Atlanta-a new american manifesto

​             In order to capture the essence of Atlanta, one must visualize the new “spaceship” headquarters for Apple. The spaceship represents one of the largest and most successful companies in the world. Its design reflects Apple’s commitment to “Think Different” in everything it does. This commitment has led the company to create products that broke all the rules and become extremely successful. The “spaceship” is very unusual for a headquarters. Its circular nature is not only elegant but creates practical benefits for the company such as improved connectivity. At its essence, the circle has a history of being intense along the perimeter, yet without physical density at its center. The circle is indeterminant, centerless, and in Apple’s case, permits a landscape of vegetation to grow.
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                        Atlanta is the spaceship, Atlanta is Apple. Atlanta is unlike any other city in the history of the United States. Its essence is the circle not the square. The essence of older American cities such as New York and Chicago is the square. The square is rigid, conformist. Atlanta is free flowing, creative, out of the box. In New York City, the rigidness of the grid, the unaffordability of living, and the speed of life forces everyone to conform. The free-flowing streets, the affordability of living, and the varied speeds of life allow Atlantans to be themselves, to live more freely and creatively. New York is like Microsoft. It represents the old way cities were built. However, if Atlanta truly wants to become the next great American city, it must think of itself as Apple. Atlanta must “Think Different.” Atlanta must set a different tone for the cities of the future.
                       
​                   In order to do this, Atlanta must do two things. First it must recognize and celebrate the core elements that make Atlanta unique, particularly the six elements described by Rem Koolhaas in his writings about Atlanta. Secondly, Atlanta must adapt, without destroying, those core elements in accordance with where the culture is going by embracing key tactics and principles from Retrofitting Suburbia. If done successfully, Atlanta has the potential of writing a new manifesto for the American city. As an aspiring real estate developer, I desire to play a key role in helping Atlanta realize this.
                       
                    The core elements that make Atlanta unique have been well described by architect Rem Koolhaas in his writings about Atlanta. He describes at least six elements, as follows: Atlanta has history, intensity without physical density, millions of gourmets, is a landscape (very vegetal and infrastructural), indeterminate zoning that allows anything possible anywhere, and is a centerless city.[2] Several of these elements are typical of any major city, but a few are very unique to Atlanta. Some elements break the rules of what a city is “supposed” to be. Even the legendary architect and pioneer of downtown Atlanta, John Portman, broke all the rules by playing the duel role of architect and developer.
                    
                     The first key element is that Atlanta has history. The history of Atlanta is very unique and steeped in racial justice. The city was founded at the end of the Western & Atlantic railroad, playing a major role in trade between the port of Savannah and the surrounding southeast states. Although named Marthasville, an early nickname of the city was Terminus, and eventually the city would be named Atlanta, the feminine of railroad name Atlantic. The city was also decimated when General William T. Sherman marched 60,000 troops to the sea during the Civil War. Atlanta also is the birthplace of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., hosted several civil rights marches, and had the honor of having one of the early civil rights leaders, Andrew Young, as its 55th mayor. The city is also a leader in the rap and hip-hop movement, having produced such names as TI and Ludacris. The city’s history of transportation, racial reconciliation, and great art should be celebrated and carried into what the next wave of growth will be for Atlanta.     
           
             Retrofitting Suburbia calls for a change from the typical sprawl of suburban America, which is also pervasive throughout much of Atlanta. The scale of the challenge calls for larger scale solutions namely “instant cities.” Such projects have been derided as being in-authentic, mainly due to their “instant architecture.” However, as described in Retrofitting Suburbia, such criticisms overlook the major “instant city” benefits such as lower VMTs, lower greenhouse gas emissions, and greater efficiency.[3] In Atlanta, there is also an opportunity to bring greater authenticity to retrofit projects by including key historical elements. For example, a retrofit of a dead mall property could incorporate experiences oriented around Atlanta’s hip-hop culture. This could look like allowing graffiti walls, having hip-hop concerts, and having a music-centric tenant mix.    
                  
