I am fresh off a 3 day learn-athon at the massive, 20,000 attendee, American Institute of Architects (AIA) convention, which met at the end of last week in Chicago. Having recently attended the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) conference in Buffalo as well, I was looking forward to the AIA convention for more discussion on urbanism and how we can improve the architectural form to make positive impacts on our cities. I was severely disappointed in the offerings. Most of the AIA convention seminars were geared toward mundane subjects such as architectural business practice, or technical items such as moisture control in curtain walls, or how to use EFIS facade systems effectively. The convention schedule was composed of three educational tracks; Design & Health, Energy, and Small Firm Practice. These tracks guide you through certain educational themes but none were geared toward cities and urbanism. Even the Design and Health Track lacked substantive discussions on the benefits of compact walkable cities. How could the AIA so completely ignore cities, I thought. They redeemed themselves, however, with the closing plenary.
The closing included all the requisite speeches about the glories of the AIA along with two very touching award tributes, One, the Gold Medal, was awarded posthumously to one of the earliest most successful women architects, Julia Morgan. The second, The Twenty-five year award, was also given posthumously to the great architect Harry Weese, for his work on the Washington Metro System. The Washington Metro is one of the great civic infrastructure investments in history. Its architecture is stunningly beautiful and is credited as a major reason that DC is the desirable walkable city that we know today. Harry was credited at the convention, as one of the early pioneers in advocating for investment in our cities. But this was not what redeemed the AIA in my eyes.
The final speaker of the night was Tony Hsei (pronounced Shay). I contemplated skipping the lecture because the weather outside the cavernous convention center was beautiful and I did not know who this Tony guy was. The convention catalogue did not describe the subject of the talk. After 3 days of lectures I was pretty much done with convention seminars. Thankfully I stayed.
Wikipedia image
Tony Hsieh is the 40 year old billionaire CEO of Zappos, the wildly successful online shoe and product store. He built his career founding and selling a handful of other internet startups and is the author of the recent book Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose. His management style and skill has led to tremendous growth at Zappos. With that growth came a need for more space at their Suburban Las Vegas office campus. Hsieh and his team determined that they needed to expand their facility and provide the world-class space for their staff that a company of their stature should have. They polled their employees for what they wanted in a work place and studied the office campuses of the big guys including Apple and Google. What Hseih realized is that what he and his staff wanted was not an isolated campus but an integrated live, work, play community. As it happened, Las Vagas was vacating its city hall for a new facility. The old city hall was purchased as the core of a new Zappos headquarters. But Hsieh had no intention of making this an isolated corporate campus. He was going to plant the seeds in what was a forgotten section of downtown Vegas for a new active urban neighborhood that included both the employees of Zappos and the community at large. One of the first things he did was to remove the sky bridge connecting the old city hall to the parking garage across the street. No more going straight from your car to your desk. Staff would now have to walk on the street, meet the locals, and maybe spend some money in a cafe.
Hsieh is investing hundreds of millions of his own money into the surrounding downtown Vegas blocks to build a start up community which he is already growing into an active living place where people want to live, work, and play. He calls this investment “Downtown Project” It is multifaceted plan that is designed to have immediate impact. His mission from the web page:
We are a group of passionate people committed to helping to transform Downtown Las Vegas into the most community-focused large city in the world. We are doing that by inspiring and empowering people to follow their passions to create a vibrant, connected urban core.
We’ve allocated $350 million to aid in the revitalization of Downtown Las Vegas. We’re investing $200 million in real estate, $50 million in small businesses, $50 million in education, and $50 million in tech startups through the VegasTech Fund.
We aim to:
BRING TOGETHER COMMUNITIES OF PASSION. Community development is more about the people than real estate, so physical spaces should reflect the community’s values. By catalyzing community efforts, we hope to inspire people to follow their passions. And by doing so, we’re helping to build the most community-focused large city in the world…in the city where you would least expect it.
ADD DENSITY OF GROUND LEVEL ACTIVITIES, SPACES, AND BUSINESSES. Ground-level activity and gathering places such as cafes, interesting small businesses, and public spaces increases economic output and happiness.
CREATE THE COWORKING CAPITAL OF THE WORLD.We’re working with communities including technology, fashion, music, art, and more. Bringing together passionate people with shared interests creates collaboration, innovation, opportunities to share resources, and accelerates learning.
CREATE THE SHIPPING CONTAINER CAPITAL OF THE WORLD. Most urban revitalization efforts are centered in cities with vacant, crumbling buildings. Our Downtown doesn’t have those. To quickly create spaces for new businesses here requires innovative thinking, so we’re using repurposed shipping containers as places for entrepreneurs to follow their passions.
DO IT IN LESS THAN FIVE YEARS.
Hsieh’s implementation plan includes leveraging Arts, Music& Culture, Technology, Co-working, Education, and Entrepreneurship. He could also include, rebuilding good urbanism with places made for people, because that is exactly what he is doing. He provides more detail on his website, explaining how he plans to accomplish this. An example (among others)of his plan in action, describes a man who had once worked for Zappos, but quit to follow his passion for barbecue. The man was selling his meats and sauces at local farmer’s markets, making about $100 a day. Downtown Project saw potential in his work and invested in his dream. They placed him in a start up space in their shipping container park. His business now grosses over $100,000 a month in sales. This idea of cheap shipping container space is not new. Jane Jacobs in her major work, The Death and Life of the Great American City described how cities needed a mix of new and old buildings. She concluded that healthy cities, of course needed investment in the form of new buildings, but that they also need cheaper older buildings in which startup businesses can be created on a shoe string budget. These small businesses would eventually grow and become the life blood of the city. Vegas has few old buildings to start with so, Hsieh is creating that cheap space with surplus metal boxes. Buffalo has the cheap space in spades, in the form of underused historic buildings. They are an economic asset that Buffalo still has trouble recognizing. This link brings you to a sampling of the new businesses that now populate this once moribund part of Vegas, due to the Downtown Project.
From a Downtown Project Video
Hsieh gets it. He understands the importance of an integrated community and the serendipity it creates through chance encounters and mutual benefits. He noted studies showing that, as cities grow bigger, they become wealthier, more productive, and more efficient. Studies also show that corporations ,as they become large, often become bloated and inefficient. The solution for his own growing company was to create this new integrated community in which Zappos could emulate the way cities work. The solution was his Downtown Project. It has been wildly successful for the city and the company. There is no reason this concept would not be equally successful in Buffalo. I wonder where Buffalo could get $350M to try it out.