Nature of Order Webinar: Professor Vikas Mehta, Architect as Player in Urban Design Game: Action, Reaction, Collaboration - URBAN INFILL in YBOR CITY

This session will be on Thursday, February 27, 2025 at 16:00 UTC. Write to natureoforder@buildingbeauty.org to be included.

Most cities around the world are a result of incremental growth that modifies the city with each increment. Good modification of the city fabric is a result of a thorough understanding of and response to the existing patterns of building typologies and spatial configurations. The Studio dealt with this aspect of incremental growth in an existing city fabric. Ybor City in Tampa is a unique neighborhood with a distinct character that provides a rich context with diverse opportunities for incremental growth and modification. Presently, Ybor City is undergoing a dramatic transformation as it attempts to become a desirable neighborhood in which to live, work, learn and play. This Studio took advantage of these possibilities and students participated in this growth. The project was played out as a real game of action, reaction, and collaboration.

Students in teams of four or five worked as a group. Each student was required to propose 1) a building design project and 2) design an urban artifact, a landscape or a folly. Each proposed project was reviewed and approved in concept by the other members of the team and the instructor. Once a student proposed a project a second student from the same group reacted to the existing context keeping in mind the new project proposed by the previous student. This continued until all students in the group had proposed one building design project and an urban artifact/landscape/folly each.  Proposed projects had to keep in mind the urban context and the other proposals, and each new project was expected to add value to the neighborhood.

This Studio helped students to think of the design of individual sites, buildings, landscapes and artifacts in a larger context of the city. Students were expected to integrate their experiences from their study tour to Boston and Cambridge, MA, to inform their design decisions. Though each student undertook only two design projects - one building and one urban artifact/landscape/folly – s/he got an opportunity to understand the contribution each individual design gesture made to the larger urban design of the neighborhood and the city. By reacting to designs proposed by their colleagues, students also dealt with the problem of responding to the existing and ever-changing context in which they design. Above all, students learned the important lessons that not only buildings but other design gestures in the urbanscape are significant in creating a truly urban experience and a livable neighborhood. The Studio helped students develop design skills by conceptualizing and representing architectural ideas and making aesthetic judgments about building design especially as they relate to the context in which they are designed. 

Program, Site and Context

Each student was free to propose their own program for the building design as well as the urban artifact/landscape/folly. The program for the building had to include a mix of residential, retail, cultural, entertainment, and other uses. Similar to the conceptual design, the program required approval from the other members of the team and the instructor. As in the case of the physical design of the buildings and artifacts, the program, too, needed to respond to the existing land uses and programs of nearby buildings. The site was a 12-block area in Ybor City that is bound by Palm Ave. on the north, N. 15th Street on the east, E. 6th Ave. on the south, and Nuccio Parkway on the west. Parking requirements were based on the program for each proposed building or artifact, but the studio generally assumed a high dependency on existing and proposed public transportation. 

Vikas Mehta, Ph.D., is the Fruth/Gemini Chair of Communication in the Urban Environment (CUE), the Ohio Eminent Scholar of Urban/Environmental Design and Professor of Urban Design in the School of Planning, College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning (DAAP) at the University of Cincinnati.

 Dr. Mehta is interested in various dimensions of urbanity through the exploration of place as a social and ecological setting and as a sensorial art. His work focuses on the role of design and planning in creating a more responsive, equitable, supportive, and communicative environment. This work emphasizes the sense of place and place distinctiveness, design and visualization of urban places and activities, and cities and regions as just, equitable, and sustainable living systems. He is the author/co-author and editor/co-editor of 7 books and over 50 articles, book chapters and encyclopedia entries on urban design pedagogy, public space, urban streets, neighborhoods, retail, signage and visual identity, public space in the Global south, and more. In 2014 and 2024, his books, The Street and Public Space received Book Awards from the Environmental Design Research Association (EDRA). Dr. Mehta has degrees in architecture, urban design, and city planning. 

The context for the lecture are the following chapters in Book III: People forming a collective vision for their neighborhood; Reconstruction of an urban neighborhood, high density housing; further dynamics. Pp. 257-360.