                  Another key element Koolhaas uses to describe Atlanta is its intensity without physical density. In his writings, he references food halls as places that look like typical supermarkets from the outside but inside are full of life and activity.[4] One of the major calls of Retrofitting Suburbia is to increase physical density in order to achieve the benefits of lower VMTs and greater connectivity. However, with Atlanta, the question is can physical density and space coexist? Can Atlanta’s sprawl be retrofitted with physical density without losing the benefits of space? One solution to the question may involve looking at two places, Le Corbusier’s Towers in the Park, and Singapore.      
                      
              Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier’s Towers in the Park concept was developed in the 1930s and implemented by the government rather forcibly in many parts of the nation, with disastrous outcomes. However, what’s old is new again. Perhaps its time to bring back some of his ideas in a fresh, market-driven way that promotes good connectivity. In his writing “The City of Tomorrow,” Le Corbusier describes four key principles for his plan of the city. They include: we must de-congest the centres of our cities; we must augment their density; we must increase the means for getting about; we must increase parks and open space.[5] To adapt Le Corbusier’s thinking for a retrofitting era in Atlanta would mean to reject the first principle while embracing and enhancing the latter three.  

               Atlanta could learn a lot from Singapore. There are many similarities between the two cities. Both cities grew and emerged as global cities in the past three decades. They are about the same size at 5.9 million and 5.6 million people, respectively. Both cities are also extremely diverse. The street networks for both cities are not gridlike, but curvy and full of large blocks. Despite Singapore’s rapid growth, the city has managed to become both very walkable, yet maintain a landscape of vegetation and open spaces. One key element Atlanta could learn from Singapore is the city’s use of towers, which maximize the physical density of each parcel, while preserving open greenspace around the towers. An adaptation of this concept for Atlanta with Suburban Retrofit influence could be towers atop a podium that contains ground floor retail, but with greenspace on top of the podium surrounding the towers. One could conceive of the typical garage-wrap “Texas Donut” type apartment buildings with a highrise component at one or two of the corners, then greenspace or recreation space along the roofs of the midrise components.
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                        In describing Atlanta, one aspect he notes is the three cargo planes that arrive each day from Holland, four from Paris, and two from southeast Asia, meaning there are millions of gourmets in Atlanta.[7] The fact that there is so much demand for good food in Atlanta presents an opportunity to integrate unique food concepts into retrofit projects. This could be done at several scales. Bringing local ethnic foods to a struggling, dull retail strip center can help bring much needed traffic for the neighborhood and keep cash flow coming in for the owners. At the larger scale, it can look like bringing high-end, but still locally owned and ethnically diverse restaurants to large scale retrofits such as dead mall retrofits. These two tactics have already been implemented in Atlanta at Krog Street Market for the former and Ponce City Market for the latter. There’s nothing inhibiting similar usage in suburban contexts with aging buildings constructed in the 1960s and 1970s. An extra shrewd developer could even start by attracting the local ethnic foods to generate cash flow and generate buzz around an otherwise dull neighborhood, then once the neighborhood has attracted enough traffic could then have the ability to execute a larger-scale retrofit with higher-end tenants. The first phase of this has already taken place along Buford Highway. It’s only a matter of time before the corridor is ripe for suburban retrofit type of development. The key challenge will be how to ensure that those local business owners and property owners along Buford Hwy are able to profit from the corridor’s growth.
                       
