says, when architects begin a new project, they need to consider the community’s roots and identity with a perspective that isn’t elitist or pragmatic. He urges architects to get involved with the neighborhood where a project is located to create a dialogue between city officials and the client.
Corporations, he says, tend to lack trust when striking out into uncharted waters and, in the past, opted for the safety of large retailers and big box stores. Hedgpeth believes in today’s contentious market of in-fill and urban renewal projects, developers run the risk of compromising a community’s identity—not a place an architect or his client ever wishes to find themselves.
“When do we say enough is enough? When do we stop?” Hedgpeth asks. “[Inner city] shopping areas have to live to survive. At this point, we need to stop perpetuation of large, big box retailing that caters only to the consumer culture.”
Hedgpeth favors projects that include components like live/work and artists’ districts, which speak to a variety of needs instead of just raw commercialism. “We need tastefully conceived projects that will draw people back to downtown. Oakland is a good example of how an inner city area can transform itself,” he says. “Even though they were economically challenged, they built a beautiful museum with both fine and performing arts venues available to working people who live in the area. Their downtown has become a center of expression for literature and art through educating their citizens about what could be accomplished. Education creates passion and energizes the community.”
It’s how you look at it
Communities, however, differ from large urban centers to small town ambiance in a matter of miles on the interstate. Max Crome of Crome Architecture lives in Fairfax and knows the power architectural design can have in molding the personality of a city—and the controversy that can arise when citizens feel impinged upon by developers. Design and development, he says, carry different meanings for different communities.
“It depends on the town. Certain cities, for lack of a better term, are pro-development,” Crome says.
“Others don’t want any development. Often, it’s the city council that decides.”
He believes Bay Area citizens and their elected officials are very cognizant of the quality of design that goes into proposed projects. With the help of a compliant city council, slightly controversial or innovative design features have a better chance of approval.
Crome says if you’re a developer, it’s important to get the city government behind your architectural plans as quickly as possible. The job of the architect is to find out what questions the council has about a project and then find answers to satisfy them. Reaching out to the public early in the design and review process helps gauge the public acceptance or rejection of new or different projects and is important to avoid problems in the final review process. One hurdle, however, seems unavoidable.
“Almost every city and its citizens like local people to work on their town,” Crome says. “And almost everyone hates seeing a developer come into their community with plans that require changes to existing codes. Local guys can do that more easily with the support of the city council—and design-wise, it makes sense. Locals already know the ropes and the neighborhoods. Every architect has to convince the city government their project is good for the community. Locals have a better understanding of what a city wants and how to get projects approved.”
Crome emphasizes how important it is for architects to be sensitive to the history of the community and its essence. Treading lightly on issues that directly affect the roots of a community, especially when presenting a case before a city’s elected officials, he says, should be the mantra of all architects, homegrown or otherwise.
“We have to remember, cities develop over a long period of time with memories and a history,” Crome says. “Developers who mess with that history do so at their own risk. By the same token, however, if cities don’t revitalize, they wither and die.”
For these reasons, he says, architects are frequently confronted by individuals within the community who are willing to go the distance to keep the status quo and make it difficult for the developer. “For some local politicians, it’s good press to slow down development.”
Fitting in
For Mary Dooley of MAD Architecture in Petaluma, knowing your community and applying your professional expertise to the problems it faces is second nature. She, like Crome, believes locals are often a better fit when the time comes to alter the face of a community.
“I’ve rarely worked for an outside developer,” Dooley says. “It’s very interesting working in a town where you reside. As an architect, you have to wear two hats. You have to satisfy not only the developer but also the citizens. You and your neighbors have to live with the project as well.”
Dooley says one of the hardest tasks she as an architect (and the community at large) faces is the process of in-fill when new development collides with older parts of a city. The challenge is balancing property owners’ and developer’s rights while still creating a positive impact on the community.
“I don’t think the two have to be mutually exclusive,” she says. “If the community needs are being met, then the city government’s requirements are being met and won’t be seen as pro-developer.”
Asked about branding from an architect’s viewpoint, Dooley says she sees the concept as not an end in itself but rather as one that’s created in the design process.
“Branding is really another name for marketing,” she explains. “The brand idea is placed on a project later in the design process. In the beginning, the developer and architect are thinking about what’s economically feasible.”
This is opposed to “the overriding, far-reaching concepts” by which communities define themselves, she says. These concepts refer back to a community’s roots rather than arise from a specific project’s impact on the lives of citizens. Dooley lists marketable design elements—walkable neighborhoods, live/work opportunities, green buildings and other citizen-friendly factors—as positive changes that define the here and now as opposed to the there and then.
