2020 | the Original Green | Steve Mouzon

The Mystery of Mooresville (part 3)

Fri, 27 Nov 2020 08:11:46 -0600

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Once the Mystery of Mooresville was unlocked, we discovered there is great power in architecture with purpose, in fields as disparate as affordability and lovability. Here’s a quick look at how this works:

Affordability

Anytime I’d ever tried to get builders to “build different,” they always assign a “custom price” to patterns new to them, but a “standard price” to stuff they’ve done countless times. This is understandable. But it also means that the good stuff is always more expensive, even if built with less labor and fewer materials. But armed with the “we do this because…” of the architecture of this place, an amazing thing happens: builders eventually acquire a degree of shame over conventional stuff that made no sense there, along with an appreciation for what did, flipping the price equations, making the good stuff actually less expensive than the conventional stuff they no longer want to do. This doesn’t happen overnight, but once it does, building good stuff more affordably gets much easier.

The Mystery of Mooresville (part 2)

Thu, 26 Nov 2020 08:11:46 -0600

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Less than a year after taking the three-question Mystery of Mooresville (urbanism, architecture, and process) back to college with me, Wanda asked me the most searching question of my career: “Why is it that you refuse to design anything anyone else I love would love?” “Do I?” “Of course you do!” “How do you know?” “Have you ever listened to non-architects talk about architecture?” “Our professors tell us we’re supposed to educate the client.” “Well, if you’d stop and listen to the people, they might actually educate you.”

I had no answer, but took it to heart. And while I did a fairly good job of designing stuff the professors liked, I soon realized that I had no idea how to design things non-architects would love. In fairness, not all professors were alike. Much of the faculty was made up of dedicated Miesians or Corbusians, but there were notable exceptions.

Key People

Marv Rosenman was key on the faculty, opening many doors of thought for the more curious ones of us, and was clearly more interested in our development than pushing a style agenda. More professors should be like Marv. Jack Wells opened our eyes to how much there was to learn about the long heritage of humane architecture in the first year. Bob Koester accelerated my thinking on how buildings condition themselves naturally, and brought me back in 2010 to lecture on the Original Green. David Hermansen in later years was a great curator of appreciation for humane architecture. And Dan Woodfin, a Pattern Language advocate, was invaluable in my thesis year, when a few things were finally beginning to come together for me. I owe them all. David Rau, Allan McGuire and Mark Fishero were chief of my fellow-travelers, questioning us all and opening doors some professors would prefer to remain tightly closed.

The Mystery of Mooresville (part 1)

Wed, 25 Nov 2020 07:11:46 -0600

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Forty years ago on Thanksgiving Day, I never imagined that the ancient American over-eating ritual would change the course of my career in amazing ways. But waking up the next morning still in discomfort from the previous day’s gorging, we decided to go for a walk.

But where to walk? I grew up in sprawl, but remembered the tiny village of Mooresville, Alabama where Dad occasionally took us when I was a kid. Dad was a cabinet-maker regarded by builders across the region as Mr. Perfect, and while his work in the 60s generally adhered to the styles of the day because that’s what people wanted, he had great love for the places that had long endured and were filled with superbly-crafted architectural patterns rarely built then. So he would take us to places like Mooresville from time to time so we could just soak it all in.

By mid-morning that Friday, Wanda, Susan, Hazel, and a friend and I shook ourselves from the post-feast muddle and headed out to Mooresville to go for a walk. I was in the middle of my third year of architecture school at the time, Wanda and I had been married 17 months, Susan was in her first year of architecture school, and Hazel was toward the end of her pre-teen years.

Lovable Community Gardens

Thu, 27 Aug 2020 06:57:46 -0500

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Habersham’s community garden; everything else at Habersham is just gorgeous

Community gardens today are far too often the rattiest and most unkempt places in a neighborhood; anything worse would get cited by the city as a public nuisance. Part of the problem is the fact that vegetable gardens have long been considered utilitarian, something worthy of similar aesthetic attention as a laundry room or broom closet.

I don’t have images to show of what this post is promoting, because lovable community gardens have never been proposed before in the US that I’m aware of. But there’s no reason a community garden can’t be as beautiful as an ornamental garden; it’s just different plant materials. But in any case, this post looks at both garden design and garden culture to find ways that community gardens will be more broadly welcomed into the neighborhood, and treasured there. One more thing… if you’re on Twitter and like the thought in italics, click on the bird to tweet it… thanks, and enjoy!