                    Another essential element Koolhaas describes about Atlanta is that it is a landscape of vegetation and infrastructure.[8] If Atlanta were to desire to be like New York City, his comment may seem like an insult, as if Atlanta is not a “real city.” However, if one looks differently at the comment, a landscape has many positive implications. Like Apple and their IOS operating platform that allows software developers to build any application their imagination conceives of, Atlanta’s landscape implies a blank canvas on which real estate developers and designers can build any project they can conceive. Also key to Koolhaas’s comment is his mention of vegetation and infrastructure. The abundant vegetation in Atlanta, especially its tree canopy, makes the city unlike any other in the United States. It gives the city breathing room from the speed of urban life. Given the city’s history with the railroad, infrastructure continues to play an integral part in the city’s function, now with its abundant highways and roads. The opportunity going forward will be how to integrate both infrastructure and vegetation into the same projects in order to improve the city’s walkability and connectivity. Two examples of these are the Atlanta Beltline (the integration of abandoned railroads with walking trails and parks to connect intown Atlanta) and the proposed Park over 400 (the integration of a park over a highway to improve the connectivity in the area). One could conceive of building more of such projects at larger scales and in places where walkability and connectivity are lacking. Such places, particularly Edge Cities, are prime targets for suburban retrofits. According to Retrofitting Suburbia, Edge Cities are among the most difficult to bring walkability and connectivity to due to their massive blocks and campus-like urban tissue.[9] One example could be creating an elevated platform park along Peachtree Road in high traffic areas such as in front of Lenox Mall. The platform could include highline-like walking paths on the sides, with park and recreation space along the center. Similar platform parks could be created in areas such as Dunwoody and Vinings. For especially long paths in especially spread out Edge Cities, platform parks could include mass transit options.
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                        Indeterminant zoning is described by Koolhaas as another core essential of Atlanta. He says the zoning laws are so weak that exceptions are the norm and it’s a kind of reverse zoning, an instrument that makes anything possible anywhere.[11] This opens the door both for more creative suburban retrofits to be developed and for new zoning that is friendlier to the goals of Retrofitting Suburbia. In terms of more creative solutions, astute developers can more easily implement a project more in-line with the principles of Retrofitting Suburbia. Perhaps more profoundly are the new zoning regulations that could be implemented. Two of the new zoning concepts mentioned by Retrofitting Suburbia and championed by Congress for the New Urbanism are form based codes, especially the SmartCode.[12] According to CNU’s website, “A form-based code is a land development regulation that fosters predictable built results and a high-quality public realm by using physical form (rather than the separation of uses) as the organizing principle for the code.” The SmartCode is a form-based code that uses the Transect to organize a city not by use but by form and density, ranging from core (T6) to natural (T1).[13] Such form-based codes can be used to encourage retrofits along key commercial corridors such as Buford Hwy or around dying malls such as Gwinnett Place Mall.
                        Another core essential Koolhaas describes about Atlanta is that it is a centerless city.[14] Indeed, the city has at least five different central business districts in and around I-285. Whether Downtown, Midtown, or Buckhead is the center is unclear. Buckhead could argue it’s the center for being the hub of the finance sector in Atlanta and for being home of two of the largest malls in the state. Midtown could argue it’s the center for its density, parks, and culture. Downtown could argue it’s the center for being the place where the city was founded. What is interesting for Atlanta and for suburban retrofits is that such centers can develop just about anywhere in the MSA and have their own unique identity. This could even challenge the conventional definition of a core city. In theory, a central business district that emerged due to suburban retrofits from Duluth or Clarkston, two of the most diverse cities in the state, could have more in common to core cities even though they are not geographically at the center of the MSA.  The Apple “Spaceship” headquarters comes to mind as the core of the city does not have to be the geographic center of the city.

                        These essential elements of Atlanta can be used in many combinations in order push the boundaries of the typical suburban retrofit. They could almost be described as tactics for negating the negative perceptions about suburban retrofits as being inauthentic or faux architecture. Imagine a suburban retrofit with the aim of redeveloping Gwinnett Place Mall. The mall has been on the decline for decades, and recently was the sight of a homicide. The place’s latest claim to fame is being the filming location for the Netflix hit show Stranger Things. For a suburban retrofit with Atlanta influence, one could start by redeveloping the existing mall in-line space with local Asian foods (Duluth has one of the largest concentration of Asians in the state) and improving the cosmetic look, feel, and safety of the building. If advertised well, this could become a major draw for both locals and for adventurous foodies from around the Atlanta MSA. As the mall gains greater brand recognition among foodies and the owners have generated enough cash flow to prove the concept, then there would be the opportunity to scale it up to a larger suburban retrofit of the entire property. At this stage, things could get really interesting as the developer could integrate Asian influences into a larger “instant city.” The tenant mix, the architecture, the building envelopes, the amount of green open space, could all have influences from Asia. Maybe there would be a few pagodas. A similar concept was once proposed for Gwinnett Place Mall before the recession made the project unfeasible. As mentioned in Retrofitting Suburbia, a project called “Global Station” was a 38-acre, $600 million proposal by developer Wayne Mason.[15] Similar projects could be conceived in historically African-American communities as well to create new economic growth. This would essentially create a balance between the typical cookie cutter styles of large-scale projects and local, more unique influences.

