Urban Design in

Birmingham
Drew Lehe
What is Urban Design?

Intersection of Architecture and Promotes beautiful places

Urban Planning
No one ever took a vacation to
Briefly, a buildings relationship to look at this
the street and the neighborhood
surrounding it
How does it interact with the street,
how is it used?
How does it fit in with nearby
buildings?
Treat space as something valuable,
it becomes valuable
Goal of making livable cities for
everyone
The best design mixes income,
transportation, and building use
Why is Pedestrianism So Crucial?

Walkable places have higher

property values
Theyre more appealing and
have much stabler economies
(sprawl exacerbates boom/bust
development)
Use less energy, makes more
financial sense for consumers
Walking is the positive symptom of
many things coming together for
a city
Healthier for individuals, free
The Urban Economy
The mixed neighborhood is the safest:
Eyes on the street, sidewalk ballet, 24 hr city
Thrives on diversity in proximity, like an
Parents take their children to school in the
ecosystem morning
Birmingham has strong Then professionals go to work
Medical Retail workers arrive shortly thereafter to
prepare shops and restaurants for lunch
Hospitality
Professionals on lunch come to the street to
Banking/Finance shop and eat
Legal, Academic, and Industrial Parents leave to pick up children from school
Needs Tech/Engineering! Morning/night shift change in
shops/restaurants
This will spur growth
Parents come home from school with
children
Walkable city is the safest, and most Professionals depart the office for home
desirable
Parents shop/run errands
The best neighborhoods mix income,
transportation, and use. Restaurants serve dinner, watch street to
protect their business
People go out to see a show, socialize
People come home
Shipping centers watch the street at night
The Harm of Sprawl

Distances us from nature, provides

faux nature like lawns
Creates stark divide between
rural and urban America (this is
wrong)
Distances us from own neighbors,
separates city by class and race
Causes traffic jams
Minimizes property rights
Long commutes
Air pollution, noise pollution A place can be rural, but still walkable.
Something weve lost in America.
Feeding the Beast

Parking lots take up otherwise- Problem snowballs to create more

valuable space in the city car dependency
Spacing buildings out makes Ultimately kills our cities
walking more inconvenient
Cars then require highways
This infrastructure is expensive and
dangerous
Pollutes heavily
Expensive for the user to
purchase, fuel, and maintain
 Feeding the Beast
Americans use about twice as much energy as
Europeans and Japanese, on average
About 1/3 of that is on transportation
Oil drives us to change our foreign policy, ally with
countries we otherwise would disagree with
Oil is used in:
Plastics
Fuel
Tires
Fertilizer
Paints
As a commonly-traded financial derivative
Oil lobby has disproportionate influence for the
last century, sabotages other
energy/transportation sources
Not a conspiracy theory, just companies trying to
protect their investment
 A Good Building

Built up to the sidewalk

Parking on street Attracts similar good
and/or around back buildings nearby, unique in
Retail on bottom floor, economics
office/living space Encourages stable
above (mixed-use) development and real
4-6 stories estate values

Windows on all sides Mid-rise, mixed-use, mixed-

allow natural light and income is key
views A space becomes
Stop treating the street desirable/pedestrian when
as if its something to between two destinations
be shied away from
Traditional Architecture

Form follows function

Treats space as something
valuable
Mixes income and use Haussmannian Building, Paris
Built for the human scale
No setbacks, no handrails, no
elevated walkways
Fits in architecturally
Form is much more important than
architectural details

Italian village
 Street Design
Difference between a street
and a road: street is a
destination with life
Trees provide shade
Lighting provides safety
Birmingham needs street
reform
Road diet first and foremost,
roads are too wide
Change the one-ways
Public art just helps even
more
Let shops put out sign
cards like Revelator
Let restaurants put out tables
Not too wide; 2 lanes +
onstreet parking is all you
need.
Sea of asphalt: not inviting,
also dangerous

Widen sidewalks
On-street, angled parking With better density, can
afford brick-paved streets or
Provide some trash cans, some sidewalks
benches, make it a hospitable
place to be
 Street Design