Why This Now?

In last week’s post I said I’d soon be laying out strategies for community recovery from the economic wreckage of the pandemic and propose patterns for post-pandemic architecture and urbanism. So what’s up with this post? How does it fit in?
It’s not yet clear how many Americans will migrate from larger places to smaller ones in the wake of the pandemic, but steep declines in Manhattan rental rates indicate it’s likely to be a substantial number. And those who are either moving from larger to smaller places, or who are staying where they are and making their bedroom community their day-and-night community by working from home longterm are likely to discover that their opportunities for social interaction are more limited there. And with traditional hangouts like bars being really risky now to the point that many places have shut them down, smaller communities hoping to attract and retain people need to find social interaction alternatives which are much safer. Community gardens may be one of the best alternatives, and for several reasons:

How Communities Can Recover & Grow Post-Pandemic

Sat, 22 Aug 2020 08:11:46 -0500

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Cities and towns across the US and abroad are in financial crisis due to the pandemic, and some of the income generators on which they depended in recent decades may be permanently broken, but there are certain fundamentals of community survival and growth which are likely to continue long past these years, as they have track records proven over centuries. This post lays out the basics of community solvency & growth, and several posts looking at post-pandemic urbanism will be based on these fundamental. Get these things right, and the recovery of your place will stand on proven foundations. These are the basic elements:

Community

A community is a hamlet, village, town, or city standing free in the landscape or with suburbs (the fifth community type) at the perimeter. A metropolis is made up of many communities contiguous with each other. A community is made up of neighborhoods, large civic spaces, and special districts.

Neighborhood

A neighborhood is the elemental building-block of urbanism. A neighborhood is a part of a community, but with the exception of the hamlet, a neighborhood does not make up the entire community. The majority of a city should be made up of neighborhoods, with special districts making up the remainder of the land area. A neighborhood contains at least three Transect zones, so there is a range of intensity in every neighborhood. A neighborhood also contains a mix of uses and is built compactly enough that neighbors can walk or bike to many if not most of their daily needs.

The Powerful Virtuous Cycles of Street Trees

Sat, 15 Aug 2020 06:15:46 -0500

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There are several powerful virtuous cycles of street trees that benefit so many parts of the built environment and the people who inhabit it in ways we may not have thought about until now. This post hopes to bring this multitude of benefits (some of which are life-changing) out into the daylight. And from 2020 onward, as we look for the healthy benefits of spending more time outdoors, no single element will play a larger role in helping us to do just that than street trees.

Direct Effects of Street Trees

Street trees affect us directly in several ways. These effects are arranged from the most local to the global.

Thermal Effects

Properly placed street trees shade the sidewalk. This can result in a reduction of 20° - 45° (all temperatures Fahrenheit in sidewalk temperature, according to Lance Hosey. Sidewalks store a lot of heat due to their mass and then radiate that heat to everything around them, especially including the people walking on them.

Street trees also shade the people walking on the sidewalk. Walking in the shade versus walking in the sun can easily make a perceived difference of 20° due to solar radiation on your skin.

What's Coming Back & What's Not

Wed, 20 May 2020 08:11:46 -0500

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After 9/11, Katrina, and the Great Recession, there were many proclamations of “never again;” I made some of them myself. As Laura Clemons has said repeatedly on her quest to get towns to rebuild better after a disaster “there are very few human urges stronger than the need to put things back the way they were.” What does everyone think are the top three most likely and top three least likely things to come back essentially the way they were once the pandemic is over? My top 3s:

Most Likely

The human urge to socialize is strong, so the things most likely to come back relatively unchanged all have something to do with our need for contact with other humans.

1. Third Places

Look what happened in Wisconsin after the state supreme court killed the safer at home order: everyone streamed to the bars with no social distancing, including at least one nurse who should have known better. The most important thing here is scale. I believe there will be a lot of people uncomfortable with being in a restaurant that seats 300 people, but feel much better in places with a couple dozen neighbors. This favors neighborhood Third Places over large chain restaurants. Establishments that pull in large numbers from a distance have a greater risk of seeding the crowd with someone from a hot zone.

