“It is safe to turn the design process over to intuition. In a way it is unsafe not to, for without intuition the result is anomie, ‘therelessness.’" - from The Old Way of Seeing by Jonathan Hale
“What we need is a revival of humanism. ...In the Renaissance, humanism…was a declaration against time and decay that the world is not disposable. That humans could leave a lasting mark.” - from Michael Gerson’s op-ed in today’s Washington Post, “Secularism without humanism”
Ouch. Photo credit: Google Street view
They’re everywhere! Urban blight being dropped on our heads. But unlike most blight, they only look cheap. Pop-ups are the source of so many blogs and general angst, I have to point out that this one is NOT about DC zoning or nimby-ism. Instead, this is a primer on making pop-up designs just a little more beautiful.
Pop-ups aren’t a fad. They’re an age-old, pragmatic scramble to stay in place by building up - for safety, for views, or to shorten one’s commute. The towers of San Gimignano are medieval pop-ups. As those towers prove, we shouldn’t necessarily begrudge the incongruous height differentials so common to our pop-ups. The form can work.
My primary interests in architecture are urban living, socio-culturalism, and sustainability. So I can’t hate pop-ups. They increase urban density. Theoretically, by making more urban housing available, we should be able to make more housing available for people of mixed incomes.* This makes our cities more dynamic. Also, pop-ups are greener than most suburban construction. By increasing urban density, pop-ups can contribute to the elimination of (lonely) driving commutes, easing congestion and reducing carbon footprints, and to making richer urban streets.
Theoretically.
The question is why at this moment in the development of our city is the public realm being tarnished with so many poorly designed lumps? It’s usually not the fault of the poppers-up. I blame their designers, let’s call them the the up-poppers. [insert image: The original pop-ups of Italy…not all bad.]
With this in mind, Here are a few rules of thumb to avoid designing a horrendous pop-up:
Side note: This is meant as a beginner’s guide. Experienced designers – not your average up-popper – can get away with breaking many of these rules.
1. Don’t overthink it. As Hale notes, design with your intuition not your intellect. Proportion is the most important goal. This should be a simple design exercise. Don’t overthink it.
4 stories + basement. An urban gem. Photo Credit: Google Street View
2. Match materials to adjacent buildings below and/or beside. But I mean “match” – not “kind of, sort of match with a cheaper material.” The goal is to harmonize with the near building context.
3. The Rule of 3. This is the KISS principle of building design (“Keep it simple, stupid”). It’s hard to screw up a limited color palette. Think of some of the more elegant townhouse designs: brownstones, Federal boxes, Richardsonian Romanesque. Now count the major materials. It’s usually hard to get past 2 or 3 different colors. It’s not so simple of course, but this helps.
4. Model it before you build it. Use building information modeling (BIM) to reconstruct as much of the context below and beside as accurately as possible, as well as your proposed pop-up. Spin it around. Squint at it. As Marie Kondo asks, “Does it bring you joy? …If not throw it out!”
5. Find some alignment with the neighboring building(s) such as a cornice, prominent window heads, or fascia/gutter lines. Neighboring buildings need common ground just as much as neighboring neighbors do.
6. Set it back. A little relief helps. A flat wall can be a bit hostile to street life and human scale. 6-inches or 1-foot can be miles better than nothing; a 4-foot setback gives you a pleasant balcony.
7. Matters of degree matter. Don’t be arbitrary with your roof pitches.
8. Avoid pediments unless you know what you’re doing. If you must use a pedimented window or dormer, at least make the pitch match adjacent historic pitches in the immediate neighborhood. Some of the worst pop-up offenders utilize the wrong pediments and/or what I call “cul de sac” dormers.
9. Be replicative if you must. There are thousands of 4-story townhouses in the city that use classical stacking techniques to sensitively aggrandize the standard 2-story archetype. Historic Preservation offices frown on replication, for good reason. But as a proponent of the maxim “something is better than nothing,” I say if you can’t find a better way, then go photograph a Georgetown beauty and do everything you can to copy it. Just know you’re on thin ice. One or two elective “tweaks” and you’re right back at Home Depot quality.
…If you can’t match it, then don’t try to match it. High contrast modern glass and steel is far better than mushy replication.
10. Spend money on visible facades. Big picture, most pop-ups don’t contain all that much exposed wall area. There’s no significant cost difference between designing an ugly and a harmonious facade. For example, if you have a 10’ tall pop up across a 20’ wide townhouse, that’s only 200 square feet of primary façade cladding, including windows. The swing between $15/SF material and $30/SF material is only $3,000. A little price to pay for a lot common good. Save on alley facades if needed.
11. Windows are key! This really goes for any building design: Windows are one of the most important façade ingredients. This is a proportional decision as well as a material selection. The typical two-story pop-up might include only 4 windows. Spend a little. Look for historically complementary windows. Buy features like simulated divided lites (SDL) and deeper profiles with center-glazed sashes. Avoid flat profiles that are common to commercial office parks in the ‘burbs.
12. Don’t forget the bling. Like with necklaces and earrings, decoration on an urban infill building façade goes a long way. Try to use elements like cornices, railings, broad eaves, dentils, pilasters, and belt courses. If you’re working in a classical vocabulary, be extra sure these are carefully composed. Also note: Any of these features can be incorporated in a modern façade as well, though again, it’s just somewhat of a higher level of difficulty.
13. Hire an architect! There are great designers willing to take on this work, even if it’s just façade design consults. I charge a trivial rate for peer review, and I’m always happy to do it. Don’t risk ruining a city block that has existed for a century or more to save on a relatively minor consulting fee. [insert image: A successful pop-up in Washington DC]
I hope this helps in some small way. Please feel free to leave your comments below.
All my best,
Joe Harris, AIA, NCARB, LEED-AP
MEASURE ARCHITECTS
*Footnote: I know this is empirically debatable. But I’ll leave that question to policymakers.