Some great design just happens!
In design school, I once had a professor say that “designers make great use out of accidents.” Hard to believe that you are hearing a designer say this, but some of the greatest things I have ever seen weren’t planned by anyone. They just happened.Some of my favorite works of my own are the result of some unforeseen, unintended circumstances that resulted in a great effect. Some of the greatest spaces are what was left over when adjoining designs were completed. Some of the most interesting streets are interesting by the very fact that different uses, buildings, driveways, signs and other elements all fell into line and created by its chaos a unified texture of interwoven colors, spaces, shadows, elements, characters and cultures. And it seems that the only thing that our master schemes to recreate these impromptu moments do is guarantee that it won’t happen.
In particular, this is the case with great urban spaces. What everyone is trying to achieve with urbanist planning is an environment that in most ideal cases, just happened. Or perhaps a more “educated” way to say it is an environment that evolved. The great European cities that are so endearing because of their rich texture are the way they are because they have been developing the same piece of ground for 1000’s of years, not 10’s of years. The reason new urbanist and other ideal community plans fail, or rather become something they were not intended to be is because it asks residents to voluntarily limit their freedom of expression in the name of some greater good. There is, without question, a portion of the population who are drawn to these ideas. Unfortunately for the designers, this does not guarantee the diversity they are seeking.
I’m not so naive or uneducated to ignore that many great cities were, and in some cases are, located in places where freedom is limited or denied. It seems that great urban spaces evolve in locations with long histories and varied societies where each generation can be read in the architecture.
The problem here is that our sensibilities have been asked to accept only these things supposedly educated people have plucked out of historical examples and labeled good.We are then asked to regenerate artificially what took history generations of varying sensibilities to create.
I’ve alluded to this in previous posts, but what makes places interesting are the different decisions that a population makes when left to themselves to satisfy their individual sensibilities. It seems counter intuitive, but the best way to create an interesting and rich continuous fabric is to let individuals express themselves on their own terms.
We should learn to trust our own eyes and sense of beauty and be willing to express them and be willing to extend the same freedom to others and in the end, if the population creates a community you don’t like, you can express your sensibilities by moving. I’m sure your neighbors will appreciate you exercising THAT freedom.