Instead of a few wide streets, use Streets are like an irrigation canal
many small ones, on small blocks of economic activity
Makes streets more walkable, If you want something to grow on
increases connectivity and your field, do you dig a few huge
alleviates traffic congestion canals (highways) or a lot of little
ones (neighborhood streets)?
Slows down cars, but allows them
to take more accurate route to
their goal
Cul-de-sacs are bad, reduce
connectivity and congest traffic
The Complete Neighborhood

Contains:
Park
Store
Restaurant
Housing
Offices
civic buildings (school, hospital,
police station, etc.)
Possibly light industrial
Within a short (10 minute) walk of
each other
The Strategy: Urban Infill

Filling in empty lots is more

important (now) than restoring
historic buildings
Infill connects neighborhoods,
improves safety
Infill revives neighborhoods
Good city mixes 3 things!
Mixes income
Mixes transportation
Mixes use
As long as we keep building for
Not a lot of space for parking, but they survived.
cars, were never going to have
the city we want. At some point
parking needs to be abandoned.
Infill Housing

Options for densifying residential neighborhoods in a friendly, culturally-

sensitive way that preserves neighborhood character
Great for transitioning between neighborhoods (e.g. Glen Iris to UAB)
Mixing income alleviates traffic, does not hurt property values when
done correctly
The Critical Mass

Just as good buildings attract good Nucleus must be pedestrian-oriented,

buildings, making a neighborhood of good minimal parking besides on-street
buildings attracts economic activity
Must be a complete neighborhood
A dense cluster of good buildings provides including light industrial and a small park
the critical mass
Since we need retail, we can kill two birds
Birmingham has whack-a-mole with one stone and include it here
development pattern
If its to have minimal parking, it could also
Building goes up in one neighborhood, include affordable housing
another goes up across town, another goes
up in another neighborhood Requires developer teamwork, building for
neighborhood concept and not just one lot
We need a concentrated neighborhood
Whack-a-mole infills are a bit isolated
Getting through the hurdles of building a
critical mass in 2017 is quite painful. But
These developments are good, but any more than worth it.
more whack-a-mole strategy is going to
drive rents down even further
Generates tourism
Provide parking outside neighborhood
Various Critical Masses
 State of Birmingham
Lots of industrial buildings, thats great
Unfortunately most of our best lots are
parking lots
Terrible mass transit
Grid system bad
Good stock of historic buildings
One-way streets are BAD
Disrupt natural flow of people,
encourage speeding, discourage
walking/biking, confusing
Elevated walkways are bad
Setbacks and useless lawns are also bad
Sidewalks, when existent, are way too
narrow
No public art :(
Lots of alleyways, very good
The Need for Retail

Sign that people come to the city Common gripe: retail spots in
*because they want to* Birmingham are too expensive for
local business owners
Disposable income
Gets people out, walking around,
interacting
A street with many people is safer
than a street with a few
Sense of culture, community,
sense of place and identity
Fills a vital niche in the Urban
Economy
The Need for Mass Transit

Encourages Transit-Oriented These savings are passed on to

Development (TOD) and infill consumers
Gives out-of-towners a better
view of the city
Saves energy and the
environment
Frees up parking, alleviates traffic
congestion
Small retailers dont have to buy
parking lots
Developers dont need to build
parking
Cultural Sensibilities
Urban development ALWAYS causes growing pains, never unanimously
liked
Charm is the word to look for
Means historic place that NIMBYs would never allow today
Density is a sensitive word
Urbanism is NOT socialism
Meets both collectivist and individual goals through a market-based approach
Good urban design makes places more desirable
That increases the price
Eventually working-class housing becomes expensive ($1000/mo closets)
Fortunately, we can repeat good design concepts elsewhere to provide
affordable housing!
Public Art

Conveys a sense that residents

own the city, because they do.
Makes the street more inviting
and appealing
Unique and local of course
Most useful (and most public)
when placed in a median to
make a wide street more
pedestrian-friendly
Makes people reenviison the
public realm!