The Original Green at 10

Fri, 08 May 2020 08:11:46 -0500

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Ten years ago today, the Original Green went on sale for the first time after a launch party at Books & Books on Lincoln Road in South Beach the night before. I’m not sure what it has meant to anyone else, but it changed so many things for Wanda and I. So much useful stuff has resulted from this one little book in the decade that followed, including most of the ideas on this site, which would never have gotten worked out otherwise. For anyone who has found Original Green ideas useful, we’d really love to hear from you!

If you prefer buying from an independent bookstore, my favorite bookstore in the world is Sundog Books in Seaside, Florida, and they have them in stock.

~Steve Mouzon

The COVID Collapse of the Office Park

Sat, 02 May 2020 08:11:46 -0500

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Office parks are toast; if you’re a partner, director, investor, or trustee of one, start thinking now about how to redevelop your asset before it becomes a liability in the near future. Google “office park failing” and you’ll get million of results. The demise of the office park has been increasingly apparent for years, hastened by the Millennials’ distaste for boring suburban office parks; COVID19 is merely the coup de grâce. Here’s why:

The Brain-Dead Cool Factor

the new reality: Cool Factor or Bust

Millennials are legendary for picking a cool city, then finding a cool neighborhood in that city, then finding a job they can walk or bike to from where they live. Almost every office park fails every test for Cool Factor ever invented. If you want young talent, you absolutely cannot be in an office park less cool than the Apple Ring. Just forget about it. So how do you achieve a reasonable Cool Factor? Think back to when the Millennials were teens. Where did they go in your town? Almost everywhere, they congregated where there was some shred of urbanism; where the uses were mixed and the building types varied. Office parks are the antithesis on every count.

Earth Day at 50

Wed, 22 Apr 2020 07:00:46 -0500

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Never before in our lifetimes has the daily flood of urgent things been so firmly dammed up. Treasure these most surreal of days for their greatest gift: revealing the most important things that in the endless stream of everydays get obscured in the fog and the flow.

If these days do not change me, then the only thing I’ll carry forward is a lot of economic pain. But if they help me see more clearly the things that are most important and act upon them, the benefits that flow from that awakening can last a lifetime... and beyond.

This pandemic has caused too much death and pain not to cause good change. The worst thing we could do now is get back to normal. Let’s get to work soon building a new normal based on the important things revealed in these awe-full days. The worst thing to do now is shut my eyes.

And let’s face facts: what’s happening now is just nature being nature. We have built an industrial illusion that we have overcome nature, but nature tests every construct. And in this test, our financialized industrial system has been found wanting. In the words of the President of the United States on March 23 “Our country wasn’t built to be shut down. This is not a country that was built for this.”

What Tuscaloosa Just Did

Fri, 27 Mar 2020 06:50:46 -0500

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The City of Tuscaloosa just pulled off something brilliant that every city should know about in states that aren’t already protecting their people with Shelter In Place orders. Alabama is a Dillon’s Rule state as established in the 1901 state constitution. This means that counties and cities are limited to powers expressly granted them by the Legislature. Shelter In Place orders are not one of those powers. Here’s Mayor Walt Maddox’s more detailed explanation.

So did the city idly sit by waiting for the Governor to do the right thing? Not a chance. The Mayor was early in his first term when the catastrophic 2011 tornado hit, and so he and his team quickly learned how to get stuff done in a disaster. Last night, they pulled it off again.

One of the powers expressly granted by the Legislature to cities is the ability to set a curfew. So the city established a 24-hour curfew beginning this weekend with all the conditions of a Shelter-In-Place order. Genius move! What a hack of the system! But in full respect of the rule of law, which is so very important to maintain in a crisis.

Hope for Italy?

Sat, 21 Mar 2020 08:11:46 -0500

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I was beginning to have hope for Italy. Saturday through Tuesday they had about 3,500 new Coronavirus cases each day, which was a promising sign that their lockdown might be finally bearing fruit. But Wednesday it jumped off that plateau to 4,207 new cases, Thursday it was at 5,322, and yesterday (Friday) it was 5,986. Granted, from the time they started the lockdown you should allow 5-12 days (the range I’ve seen) for people already infected to start showing symptoms. In other words, there would have been a bunch of cases baked in. The full lockdown began March 9, which was 12 days ago. So the real key is what happens over the next few days. If the lockdown has the intended effect, today should be the last day at which the baked-in infections should manifest, and the plateau really should begin to form tomorrow. But it’ll be another week before you can authoritatively say that the exponent has dropped below 1, and the curve definitely turns downward. There are several problems with lockdowns comparable to Italy’s in the US:

PandemicPost Masks

Sun, 15 Mar 2020 17:53:46 -0500

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Everyone says masks are ineffective at stopping the spread of COVID-19. But they also say the main means of spread is tiny virus-laden droplets when someone sneezes, coughs, or speaks. And then someone touches a surface the droplets landed on. The main point of entry mouth or nose, but sometimes the eyes. People have long said that the point of a mask is to remind you not to touch your face. Why doesn’t that work with COVID19?

