The 1995 APA Conference in Orlando provides an introduction to the new community of Celebration, while it was in the very early stages of development and prior to the arrival of its first residents. In the subsequent year, the community has substantially taken form and the first residential pioneers are now living there. This session looks at the progress made, from three perspectives - that of the Celebration development team, of an architect/urban designer, and of an AICP member whose family is one of the first to take up residence.
This paper and the conference session look at the early evolution of Celebration. They address what has happened in a year and what can be learned from this experience.
A representative from the Celebration Company provides the developer's point of view. He addresses how planning for the community was accomplished. He reports on how progress in building the community is meeting its objectives. He talks about its early design evaluation, what problems have been encountered, and what modifications and course corrections have been needed.
An architect and urban designer looks at the results of the early buildout of the project and the new urbanism concepts. He provides perspective on the results of the use of the builders guidelines for residential styles, on the use of high-powered architects for major buildings, on the character of the core of the community, and the potentials for community-building brought about by the design of the project.
An AICP planner, who is a resident at Celebration, relates his direct personal experiences of functioning in this kind of environment. He talks about its effects on human behavior and on personal values. He addresses what the limitations of this kind of community are.
Celebration was created over a ten year period by studying the most successful residential neighborhood and communities across the county built before 1940. The community seeks to achieve the structure of classic older American cities such as Charleston or Savannah through the use of pattern books. These pattern books articulate the design codes the community is based on.
The designs called for in the pattern books for single family residential and townhomes are combined with apartments placed over shops and restaurants in the downtown. Still more renters are accommodated in carriage house style accessing apartments above the garages of single family homes. Parking lots are hidden in courtyards inside the downtown blocks. Public space is designed in a way that encourages walking.
To give downtown the distinction a list of designers was named. Philip Johnson for the Town Hall, Michael Graves for the Post Office, Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates for the bank, Cesar Pelli and Associates for the cinema, Graham Gund for the inn, William Rawn for the school, and Moore/Anderson, the firm of the late Charles Moore, for the Preview Center.
Just as the Stern/Cooper-Robertson plan for the Town Center employs a strong overall framework and ordered background buildings to set off these notable designs, the plan covering nearby neighborhoods strives to balance individuality with a sense of community.
Both the Town Center and residential villages of Celebration benefit from planning in three dimensions, not the usual subdivision layout in two dimensions, not the usual subdivision layout in two dimensions. The plans and renderings, as well as the standards for development, truly represent what the place will look like.
Robertson and the team are particularly pleased about the way the golf course (designed by Robert Trent Jones and his son Bobby Jones) also works as shared open space. Instead of being wrapped by residential lots, the course becomes both a park for residents to enjoy walking or bicycling by and a greenbelt that buffers Celebration on its northern edge.
The golf course-as-park is found at Coral Gables and East Hampton, Long Island, which along with Forest Hills, Charleston, and Beaufort, South Carolina, Santa Barbara and other towns or early suburbs were studied and visited. This is another example of New Urbanism at work -- the best of what already works serves as model.
The collection of favorite house types appropriate to Celebration lead to a choice of six designated styles: Classical, Victorian, Colonial Revival, Coastal (raised cottage), Mediterranean and French (the last two giving spice to the mix). Architects adept in each style were commissioned to develop essential criteria.
There are those skeptical about this revival of town planning. The say it is only superficial nostalgia. But the sophisticated planning and the passion of not a few people to see it through speak of something else. It is the deeper, abiding desire of a culture to create places that sustain a full range of human needs. Not just marketing or traffic movement or resale value, but value itself. In that respect, Celebration is both cutting edge and rooted in the broader culture.
Such problems don't really apply to Celebration. Due, possibly to its developer, possibly to the extraordinary amount of attention it has garnered and the rapidity of its growth, possibly to the elegance and simplicity of its central theme, Celebration has all the vitality of a town that is both older and larger. Contrary to most greenfield projects, in which wave after wave of residential construction precede even the smallest commercial ventures, Celebration has a fully operational commercial center even though some major percentage of its dwellings are yet to be built. The curious phenomenon, in which a dynamic core is somewhat detached from its associated neighborhood, and in which a good percentage of the people on the street are clearly from out of town, makes for a somewhat incongruous sensation: a regional mixed-use project has slipped its moorings on a suburban arterial and absconded to a neo-traditional subdivision. An initial sensation while walking along the edge of the man-made lake and looking back at the restaurants is that you are still in Disney World. However, if you squint a bit, you can almost imagine that you have dropped into a technicolor, suburbanized version of Lucerne or Monte Carlo; it's not at all unpleasant.
