What Makes SW, SW (part 2 of 2)

Parking - shielded by bushes in various arrangements 

A discussion of Southwest would not be complete without the mention of automobiles.  Planners in the 1950’s and 1960’s went to great lengths to accommodate the car.  In fact, all the large residential developments here are organized around, or built above, ample parking.  The recently-demolished Waterside Mall sacrificed the 4th Street connection to the National Mall for a large underground parking garage that stretched from 3rd to 5th Streets.  Perhaps most damaging, the 395 overpass was constructed, separating the residential and office zones of Southwest DC from one another.

Le Corbusier's Unite Habitation

Wikipedia’s article on Le Corbusier notes that “one of the first to realize how the automobile would change human agglomerations, Le Corbusier described the city of the future as consisting of large apartment buildings isolated in a park-like setting on [columns]...  Le Corbusier's theories were adopted by the builders of public housing in Western Europe and the United States. For the design of the buildings themselves, Le Corbusier criticized any effort at ornamentation. The large spartan structures in cities... have been widely criticized for being boring and unfriendly to pedestrians.”  Indeed, while Southwest proves successful on many levels, the blocky unornamented masses of most Southwest residential buildings are uninspired, and building entrances are located for arrival by car and not on foot.  I always find it curious that the townhomes facing M Street SW each have a gate with a sign indicating that it is the rear entrance -- with the front entrance facing the interior court and parking.  I also scratch my head at the scale of some of the spaces: the vast and underutilized plaza at Tiber Island could host a military parade!

Tiber Island Plaza

Newer development in Southwest have attempted to right some of these wrongs, for example by restoring 4th Street SW and lining it with interestingly-massed and handsomely-ornamented buildings.  The scale of the pedestrian spaces is more human, and the buildings embrace the metro that arrived in Southwest in 1991.  A bicycle rental station was installed at 4th and M Streets SW just this week.

What do I hope to see from PN Hoffman and EEK?  Truly I cannot say it any better than what is stated on the project website, “As the maritime front porch to the Nation’s Capital, the redevelopment of the Southwest Waterfront should embrace a clean and active river; eliminate barriers and provide public access; produce an active urban riverfront and park system; showcase distinctive cultural destinations; and build a strong waterfront community. The redevelopment of the Southwest Waterfront will set a new standard for waterfront urban development.”  Let’s hold the developers to their word.