Also a huge number of people in the US travel to places that are walkable:
- Disney World
- Las Vegas (The strip is anyway)
- DC
- NYC
I watched a YouTube video on it and they mentioned they designed the structure to maximize shade.
This combined with the white buildings knocked more than 20° off of the ambient temps within the neighborhood.
Edit:
The video.
Kirsten Dirksen tours a lot of homes / areas that focus on sustainability or break the mold.
I don’t suppose you have a link to said video? I’d be curious to see it in more detail.
Yeah, I don’t understand, were trees or solar panels not available? Not to mention that maximizing shade could be achieved with a simple pattern and taller buildings or rooftop gardens/panels. Even a simple mesh tarp (mimicking leaves) over the allies does the same trick without claustrophobia :). At such latitude shading from the top is way more effective than from the sides.
And what walkable city/neighborhood doesn’t have a piazza for people to gather & eat, drink, shop, etc?
Dense structure placement like that def looks like developers maximizing buildings per land, not for the community.
A shade structure in Phoenix’s Civic Space Park
Have you watched the video and has it changed your mind? I’m curious if it’s just the article only giving that shitty overview photo. I only watched the video and thought it was quite nice for high density urbanism. An alternative to suburbia modeled after classic European cities.
Besides shade, narrow streets might also reduce amount of walking distance. So if you make it bigger you end up with less functionality.
I’m sure if they replicate the concept it could look quite different in other climates.
Yeah, seeing the main streets (like on the map) is what redeemed it a lot, however I do not understand buildings that narrow together, like from the personal space POV. A meter/few feet wider allies (or distances between front doors) would make a lot of difference.
Also I do live in a classic European (fairly) walkable city. Not that I’m comparing directly, it’s a different situation. But over here narrow allies or window views of only your neighbour are usually found in old villages, where money was tight & a lot of expansion was done over existing buildings. Or where other barriers exist (historic city walls, narrow peninsula, rivers, etc).
I’m not even saying I wouldn’t live in Tempa, it just seems like a really cheaply executed concept (albeit “classical”, yet new, but you are not getting old buildings).
I do agree with you this would be a very sensible and effective solution. I also was disappointed that seemingly no thought was put into integration of solar / shade plants.
However I do want to stress the importance of having access to a broad view of the horizon and sky.
That said they totally could have made little pockets with this lattice and 10x’d the environment on the passageways and generate power/food.