Sophia Antipolis from the air.
Today I will be lecturing on business park design. Are you bored yet? Good, we agree. It's awful. It's worse than awful. It's soul-destroying.
Bad architecture, miles of parking lots, sterile landscaping. No place at all with a human soul, and no place for a human soul. Generally no place to walk, or do anything other than get in your car and drive away. Fast. Ooops, there was a pedestrian trying to cross this six-lane road (with a walk light)? Sorry about that fright I gave you, but would you just get out of my way because I'm in a hurry to escape this hell-hole.Is there such a thing as a well-designed business park? I'm just going to try to imagine one. First, there will be trees. Lots and lots of trees. Enough to hide or at least soften all that stark architecture. There will be sidewalks. But not just next to those busy streets. There will be green spaces between the buildings--no back-to-back parking lots. In those green spaces we'll put sidewalks and meandering paths, over and around some nice variable landscape, with a pond or two if it's feasible, or fountains. Around those green spaces, on the bottom floors of some of the office buildings, we'll put the common facilities like cafes, delis, postal centers, maybe some small-scale office-related businesses like office supply stores, commercial mail outlets, print and copy facilities, a banking kiosk, a child care center. And, oh yes, a fitness center. One of those outdoor fitness courses would be nice, too.
Now are you beginning to get the picture? When I take my lunch break, I can walk out and get lunch, mail a letter, deposit a check or get cash, buy some copy toner, check on my toddler in the child care center who I saw throwing a tantrum on the webcam. I can take a stroll or go for a run, maybe do a few pushups or pullups along the way. I can spend my lunch break in the gym if I like, or pop in before or after work for a quick workout without having to plug the drive into my schedule.
There will be no cars in sight in this greenspace. So where will all the cars go? Isn't it obvious? Under the greenspace. There will be popouts here and there, and next to the office buildings, of course, as well as direct entries to buildings underground. Good for both hot summer and cold winter weather. No getting into a car heated to 120F and burning your hands on the steering wheel, or scraping ice and snow off the windshield while your good shoes get ruined.
Maybe there's a business park like this already out there, but I haven't seen it. Well, maybe Sophia Antipolis on the French Riviera. Office buildings hidden in pine trees meander over the low coastal mountains, with a view of the Alps on one side and the Mediterranean on the other. But we don't all have that kind of stunning landscape to work with, and generally don't put our business parks there when we do. You could build a version of my office park almost anywhere. So why aren't there any?
