Here in California, Bay Area, design review is applied in many situations in many cities. I've seen it in one form or another for at least 25 years. There is one limited situation where I think it works well: special historic districts. In those situations there are often written guidelines derived from known historical styles and details, as well as peculiar local adaptations of those styles.
Beyond that situation, design review is a mess and I'd be happy to see less of it. Here are my reasons.
1. Architects can be as unimaginative as everybody else and they are just as prone to argue and disagree as everybody else. So, as I see it, architects are not magical arbiters of good design. All architects will agree that some architects are fine designers and others are not. Interestingly, some architects will appear on both lists.
2. The most hated, and sometimes the most ordinary, buildings often become loved with time. I think architects should not be condescending. It only undermines our influence. Furthermore, diversity in architecture (diverse creations) are every bit as useful in understanding what works over time and what does not, as diversity in Nature is. For several reasons here, we should allow some things we really don't like to be built----unless everyone does not like it.
3. If design review is handled by a city agency, it must inevitably permit other stakeholders to participate. That's just political reality everywhere. Nobody is going to allow architects to be elevated to priestly status. So design review boards are often populated by people like city planners, real estate agents, landscape architects, contractor's and developers, lay people and political appointees, many of whom wish they were architects too. The result is a committee that works with the actual architect to find a compromise(d) solution all can agree on. This is not the road to good design in my opinion.
4. I've seen the results and it's hit and miss. There's a really awful new hospital in town that was tossed around to little positive result. I've also seen many residential projects that though review, look like the dog's knockers. I've also seen some nice projects emerge, but they are almost always due to strong design talent in the project architect team.
My conclusion, after years of observation, it that design review boards sometimes allow superb projects to be built, which would have been superb without design review. It causes some pretty decent projects to be horribly compromised. And in no instance that I can think of, does it turn a design challenged architect into a prince.
Here I'm not even mentioning other very real objections many others have, chief among them that it add yet another layer of bureaucracy, regulation, politics, cost and delay to projects. All that might be fine if the results were stellar, but generally they are not.
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Donald Wardlaw AIA
More Than Construction, Inc.
Oakland CA
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Original Message:
Sent: 10-17-2014 18:12
From: Eugene Aleci
Subject: Design Review
Deborah -- I LOVE this topic you've raised. The Emperor quite frequently has no clothes, and the public and most architects are loathe to point this out. But we architects, as those few in the population who are trained to envision the built environment, have an obligation to inform our communities about this, in my opinion. Most people actually think appearances matter, but our legislative and regulatory review procedures for the most part are set up as if appearances are not at all important. The legal system is fixated on being "objective" about these concerns, and despite tons of design review criteria and guidelines in many places, we still act in most places in America as if there can be no objective or subjective critique of what anyone is planning for one's property; and as if what is done to one property can have no possible impact on adjacent or nearby properties, even though we're actually a lot smarter than the, I believe. The legal system makes us adhere to this design visualization fallacy.
There are many policies and procedures that can be put in place to guide and control design choices, but all require a steadfast, consensus-building, educational approach on design and heritage. Many, many examples in New England, even outside of Boston. Most are defined around establishment of historic districts, but can also be developed around other specified redevelopment criteria within designated redevelopment districts.
These are not easily accomplished in single-family suburban housing settings, but in older towns and villages there is more often an appreciation for some set of standards. It could be as simple as a community endorsing but not requiring adherence to the Secretary of the Interior's Standards for Historic Rehabilitation, or could involve setting up a local historic commission and.or historical review board under state legislatively-enabled local historic district ordinances.
So much more can be written about this, but I'll stop here for now.
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Eugene Aleci AIA
Architect / President
Community Heritage Partners
Lancaster PA
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Original Message:
Sent: 10-16-2014 21:11
From: Deborah Pierce
Subject: Design Review
At a recent Special Permit hearing in my city the Board of Aldermen stepped into the muddy waters of design. A banal addition was being proposed - a 2-story "colonial" addition to a 1-1/2-story "cape." The homeowners had been advised to get an architect but they chose to ignore the request and save on fees. Most Aldermen being lawyers, the discussion focused on the requested 1-ft setback request and whether a different configuration would by-pass the Special Permit requirement. Some liked the plan, others didn't, but they couldn't articulate the issues "Design's just a matter of taste," one said. And the project was approved.
There is no public conversation about Design in this fairly sophisticated city 8 miles from Boston. No design review, other than in historic districts. No debate about proposed new developments, other than some like parks, others want parking in its place. No articulated vision about what makes this city unique. And so I'm curious:
What are the mechanisms for design review in other cities and towns? What projects trigger design review? Who makes the decisions about what is and isn't acceptable? Are there incentives for good design, and if so, what are they? This question is really about the ways that architects can influence the context in which things get built - other than in service to individual clients.
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Deborah Pierce AIA CAPS
Principal
Pierce Lamb Architects
West Newton MA
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