“In branding a project, it’s important for the developer to cater to the public,” Dooley explains. “Marketing a project as ‘green’ is one good example. It’s not mandatory for a developer to make a project green, but it’s attractive to a concerned citizenry and an aware buyer’s market. The term has a contemporary aspect to it and enhances its value. To a city council, it might be seen as incentive for supporting a given project. Developers can use branding as a device, usually secondary to the planning process, meant to sell their project.”
Keeping a balance
Local or not, change can be frightening, and it’s incumbent on an architect to identify glitches in the design process and deal with them in a straightforward manner. Lail Design Group of St. Helena, located in the heart of the Napa Valley Wine Country, understands the need to preserve community identity through architectural design, tempered by an understanding of resident concerns.
Paul Kelley, Lail’s president and principal architect, has been with the company just shy of a decade. He’s also chair of Napa’s Cultural Heritage Committee. He says Lail does more than half its business within Napa County, which gives the firm a solid grip on what county residents expect from new projects. It falls to Kelley and his associates to understand how best to accomplish that task.
“First and foremost, we have to understand the county’s general plan and what motivates each community,” he says. “They each have ambitions and goals in mind that differ from their neighbors.”
Napa County is unique in the North Bay in that the Agriculture Preserve (initiated in the 1990s) is located squarely in its center, in Napa Valley. The preserve’s statutes restrict development on the valley floor and surrounding hillsides; no commercial concerns are allowed new development permits unless sanctioned by voters in a general election. Kelley says this, along with minimum parcel sizes and slow growth and development policies, has put pressure on local communities to create densely focused projects that make use of every foot of available land.
“Twenty years ago, density was a hard sell. Now it’s part of the equation,” Kelley says. There’s also Napa County’s housing plan, already submitted for state approval, which places most of the county’s required new housing units inside Napa and American Canyon (per a joint agreement with those two communities). “Consequently, most development is happening inside city limits.”
This situation creates a burden on communities to retain their branded personalities as developments spring up on nearly every vacant property. Older residents can lose a sense of identity as neighborhoods morph into densely populated pockets within the community. Also, he says, with in-fill comes a certain degree of degradation of the quality of life; schools become overcrowded, and streets are clogged with more vehicles than were originally intended. Kelley says it’s the job of architects to come up with neighborhood-friendly designs to lessen these types of negative impacts.
“Architects have to work with both the developer and the community to come up with answers to these problems,” he says. “We need to study the issues and come up with projects that will fit into a community. Residents will tell us if something is out of character. They know the community’s needs.”
Kelley has seen numerous projects start off with enthusiasm only to be sidetracked by input from residents troubled by a developer’s wish to maximize profits by building inappropriate structures. The key, he believes, is to come up with a “happy marriage” between the two sides before the project gets too far along. This can be accomplished by screening for density, color combinations of the structures, building massing, allowing for open space within a project and assessing how a project will impact the existing landscape and neighborhood.
“Our job is to anticipate the concerns of council members and the community,” he says. “We need to find out and address the wants and needs of all concerned.”
Getting in touch
Enjoying “local” status isn’t, however, always an option. Keith Gurnee is a principal at RRM Design Group in Healdsburg. His company has offices spread out across California, working in every aspect of the design and planning process, from urban revitalization to planned communities to landscape design to waterfront restorations. He says, as an outsider, creating or preserving a city’s unique brand should be an integral part of the design process: “It’s important early in the design process to get at the branding issue.”
He knows from experience how new projects can galvanize a population by bringing together disparate opposing voices to make an architect’s job a nightmare. Where others might see this as a dead end to the project, Gurnee says it’s his job to rally the community by answering questions and alleviating fears that naturally arise when a community is faced with change.
“You have to engage the community and find out as much as you can about its members’ concerns,” Gurnee explains. “What are their sensibilities? Their hopes and aspirations? Their fears? You have to gain the insiders’ trust and determine the community’s attitudes and cultural history. Then you can give form to their ideas.”
RRM Design Group uses a variety of tools to define how a city wants to present itself. By actively engaging the community in interactive workshops, his company’s architects and designers can create an acceptable brand baseline to take to the drawing board. The difficult part is balancing the private and public sectors’ wants and needs, but RRM has a balance of both in its client roster. By understanding the diverse nature of each, RRM can expand the support base needed to get approval and navigate the design and review process with fewer missteps.
