Connecting with Neighborhoods

Buildings don’t make neighborhoods. People do. More specifically, it’s the connections between people that do. Their combined family histories and the way their neighborhoods have evolved are the memoirs and markers of those connections. Architects working in neighborhoods can begin by finding and reading those narratives. They are accessible. Just ask.

When, as architects, we want our “inventions,” our designs, to resonate with the people in whose turf our buildings will live, it's our job to be in tune with them, not the other way around. That is typically our intention, but learning how to be in tune is not well supported by our training. My experience with my fellow architects is that we are, most of us anyway, not arrogant, very empathic actually, but there is an unintended affront that emerges when architects aren’t sufficiently tuned to the lives of the people we design for. 

In the turbulence that architectural practice often flies through, that’s understandable, but understandable isn’t the same as acceptable. We can do better. We will have more success, with clients and “stakeholders” (also known as “people”) and the public when we do better. (See the “Increasing Value & Prestige” chapter.)

In reality, many architectural failures can be attributed to just that disconnect, an incomplete understanding of the people who own the turf, if not the properties, that our designs occupy. Those aren’t failures of form-making, of aesthetics, of exciting architecture, or boring architecture, or style. They are more likely failures of architectural message and meaning than the vocabulary and tone, and organization of the building evoke, of those not being in sync with people and the messages that matter most to them. There are far too many examples of such failures.

Instead, it’s our job to help people real-ize their values and aspirations to the extent architecture can embed them in physical form, ultimately a very important way architecture can contribute to civic healing and civic health. 

I’ll cite an example, an approach my firm embedded in a number of charter school designs we accomplished. In spite of initial skepticism about our strategy, it paid off. Here it is: lots of glass at the street level of schools in neighborhoods that some people call “bad neighborhoods.” They weren’t “bad neighborhoods.” They were stressed neighborhoods, partly through the injury of not having the means to shape the places where they lived, and partly by not having the sense that it truly is theirs.  That “ownership” doesn’t require a real estate deed. It requires profound connections with others and, in any way possible, some degree of control or an opportunity for living that is life-enhancing. A block with occupied front porches is an entirely different universe from a row of flat facades with security bars on all the windows. Those speak an architectural language of retreat, not engagement. 

Was there more crime in the neighborhoods that these schools would occupy? Yes, and people were suffering as a result. They and their children were at risk, and that’s one of the reasons for these new school leaders to “run into the fire,” to reach out with everything education can offer to help heal, to help students and parents get the support and affirmation they deserve. Perhaps advancing the development of self-respect is the best cure for crime. You don’t want to hurt the people you respect, or the people who go out of their way to respect you.

Why glass? Because glass says, “We welcome you, we want you to come inside, we want you to see who we are and what we’re doing, and we want to see you as well.” Glass is expensive. It has to be a conscious, deliberate, agenda-fulfilling priority. When budget crunches came, as they often do, we fought for that glass, but we didn’t have to do it alone. Our school families: founders, teachers, and parents, all got it, and we all would fight for the design. The message of welcome was crucial to making the school effective in the community and schools work best all around when they are centers of community. Would there be vandalism, broken glass? In fact, though there were a few incidents of vandalism, they were so rare that many people were simply astonished, relieved, and, of course, very pleased that their bet paid off beautifully.

What was going on?

Ownership was going on. Pride was going on. Neighbors were defending their schools with their engagement and their delight in these new schools. They recognized that something was happening, finally, that affirmed them as being just as valuable as folks in the wealthier parts of the city.

In terms of psychology, it was a self-fulfilling prophecy. The glass invited a belief, a potentially broad agreement, that the neighborhood was safer than people thought. That belief actually did make the neighborhood safer. People engaged more, trusted more, and came out more. What planners call “activated spaces” are known to be safer. At heart, it was a pragmatic strategy, not a sentimental one.

What helped inspire this approach, this seemingly high-risk strategy? For me, as an architect, it was two things: The M.A. Winter Building project in 1986, and a bit of family history sixty years prior. First, M.A. Winter. My clients were taking a big risk, renovating a derelict warehouse in a neighborhood devastated by the anger felt by so many after the assassination of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968. Buildings were burned, and not just a few. 

Some neighbors gave up and fled. A thriving, activated, and generally quite safe neighborhood suddenly became its opposite, and stayed that way for decades. Nearly all the business owners left and never returned, the sole exception being Ben’s Chili Bowl, an institution in the neighborhood, founded in the late 1950’s and still operating with the founders’ grandkids. But no general reversal came until the early 2,000’s. 

Why, in 1986, would my clients be the first developers to reinvest in the neighborhood? Because they weren’t looking at the opportunity from 20,000 feet or were overwhelmed by the bad press the neighborhood constantly got. They were on the ground. They lived close. Neighbors were friends. After a serious struggle, and using our design as an illustration, they were able to get financing.

But there were serious risks. The original building was set back 100 feet from the street, leaving a large barren courtyard space that I then designed to become a lush tree-lined path to the original front door, with a European-style pea-gravel parking area adjacent. We designed a new wall at the sidewalk line to make an architectural entrance to the entire site and give it a street presence, using the vocabulary of the old building as the motif. But, what of the openings, a large one that cars had to pass through, the smaller one for people to come and go? They could be controlled with steel bars, rolling to let in the cars, swinging to let in the people, and both controlled with locks.

We made a serious study of the security options and came to the conclusion that seemed counterintuitive: leave the openings open. No gates, no bars. Discreetly placed monitors only. The message: This is a special place, a place that said this part of our city could come back to life, and it did. Were there incidents of vandalism? A very few in the 35 years since the building opened. It became a kind of non-profit organization “theme park.” I designed most of the 16 office suites, including headquarters for Greenpeace and many others.

This is where and when the notion of a self-fulfilling prophecy emerged in our architect/client conversations. We had taken a reasoned position: try the open approach. If it doesn’t work, we can always add protective measures in those large street-side openings. We never needed to. That experience gave me hope more than a decade later, that we could do something similar with the schools.

The other “precedent” was an event my family treasures, part of our lore and our pride. My grandparents operated a sundries store in the early years of the 20th century. They lived above the store. Racial tensions here in DC exploded. Violence spread across the most vulnerable parts of the city. My father, who was White, and then a Western Union messenger boy on a bike, was reached by a neighbor, who was Black, and told he had to get home right away. He saw someone being shot on the way. When he reached the store, it was surrounded. It was surrounded by their Black neighbors, protecting them. There was a bond, a strong one, built on mutual respect over the years, ready to defy violent threats, not with guns, but with unity. That story, baked into me, came back when we designed the Winter Building and, later, with each of the schools in “bad neighborhoods.” “Bad,” to people who had money, just meant undesirable and unpleasant places for people who didn’t.

So, I asked each of the schools if they would be willing to take a great chance, in the interest of a potentially greater outcome: creating trust and a devoted partnership with the neighborhood. A building that looked like a prison wouldn’t do it. A gleaming new building with an opposite architectural message might. I emphasize “might.” There were no guarantees. It was a risk. I’ve learned that these school founders, visionaries all, somehow had synthesized an outlook that balanced idealism and pragmatism. They were not risk-averse. 

The bets worked. These schools quickly became partners with their neighborhoods. Their neighbors were their best advocates, supporters, and defenders. The new stance became: YES in my backyard.

Architecture cannot remake the world, but it can help make the best of our best selves and advance our dreams for better lives.

Milton