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We believe in letting our work speak for itself, and with more than 70 years of experience, Torti Gallas + Partners has a lot to say. But we find that listening is the most important part of any project.
Browse through our design portfolio to gain a better understanding of the transformative work Torti Gallas + Partners does. We’ve organized our portfolio by project type.
Creating the right places starts with having the right people in place. Our designers, architects, planners, and community liaisons bring a multidisciplinary approach to placemaking, because we know that the how and the why are just as important as the what and the where.
It’s relatively easy to design a basic physical structure. Designing buildings and places that promote balanced and sustainable progress, on the other hand, is a lot more challenging. When our clients want to build something that stands the test of time…a place with a soul, they rely on Torti Gallas + Partners and our 70+ years of expertise.
We believe in letting our work speak for itself, and with more than 70 years of experience, Torti Gallas + Partners has a lot to say. But we find that listening is the most important part of any project.
The Rhythm of Centers: Patterns of the Human Habitat
By
Anthony Catania
A close study of human settlements reveal the rhythms and patterns of human habitation.
Based on a presentation given at CNU 25, Seattle, Washington
Just as one may study animal habitats to learn about how a
particular species lives and interacts with its environment, an examination of the
built environment might similarly help us understand the way in which humans
interact with the world around them. A
close study of human settlements reveal the rhythms and patterns of human
habitation. Walkable urban places are a
physical manifestation of these patterns and define the human scale.
Cities are essentially an assemblage of centers. A center is a point
at which there is a convergence of human activity. They tend to be home to a concentration of
shops, restaurants, bars, and also civic or religious institutions. However, centers can also be small urban
moments, such as those situated around monuments or fountains. Where centers occur can be based on a variety
of factors; however, a natural rhythm of centers typically emerges, and is
based fundamentally on the time it takes to walk from one to the next; hence,
the human scale.
For years, the rule of thumb to scale walkable urbanism has
been the 10-minute walk or 1/2-mile—describing the approximate distance that
one can comfortably walk to reach their destination. As such, the ideal scale of a neighborhood
can be illustrated by drawing a circle of that diameter (where the neighborhood
center falls roughly in the center of
the circle). Furthermore, once assembled
in the multi-centric city, neighborhood centers would also fall approximately
1/2-mile, or a 10-minute walk, from one another. And very often, this is the interval of
transit stops as well.
What I would like to propose is that understanding the true
pedestrian scale requires a more nuanced approach. There is overwhelming evidence that it is in
fact 660 feet, or 1/8-mile, a unit known as the furlong, which defines the
human scale. It is what I would like to
call the urban unit of measurement. The furlong, or about a 2.5-minute walk, is
the optimal distance between centers because it also defines one’s immediate experiential vicinity. The 10-minute walking circle describes the
distance that one can comfortably walk, but the furlong describes the distance
that one can easily experience.
You can begin to identify this pattern by starting small,
and examining the village—small urban settlements with a single center. In the following examples, the furlong
consistently stands out as the ideal scale of the commercial core. That is, the
commercial zone of the village will fit into a 660-foot diameter circle.
Next, consider a few of the
most well-known public spaces in the world and how they too are controlled by
the furlong. Good urban spaces
should be contained within this 660-foot dimension in order to be properly
scaled and experienced.
For cities that developed
pre-automobile and pre-mass transportation, centers most often grow in the
rhythm of the furlong. And if you
accept the notion that the furlong defines the immediate experiential vicinity,
you can see that in mature urban environments, a center is usually located
somewhere within this dimension—such as the below diagram of the Medieval core
of Bruges, Belgium, illustrating the arrangement of some of the city’s centers
and urban moments.
Even in planned
pre-automobile cities, this rhythm is present.
Savannah, Georgia’s clear diagram of the Ward, focused around a central
square and distributed on a rational grid, relies too on the scalar
organization of the furlong.
In the “modern” American city, the distribution of activity
and commerce tends to coincide closely with transportation thoroughfares. Therefore, whereas the European center is typically located around a
square, plaza or some type of centralized public space, the American center
tends to be a linear space. Think of the
quintessential American Main Street.
In Brooklyn, New York, similar to many American cities, the
furlong curiously shows up as the approximate dimension of the long side of the
blocks. However, what is missing here
are centralized spaces and urban moments that add interest and hierarchy to the
city. Activity is instead concentrated
along linear corridors—emphasizing a relentless movement. Centralized spaces provide a pause, which
together with commercial streets, create a rhythm that makes it more enjoyable
to walk (and propel the pedestrian to walk further). In
this part of Brooklyn, the only centralized space that occurs is over-scaled
and more vehicular than pedestrian in nature.
A glance back at Bruges (shown
at the same scale) provides a convincing example of a commercial spine, which connects a series of centralized
public spaces, in the rhythm of the furlong.
In the Columbia Heights area of Washington DC, commercial
corridors follow a pattern similar to Brooklyn, in that they are located about
2 furlongs apart; they are also linear in nature and generally lack the
richness and rhythm provided by
centralized spaces. In the 1990s, an
expansion of the city’s Metro rail line was planned to run through this
neighborhood, and the location of the stop was negotiated to be sited on the
most primary of these commercial streets—a move that in fact instrumentally set
this site up for one of Washington’s most successful neighborhood
revitalizations and transit-oriented developments.
Torti Gallas played a key role in the reimagining of this site,
much of which was destroyed during the riots of 1968. The master plan included, essentially, two
public spaces, or centers—one at the
Metro stop and a true piazza, the new heart of Columbia Heights, just to the
north. The spacing of these two
moments: one furlong.
As designers, it is important to think about how we begin to
carve these types of spaces out of our cities, because it will enliven them
with their rhythm of movement and pause, and ultimately create more
pedestrian-oriented environments. Furthermore,
this concept is just as important, if not more so, when considering the design
of new towns, as it is an opportunity to get it right from the beginning.
The furlong has consistently proven to provide the best tool
for producing walkable urbanism and achieving the true human scale. It is ingrained in the patterns of the human
habitat. So, 660 feet is a dimension to always
remember.