“We do our homework,” Gurnee says. “The first phase is listening and learning. We try to get a feel for the community and what they want. [When dealing with] contentious community groups, we try to find out what they’re opposed to and why. Once we know what’s behind their opposition, we can come up with fresh solutions. The riddle is, ‘What do people want?’
“Our biggest concern is public attitude toward our project,” he says. “We’re engaged in a highly emotional debate that involves growth versus no growth. We try to overcome fear and resistance with patience and education.”
Building character
Gordon Huether of Gordon Huether Studio in Napa is an international glass designer and a member of the Napa Planning Commission. He believes architects are, at best, cogs in the design process used by both sides of the development argument.
“Branding a community has more to do with the developer than an architect,” Huether says. “It’s the developer who puts up the money, researches and begins negotiation with the city. The way I understand the world today, the architect is a tool the developer uses to get his project approved.”
Huether has harsh words for large planned developments of the past and their impact on the way communities are designed today. He uses his own community, Napa, and its current plans for redevelopment as an example of how the city is facing architectural mistakes made in the past.
“The architecture of Napa is a mixed bag of big box retailers, small business and car lots adjacent to residential areas,” he says. “We pretend our community has a brand, but there’s hardly anything there to build upon. All the study groups and conceptualized drawings are so disingenuous. It’s one of the things wrong with our culture at large.”
Huether points to architectural designs from as late as the 1950s and 1960s to illustrate his point. “[It] had a vibrant character that was unique to the culture of the day,” he says, noting that the architectural quality that made the structures unique was lost as the city rapidly expanded to meet the needs of a growing populace.
Huether acknowledges some “blue chip” properties and parts of the city that have survived in their architectural splendor, but when it comes to the majority of the public arena to be developed, he says, “Architects’ hands are tied.”
Appointed to a seat on the Napa Valley Planning Commission in 2005, Huether bemoans the fact that, by the time a project reaches the commission, the design process is for all practical purposes finished.
“By the time a project reaches the planning commission and then the city council, all kinds of behind the scenes maneuverings have gone on,” Huether says. “So much money and hard work have gone into getting the project before us that the planning commissioners are reluctant to reject or send back proposals because further delays seem unfair to everyone involved.”
Huether blames the public as much as he does developers when badly designed projects are built in their communities. “It’s the people of the community who need to make a difference. They should be the ones to determine the architectural design of their community—not developers, commissions, boards or the city council,” he says. “The idea that we need to mimic or copy what’s come before is wrong. Why not embrace what your city is today rather than reaching back into the past out of fear?”
Process makes perfect?
Huether’s sentiments are rooted in a basic flaw that’s endemic to the whole design process: outdated codes and zoning laws. Jared Polsky of Polsky Architects in Larkspur sees revamping the way cities apply codes and zoning laws as a necessary step in resolving future disputes over the design process.
Today, Polsky designs primarily for individual clients rather than massive developments that would require extensive review and planning by city officials. His experience in the past, and distance from the process today, gives him unique insight into the planning and ultimate branding policies architects can exert over communities.
Calling the civil planning and design review process “fairly difficult,” he cites a lack of uniformity in planning codes from one jurisdiction to the next as particularly frustrating. Architects have to become well versed in the individual zoning ordinances where their projects are located, he says. More important, Polsky adds, architects have to think like city planners to eliminate potential obstacles before meeting with officials for the first time.
“Planners like quantifiable components included in projects—like wide roads, lots of parking spaces and as much space between buildings as is feasible,” he says. What’s more, “cities often have an image of who they are and the architecture they want to represent them. Often, the codes and images are at odds with each other. Style, color, height and setbacks from city streets are all tools architects can use to accommodate planners and their goals.”
Even so, Polsky thinks planning departments rarely make decisions based on high quality design but rather tend to opt for more conservative choices. The situation creates an often adversarial atmosphere that can be frustrating for both the architect and the client.
“The planning process can be idiotic,” Polsky says. “A lot of planning commissions don’t give planning staff a clear vision of what they want to happen. [Often], they believe codes don’t need to be fixed. It doesn’t make any difference if the codes are smart or dumb. This shocks developers. It’s a hugely wasteful process that often requires nonessential planning studies that cost thousands of dollars.”
Despite these sentiments, Polsky is far from advocating no restrictions on development or no codes or zoning laws. He believes, when used correctly and effectively, these tools can stimulate quality. His frustration stems from a small cadre of citizens who are anti-growth and will do anything “legal” to make the planning process as difficult as possible for the architect and his client. Add to the mix elected city and county officials who must cater to a base that might be in the anti-growth camp. To retain their jobs, they must win at the polls, which means siding with their neighbors against developers, no matter how inspired an architect’s design might be.
