DIY Urbanism

http://www.planetizen.com/node/69469

Peter Tolkin
zocalopublicsquare.org

Hello Everyone:

Once again,  yours truly went through the drop box folder and pulled out a long neglected gem on small firms taking big projects.  I found this blog post by Anna Bergen Miller on one of my favorite websites http://www.planetizen.com way back in June and somehow it ended up hidden away until now. The post is an opinion piece titled "Self-Starter Urbanism: Small Firms Tackle Big Projects on Their Own Term" and looks at how small firms are transitioning from designing buildings-i.e. residential and commercial buildings-to large-scale work by initiating their own urban design projects as design-builders, developers, or researchers.

Bike Transit Center
Peter Tolkin
petertolkin.com

One of these small firms initiating their own urban is the South Pasadena-based firm of Peter Tolkin Architecture (inc. 2007), who opted not to wait around for work to fall into their collective laps, preferring instead, to generate their own projects.  Ms. Bergen Miller quoting design principal Mr. Tolkin, "We really want to work on the larger scale of cities and planning, though I'm fairly pragmatic...I haven't had a chance to plan a city."  Thus far, the biggest obstacle in his firm's path is competition from bigger firms with their larger budgets and better name recognition.  "One thing that has happened [since the Recession] is that there are fewer firms.  The bigger ones became bigger.  So as a smaller firm a lot of the work we've done is single-family homes," laments Mr. Tolkin.  Further, "They're great projects, but they're not open places for people to see or experience." Sounds like Mr. Tolkin is restless and hungry for a real challenge.

Westfield UTC
Peter Tolkin
petertolkin.com

Another challenge to small firms trying to launch large-scale work is "...American reluctance to embrace large-scale design." Specifically, "There's this big gap between the idealism that exists at the university and the pragmatic side of existing as an architect and urban planner in this country."  Really, what a 'big surprise.'  Using the High Line in New York City as his example, Mr. Tolkin says, "For a long time, if you had an interesting idea that was relevant, if it wasn't immediately clear that someone could generate resources from it, it likely wouldn't happen.  Something like the High Line-it took almost a movement around that thing to get it to actually happen."  While Mr. Tolkin remains optimistic, however, commissions for civic work are still hard to come by.  Mr. Tolkin adds, "We've done some shopping areas, we've gotten to work on some squares, but in a way that's much more tame."

Overlay map of Wastewater Study
Courtesy of Peter Tolkin Architecture
planetizen.com

Rather than allow the economic and ideological obstacles to building or planning on a large-scale, Peter Tolkin Architecture has chosen to initiate its own planning work.  Presently, the firm is working on two large-scale interventions.  The first is analysis of wastewater treatment in Los Angeles.  While this may sound unglamorous, this research project overlays "...the city's centralized wastewater treatment system on maps of Los Angeles' hidden spring..."  By doing so, the designer hope to reveal opportunities to construct alternative localized treatment plants that would increase much needed parks.   According to Mr. Tolkin, "The idea is the microbrewery [approach] to dealing with waste in local areas where we can create green spaces that also become gardens...The basis of it all is a reading where the water was and how the waste is being dealt with, how many blocks of homes you could take and put on a smaller system that a park and what kind of pathways through the city you would get.  It's a way of potentially making landscape in a different fashion."

Culver X (invited competition)
Culver City, California
petertolkin.com

Civic projects are only the being for Mr. Tolkin's DIY Urbanism, he and his firm are also venturing into development "...with a demonstration for a net-zero energy office building."  In the interest of full disclosure, Anna Bergen Miller, reports "the details of the project are confidential."  Peter Tolkin explains, "Stand-alone developments like this one...offer two benefits.  On the one hand, they allow architects a greater degree of control over the story their work tells.  On the other hand, they can be used to fund non-commercial work."  This logic makes sense.  One commercial development can finance a small-scale residential project.  Mr. Tolkin adds, "We started thinking we need to develop our own projects because it gives you a certain amount of say, and it can be a little bit of economic engine for doing the work we want to do.  The idea was, how can we become our own producer?"  Means to an end-generate your commercial and civic projects to finance the work you want to do.

Three Stools (sample)
petertolkin.com

When Peter Tolkin began his architectural practice, he noticed, "...it seemed like practices were much more specialized, even at the level of aesthetic and style."  Mr. Tolkin, who has long resisted any sort of labeling continues, "Everybody said to me, you'd better have a speciality, and here I'm thinking.  'I'm interested in architecture because it connects so many things together.'  The idea being a specialist has zero interest to me."  Thus the eclectic nature of his firm such as the giant slinky concept for the Bike Transit Center to samples of stools made from paper pulp, harvested from a local paper mill.  Ms. Bergen Miller concludes with this quote from Mr. Tolkin, "The hard is that planning and architecture are much slower than other aesthetic disciplines...It's always been harder to live as a small independent architecture firm because of the barriers to entry, but it's also what makes us stronger."