The "downtown," as it is called, exhibits a calm, coherent, comfortable demeanor. The width-to-height ratios of the streets and buildings fall well within the guidelines recommended to foster a sense of "place," and the deliberately public mien of the commercial elements, coupled with the obvious draw of the uses and the cachet of the developer, work well to foster a lively ambiance. Nonetheless, despite all the acclaim and attention that went into the selection of the designers of the major public and commercial buildings, and despite the considerable renown of those who were selected to design these structures, the architecture of the downtown is a mixed-bag at best. The dominant buildings -those with the largest "names" attached-- are the weak points in the mix; the Community Center is overwhelmingly mediocre, and the AMC Theaters try way too hard to be interesting, while some of the more generic buildings have the most integrity and convey the strongest sense of identity.
The residential architecture appears to suffer at once and in the future. At present, exposed as they are, in their pristine newness, on generally tree-bare sites, the houses are too obvious, too evident, too raw. In a few years, the forlorn three-inch caliper trees will expand into eight-inch diameters, and the currently shell-shocked canopies and foliage will begin to dominate the foreground; the houses will recede somewhat into a more comfortable mid-distance, and the clarity of separation between street and building, and between the buildings themselves, will be articulated and enhanced. Celebration will begin to mature, much in the way a pair of blue-jeans wears and grows more comfortable over time.
The second issue may be more damning. Walter Benjamin, the German social critic, once contrasted photography with painting by averring that the former lacked the "aura" of authenticity that was the essence of the latter. The homes in Celebration are built to the rules and patterns established by the developer after years of careful consideration and fore-thought. They are more intricate and detailed than the standard tract home, and considerable degrees of flexibility have been extended to the builders. At the same time, perhaps in response to the valid claim that those few New Urbanist projects that have seen the light of day have quickly become up-scale enclaves for the well-to-do, Disney Development sought to make its products accessible to a generally middle- and upper-middle class audience. The two concerns may not be compatible. The quality of detail envisioned in the guidelines may not be easily within reach of the $90/sf builder. Much of the construction at Celebration looks curiously flat and pallid when contrasted with the authentic examples of American architecture that are the ostensible paradigms. In short, the quality of the building at Celebration is not convincing. In ten years, the trees will have matured and will look richer and fuller. The same might not be true for the structures.
This section of the paper builds upon the previous two, but with a far different viewpoint. The viewpoint is that of a planner actually living in one of the premier neo-traditional communities, Celebration. What is it really like to be one of the first families to live in such a community? Does it really work? What are the choices' one has to make and how does it change a family used to living a typical suburban lifestyle? Are the things you have to give up really worth the reality of living in one of these communities? How do people interact in a way that is different from a post war suburban community? Does living in such a community make life better?
Planners usually discuss communities in a theoretical sense, but not often from the prospective of an actual resident. Communities like Celebration clearly offer a different lifestyle which, I am convinced, a significant portion of the population will find attractive. I have no doubt, after spending the last eight months living here. My family's life has changed in many ways that I did not anticipate. I also realize that there are many adjustments that each person must ask themselves if the concept of the neo-traditional community is going to be the right choice for them.
Living in Celebration is not the same as living in an older historic part of a large city. The design characteristics may have something in common, but there is far more that is different in a stand alone community designed in this fashion. It has the characteristics of a small town with all that goes with it. Not everyone will be able to feel comfortable knowing their neighbors at the level you do in such a community. Your concept of private space is not the same. You have to be willing to give up private space for the concept of public space; not everyone will be willing to do so. These are some of the choices that must be make.
But for those willing to make that choice, you will find a different lifestyle. You will know who your children's friends are. You will know their teachers as neighbors and friends. You will know your children's friends' parents. You will be able to walk to restaurants, the bank, post office, town hall, school and many other areas. The great thing is that you will want to. You will have more time for your family and do a lot more with them. For that privilege, you pay more for your house, have less space, have less yard, drive less, stay in your own neighborhood more. But somehow it won't matter to most people, because having the normal things that a typical suburb has no longer seem that important. At least if you're an extrovert.
Michael English
Chairman, Hillsborough County Planning Commission
President, The English Company