A different perspective
Architects are forced to navigate a field of design-related landmines that often change from city to city and project to project. Santa Rosa’s Lois Fisher and Laura Hall of Fisher & Hall Urban Design understand the difficult process that architects, developers and city governments face when approving developments, especially inner city reclamation. Their perspective, however, is a little bit different.
“We’re urban designers. We’re different from architects,” Fisher explains. “Our designs aren’t all project-specific. We often work on design that can affect entire cities, whole portions of cities, sometimes even counties.”
When approaching a new project, the two partners try to recapture the spirit of times when life was lived at a slower and healthier pace. “We favor the model of historical, walkable neighborhoods of the past,” Fisher says, quickly adding that she and Hall don’t want to recreate the past, but rather use updated design concepts and environmental tools to create modern versions of these types of communities.
As part of the conceptualization and design process, Fisher and Hall work with private developers and city governments to write Smart Codes that address the design of neighborhoods and downtowns on a project-by-project basis. The concept of Smart Codes, Hall says, has been used locally in Petaluma and is pending in Ukiah, Sebastopol, Rohnert Park and other communities across the region and nation.
The duo’s goal, when writing Smart Codes, is to create separate jurisdictions within the public sector that aren’t governed by outdated codes and zoning laws in an effort to instill new life in urban areas. The Smart Codes affect only the project that’s being developed; the surrounding area follows normal zoning laws. The advantages are obvious. Branding of an individual project can be accomplished more easily than trying to remake an entire city’s persona.
A neighborhood that over the years may have fallen into disrepair or been abandoned can be reclaimed by highlighting existing natural resources like wooded areas, a river or even a town green to remake the neighborhood into desirable real estate. The desired effect is to restore the feeling of community by reducing traffic, adopting pedestrian-friendly zoning laws (that allow for goods and services to be sold in walking distance of residences) and implementing measures as simple as laying out streets so homes are situated in an east-to-west orientation.
Jim Ford of The Fifth Resource Inc. in Cotati shares Fisher and Hall’s ideas. He’s seen the trend toward inner city redevelopment grow in recent years and knows what needs to happen to achieve effective, smart and culture-conscious development.
“You have to look at the land and take into consideration a community’s interests,” Ford says. “The architect has to address the needs of both the developer and the consumer. How much land is available? What can the land support? You have to reach a balance with all these things, or the consumer won’t buy the product.”
Ford has a laundry list of factors that must be considered from the consumer and city government’s viewpoint. How will the project impact the environment and city infrastructure? How will the finished product affect the quality of life, including the city’s self image? And, of course, there’s the ever-present opposition to growth and the NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) issue that must be addressed.
Like others interviewed for this article, Ford supports slow growth within urban areas and working to reclaim town centers and turn them into thriving, prosperous mixed-use zones. “Slow growth raises the bar for everyone,” he says. “Consumers today are beginning to look at how projects will affect their quality of life. If you think about it, architects have begun placing more emphasis on the inside of homes because of this shift. Just look at the average size of kitchens and bathrooms as compared to the past.”
Ford believes “new urbanism” will lead the trend toward smart, slow and sane growth in the years to come. He says architectural design capabilities, when applied under new code and zoning laws, will create new community brands that retain the workable aspects of the old brand while shedding those that are no longer applicable. In the future, he sees inner-city redevelopment taking on the characteristics of a historical “village” model.
“People who want to be social should get out of their car and live in a village,” he says. “The town square becomes a place of community with hotels, cinemas, live/work and mixed-use businesses and residences. The social element appeals not only to youth and their parents, but to senior citizens as well. Seniors live better in a vibrant village atmosphere where they can walk to goods and services.”
Time for a change
For architect Juliana Inman of Napa, restoration of inner city areas and buildings is a major goal. As chair of the city of Napa’s Planning Commission since 2002, she’s sat through numerous hearings and strategy sessions between the commission, architects and their clients. Inman believes having a diverse set of commissioners is key to bringing new life and fresh perspectives to the city’s changing landscape.
“Even though we work in a regulatory environment and are bound by laws, I think it’s important to have a broad spectrum of viewpoints. Having artists and people with artistic sensibility on the board is very helpful,” Inman says, especially when dealing with citizens who may be resistant to change.
“Many citizens don’t want change,” she says. “They want to preserve Napa’s beauty and open space, and that’s understandable. As a commissioner, you have to sort that out and not lose your objectivity. We have to look at the big picture and evaluate projects in light of the overall general plan.”