~Steve Mouzon

Laura Hamilton The gist of this is that any mask, even a homemade mask, will provide better protection than no mask. You are being told not to wear masks because of hoarding and scarcity issues, and that's the only reason. Scarf tied around your face, dust mask, old surgical mask, particle mask leftover from wildfires, they are all better than nothing.

PandemicPost Stepping Back?

Sat, 14 Mar 2020 15:58:46 -0500

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<Thankfully, this sentiment didn’t last. ~Steve>

I have not in a long time been closer than today to saying "I'll just leave you with it." Maybe I should just stay off Twitter. But in any case, I'm not seeing a lot of hope that most people will get out of their silos and do the right thing. So I'm wondering if now might be the time to just step back from debates and such, because everyone seems so stuck in their silos that they can't seem to see beyond them. If I can help with something, let me know. If not, I'll stick with the places where I can do some good. Be well, everyone!

~Steve Mouzon

Tracy Davis Heisler A lot depends on our indivdual networks, likes, and follows. I've been pleasantly surprised by how many people in my extended network are taking this seriously, following a path of caution, and more concerned about the common good than political posturing. I wish this could be the case for everyone.

Nicole Williams the next two weeks will be rough I think. Its going to either change or soften people or harden them, perhaps both.

PandemicPost Testing

Fri, 13 Mar 2020 11:26:46 -0500

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There is a lot of backward thinking on testing. Many are saying that you should only be tested if you’re having clear symptoms and/or in a high-risk group. But the most dangerous people are those who are asymptomatic, or who just think they might have a cold or allergies. Because it is these people who can spread it to many more.

~Steve Mouzon

C Fenno Hoffman That's why isolation is sooooo important in these first few weeks

Brandon Neary Even the best diagnostic tests in the world will have a small percentage of false positive results. Symptomatic patients with travel and or contact history will have a much higher pre-test probability than the general asymptomatic population and the benefits of testing outweigh the chance of a false positive result. With general population testing, you would end up with far more false positives than true positives and consume health care resources monitoring healthy people

Steve Mouzon Brandon Neary what is a reasonable small percentage of false positives to assume?

PandemicPost Do-Gooders?

Thu, 12 Mar 2020 21:58:46 -0500

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<I’m including this one because it’s the beginning of trying to work out the essence of the several roles people are choosing to play in this pandemic. It evolved well beyond this by now (almost 2 weeks later) ~Steve>

Who ever thought it would go down like this? Tonight, it seems like there are three main choices: be a say-gooder, a do-gooder, or an I-don’t-carer. The say-gooders say it’ll all be fine, and everything will recover shortly. The I-don’t-carers say “I got mine and will enjoy what I can while I can. The do-gooders say “what can I do to help?” I used to turn up my nose at their self- righteousness but might have become one. What are your top ten things to do now? You post your ten; I’ll post mine. Just as soon as I figure out what they are!

~Steve Mouzon

Jennifer Hurley Stay home as much as you can so you aren’t unwittingly spreading the virus and so you don’t get it and take up a hospital bed someone else will need.

Christal Deeter Hudson I’m a Be-gooder. Take precautions and “it Be good”

PandemicPost Healthy Buildings

Thu, 12 Mar 2020 17:00:46 -0500

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Just by doorstopping doors open, how much of an office building can you make accessible without anyone having to touch a door handle? Yes, I know you can operate a handle with your elbow and push the door open with your butt, but that doesn't work if you're on the pull side of the door. #COVID19

~Steve Mouzon

Christal Deeter Hudson worse yet is it’s getting passed through the exchange of filthy germ ridden money!!!... there’s no controlling that!

