Category: architecture

Frontage zone, the new ugly

meter box
Our City embarked, some time ago, on a Code Audit and the “Streets that Work” plan. Staff, Boards, Commissions, Advisory Committees, many people involved. We’ve been visited by smart coders, enlightened engineers and other luminaries. The gradual transition to a lovely Commons is in process.
Since electrification at the beginning of the 20th C we’ve grown accustomed to the overhead infrastructure. The utility poles block our sidewalks, the wires divide the sky.
Stormwater and wastewater infrastructure was in the ground.
But oh, what is this? A handy above ground casket, looks like New Orleans.


30 x1028 px box

Used to be, the water meter was in the right of way, under the sidewalk, accessed by a meter cover (visible in Google’s 2008 Street View photo). The water meter has risen! Into a concrete box. Why?

pair formation

anderson brothers building
Spring is here. Pair formation. Grackles abound. Students move into spring territory, on the ledge of the Anderson Brothers Bookstore building.

Oh! On the subject of Architecture! Read about Andres Duany’s visit to Charleston where he takes on Preservation Groups, the Fire Marshall, the B.A.R., the Zoning Code, Charlotte and Atlanta , Architects and Traffic and Parking