                        Looking back on Atlanta in 2050, I believe one will see a very different, yet familiar city. The city will have grown to about 9 million people. History, intensity without physical density, a landscape, gourmets, indeterminant zoning, and centerless, will still define the city, yet Suburban Retrofits working in conjunction with these essential elements will produce a very different urban typology. A typology that echoes to Singapore’s version of towers in the park, full of elegant towers and refreshing vegetation, that echoes to the Highline with an abundance of platform parks to bring walkability to car-centric areas, that echoes to the artistic creativity and cultural diversity of Los Angeles to bring authenticity to inauthentic suburbs, that echoes to Apple’s “Spaceship” headquarters that breaks the rules of the definition of core city, and furthermore pushes the conventional definitions of a city. A typology that like the Apple headquarters is both elegant and improves connectivity for everyone.
 
 
 

Bibliography
Congress for the New Urbanism. “Transect.” Tools. Accessed December 6, 2019. https://www.cnu.org/resources/tools
Corbusier, Le. The City of Tomorrow. Dover Publications, 1987.
Dunham-Jones, Ellen and June Williamson. Retrofitting Suburbia. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2011.
Frearson, Amy. “Zaha Hadid’s D’Leedon complex in Singapore features towers with petal-shaped plans.” dezeen. April 20, 2016. https://www.dezeen.com/2016/04/20/zaha-hadid-architects-dleedon-complex-apartments-skyscrapers-towers-singapore/
Koolhaas, Rem. “Atlanta a Reading.” In Atlanta, edited by Jordi Bornado, 2. Raymond Pratt, 1995.
“Salesforce Transit Center,” TripAdvisor. 2019. https://www.tripadvisor.com/LocationPhotoDirectLink-g60713-d14140677-i322219380-Salesforce_Transit_Center-San_Francisco_California.html
Wilson, Jim. “Apple’s New Headquarters in Cupertino, Calif.” The New York Times. June 4, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/04/us/apple-headquarters-earthquake-preparedness.html
[1] Jim Wilson. “Apple’s New Headquarters in Cupertino, Calif.” The New York Times. June 4, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/04/us/apple-headquarters-earthquake-preparedness.html
[2] Rem Koolhaas, “Atlanta a Reading,” in Atlanta, ed. Jordi Bernado (Rayomd Prat, 1995), 2.
[3] Ellen Dunham-Jones and June Williamson, Retrofitting Suburbia(New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2011), 2-3.
[4] Rem Koolhaas, “Atlanta a Reading,” in Atlanta, ed. Jordi Bernado (Rayomd Prat, 1995), 2.
[5] Le Corbusier, The City of Tomorrow (Dover Publications, 1987), 166.
[6] Amy Frearson, “Zaha Hadid’s D’Leedon complex in Singapore features towers with petal-shaped plans,” dezeen. April 20, 2016. https://www.dezeen.com/2016/04/20/zaha-hadid-architects-dleedon-complex-apartments-skyscrapers-towers-singapore/
[7] Rem Koolhaas, “Atlanta a Reading,” in Atlanta, ed. Jordi Bernado (Rayomd Prat, 1995), 2.
[8] Rem Koolhaas, “Atlanta a Reading,” in Atlanta, ed. Jordi Bernado (Rayomd Prat, 1995), 2.
[9] Ellen Dunham-Jones and June Williamson, Retrofitting Suburbia(New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2011), 177.
[10] “Salesforce Transit Center,” TripAdvisor. 2019. https://www.tripadvisor.com/LocationPhotoDirectLink-g60713-d14140677-i322219380-Salesforce_Transit_Center-San_Francisco_California.html
[11] Rem Koolhaas, “Atlanta a Reading,” in Atlanta, ed. Jordi Bernado (Rayomd Prat, 1995), 2.
[12] Ellen Dunham-Jones and June Williamson, Retrofitting Suburbia(New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2011), 36.
[13] “The Transect.” Tools, Congress for the New Urbanism, accessed December 6, 2019, https://www.cnu.org/resources/tools
[14] Rem Koolhaas, “Atlanta a Reading,” in Atlanta, ed. Jordi Bernado (Rayomd Prat, 1995), 2.
[15] Ellen Dunham-Jones and June Williamson, Retrofitting Suburbia(New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2011), 89.