Laurence Allenbaugh Since all I do is touch doorknobs exit devices all day long, door stops leave a building vulnerable security wise. However ADA compliant lever handles do make it so a armless or handless person can operate them or someone that can’t grasp a knob tightly enough. The other issue as you mentioned that is fine on the push side of the door but not the pull side unless you are a member of cirque du soliel! Since we don’t have gloved doorman anymore, automatic door openers using infrared motion detectors is one way or security guards monitoring doors from cameras can activate an electric door opener if one has the proper credentials of entry. But it is an issue not easily remedied but it keeps me in business.

PandemicPost Social Distancing

Thu, 12 Mar 2020 12:41:46 -0500

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‪Some object to the term “social distancing.” But what’s wrong with keeping a social distance? How often do you really want someone up in your face?‬ Keeping a social distance is social; violating someone else’s social distance is antisocial.

~Steve Mouzon

Fernando Pages And that’s a very Usonian statement. You’d feel violated every day in Argentina!

Steven Semes Yes, Steve, a very American reaction! Pity the poor Italians!

Ann Daigle Steven Pity the poor Americans!

Sally Beaton McIntosh True, but the recommendation for social distancing, in this instance, is 6 feet. You don't often stand 6 feet someone you are talking with.

Ann Daigle Sally especially if your sight is poor.

Susan Yvonne Curtis Aww you know I can’t do that being a pre k teacher

C Fenno Hoffman One person's distance is another's intimacy.
https://www.amazon.com/Hidden-Dimension.../dp/0385084765

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The Hidden Dimension (Anchor Books a Doubleday Anchor Book)

PandemicPost Spread Without Symptoms

Thu, 12 Mar 2020 11:37:46 -0500

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Here’s a concern: many people are saying “I don’t have the coronavirus so I’m OK, even though I have a cold or the flu.” But I don’t think you’re OK. Here’s why: I’m no physician, but I can read. And what I’m reading is that the people who have other health conditions are far more susceptible than those who do not. So it seems to me that spreading even a cold is actually making people you’re spreading it to more at risk than if they were completely healthy. What am I missing?

Now is therefore a time to do everything you can to be in the best health possible. Eat better stuff. Get lots of steps each day, but in a place that’s not so crowded. Even if you’ve never taken vitamins or other supplements before, do it now. Give yourself a better chance, and also give that better chance to the people you come in contact with.

~Steve Mouzon

Original Comments on Facebook:

Belle Ducray load up on elderberry syrup!

Ken Cousins https://qz.com/.../a-chart-of-the-1918-spanish-flu-shows.../

The Pandemic Posts

Wed, 11 Mar 2020 08:11:46 -0500

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The heartbeat of a living tradition is sharing useful stuff with the reasons attached. With the coronavirus pandemic poised to be the most disruptive event in the 60 years I’ve been alive, there is nothing more important about which to share useful information than this pandemic. So for the duration, the Original Green blog will be dedicated to what we hope may be ideas people can use.

I’ve been posting a lot of things on Facebook and Twitter since March 11, and will transfer those posts here in order of their posting, and complete with all comments, as they have been enormously helpful and I have learned much. And yeah, I’m leaving the funny parts as well because nothing but serious news in a pandemic lowers spirits at a bad time. By all means, please keep the comments coming, and let people know about these posts. I’m hoping this becomes a growing resource of useful stuff. Interestingly, watch how much smarter the discussions get as time goes by; in just 11 days, we seem to be learning stuff. Here’s the first post:

2020 | the Original Green | Steve Mouzon

The Mystery of Mooresville (part 3)

Affordability

The Mystery of Mooresville (part 2)

Key People

The Mystery of Mooresville (part 1)

Lovable Community Gardens

Why This Now?

How Communities Can Recover & Grow Post-Pandemic

Community

Neighborhood

The Powerful Virtuous Cycles of Street Trees

Direct Effects of Street Trees

Thermal Effects

What's Coming Back & What's Not

Most Likely

1. Third Places

The Original Green at 10

Subscribe to get Walk Appeal book updates

The COVID Collapse of the Office Park

The Brain-Dead Cool Factor

Earth Day at 50

What Tuscaloosa Just Did

Hope for Italy?

PandemicPost Masks

PandemicPost Stepping Back?

PandemicPost Testing

PandemicPost Do-Gooders?

PandemicPost Healthy Buildings

PandemicPost Social Distancing

PandemicPost Spread Without Symptoms

The Pandemic Posts