As a city official, Inman’s allegiance lies squarely with the community. As an architect, however, she’s cognizant of the often-staggering monetary burden that developers have to shoulder as a result of the planning process.
“We can evaluate whether a new project meets the city’s building guidelines, but it’s hard—and expensive for the developer,” Inman says. “We’re trying to develop procedures to create a back-and-forth dialogue without requiring full construction documents for every change. Feedback can be given before documents are drawn up which [could help keep costs down].”
To some degree, Napa suffers from a split personality, with one foot grounded in its historical past and the other struggling to make architectural sense of missteps made in the 1960s and 1970s, when short-sighted city officials adopted a slash and burn approach to some of the city’s oldest architectural wonders. Inman and her fellow commissioners struggle with how to reclaim the persona that was once Napa.
“We believe authenticity is what really matters,” Inman explains. “We’re looking for good quality, not shoddy, cheap or false design. We want what’s appropriate for Napa.”
Inman points to the heritage structures that survive and notes the use of indigenous woods and stones and how they’re combined with a design style that was brought to the valley by its robust immigrant settlers. “Our historical district is where it’s easy and clear to see our roots and provide guidelines,” she says.
Outside these districts, though, circumstances are different. Building single family homes in Napa is expensive. Developers understand this and opt to build large, multi-story homes on miniscule lots to maximize square footage (and, thereby, their profits). For a city now dependent on in-fill because of building restrictions adopted in the past, an untenable situation exists for some residents—one that’s contrary to the commission’s stated goals of reclaiming the city’s past splendor.
“The city has to allow for some natural growth,” says Inman. “Do we just shut the door and not allow development? I don’t think so. We still have some parcels of land to develop—and some to redevelop. I believe it’s the Planning Commission’s job to work to minimize conflicts.”
Do it right the first time
Bill Callaway is CEO and a design principal of the SWA Group, which has offices across the United States and Asia. His 39 years in the business place him in a unique position to comment on how architects can influence the design process and help cities create a brand that will be an asset in years to come.
“It’s an interesting question and one everyone struggles with in the design process—often not very successfully,” Callaway says with a laugh.
Callaway points to SWA’s recent involvement with the design of Petaluma’s massive riverfront redevelopment. The project, he says, is a good example of how developers and designers working with a community and city government can create a new persona for a city.
“The Petaluma project is a success for two major reasons,” he says. “First, it had good bones to build upon—the river. Second, the community had public will and the support of the city government. Today, it’s difficult to find public leadership that will commit to an idea of this size, which combines so many different development projects. But that’s what happens when good things occur.”
According to Callaway, planners and designers, working in conjunction with city officials, are crucial for success. Often, he explains, when tasks are left up to committees, the finer points needed to make a project successful get “watered down” or lost in negotiations. “If the strength of the idea gets lost in compromise, it can turn a town against a project. Then nobody ends up getting what they wanted,” he says.
The influence of the new urbanism movement is being felt across the North Bay, Callaway continues. He sees the trend as a throwback to 19th century city planning that revered small, compact urban areas that created a feeling of community among residents. In Petaluma, this works because so much of the town’s identity revolves around its historical roots in this era. But the trend makes him question the wisdom of designing buildings modeled after different eras for today’s communities. He wonders whether many of these designs are, in the end, little more than mimicking the past. Ultimately, he sees both good and bad possibilities.
“In the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s, a lot of planning ideas were major mistakes that included tearing things down,” he explains, questioning whether the new urbanism’s recent rise is part of the same syndrome. On a more positive note, he does support the move to control the influence of automobiles in our lives.
“Back then, planning for communities was all about moving cars through an area as fast as possible. Parking wasn’t an issue in suburbia where the houses were set far apart,” Callaway says, noting that now designers and architects are having to confront the issue anew as cities reclaim inner urban areas.
“It seems everybody’s nostalgic for the Norman Rockwell image for their community,” he says. “I think it’s always been an American ideal—know your neighbor. The desire to live in a small village or town is very appealing. Still, if you look back, we’re recovering from design ideas that didn’t turn out so great.”
Callaway, however, is more of a realist than a pessimist, tempering his comments with caution, not condemnation. He understands that land is getting scarce and firmly believes we should preserve the “green fields” we have left in the region. To that end, he supports inner city development and in-fill projects. His comments reflect a wisdom gained from nearly four decades of trial and error in the design and planning arena; he knows well the long-term negative consequences that accompany ill-conceived projects.
The Great Design Debate is, in the end, about people and money and where and how they live—volatile components when handled carelessly. Is there an answer to the debate? Certainly. Ask an architect.
