Merriweather Park at Symphony Woods plans approved

tl;dr: I testify in support of the plan for Merriweather Park at Symphony Woods and the Planning Board approves it (note: correlation is not causation), Inner Arbor haters gonna hate, and Brad Canfield of Merriweather shocks me.

I was fortunate enough to be able to attend and testify at the Howard County Planning Board meeting last night at which the Board unanimously approved site development plan SDP-14-073 [PDF] for Merriweather Park at Symphony Woods, the project otherwise known as the Inner Arbor plan. Here’s a lightly-edited copy of my testimony:

Good evening. I’m speaking in support of SDP-14-073. I previously submitted written testimony to the Board; tonight I want to comment some more on the plan.

I did not closely follow the Board’s consideration of the final development plan, but since then I’ve read the documents relating to its decision. I believe the Board made the right call in putting conditions on its approval of that plan. It’s just common sense: We need a park design that works with the natural landscape rather than against it, and one that’s well integrated with Merriweather Post Pavilion.

Almost a year ago I attended the pre-submission meeting for the Inner Arbor plan. At that time I saw a plan that retained elements present in the final development plan but also fully addressed the Board’s conditions. It featured an extensive pathway system that followed the lay of the land and minimized tree removal, an imaginative alternative to the existing Merriweather fence, and attractive and well-sited shared-use structures.

That design, with some refinements, is in the site development plan you’re considering tonight. It’s a very attractive design, a design that’s much better than I would have expected given the previous history of proposed projects for Symphony Woods.

The design in SDP-14-073 incorporates the elements of the final development plan except for the fountain, which the Inner Arbor Trust now proposes be built on the Merriweather property. I understand the reasons for siting the fountain there as part of the Merriweather/Symphony Woods integration. At the same time I understand why this change might disappoint people for whom constructing a fountain was the primary attraction of the original plan for Symphony Woods.

However I believe that the goal of this multi-year effort is not to put a fountain in Symphony Woods. The fountain is simply one part of an overall effort to provide a “unique cultural and community amenity” for downtown Columbia, to quote from the Board’s previous decision. I believe that SDP-14-073 together with the proposed Merriweather Post Pavilion enhancements will meet that goal. The Board challenged CA to meet the conditions associated with its approval of the final development plan, and create a great park for downtown Columbia. The Inner Arbor Trust has more than met that challenge. I strongly urge the Board to approve SDP-14-073. Thank you.

The Planning Board meeting on November 6 saw proponents of the plan slightly outnumbering opponents;¹ in comparison, last night’s meeting was a landslide, with 16 people in favor and three people speaking in opposition. Of course this won’t put a rest to the controversy. In an earlier post I compared Inner Arbor opponents to “Obamacare” opponents in their exploitation of the issue as a way to stoke outrage among their base. I don’t expect the Planning Board’s decision will change that dynamic at all. As with the Affordable Care Act, I’m sure the opposition will continue to pursue any and all means to sabotage the development of Merriweather Park at Symphony Woods, with yet more contrived legal arguments (thanks go to Bill Woodcock for highlighting the latest example), complaints about the process, accusations of defiling Jim Rouse’s legacy, and dire warnings of a “disaster of biblical proportions”. (I’m only half kidding about the last one; one person testifying last night used language that was almost that extreme.)

However the analogy to the Affordable Care Act fails in a major way: We’re not talking here about a complicated government program where it’s almost comically easy to raise fear, uncertainty, and doubt among those who haven’t closely followed the issue. It’s a park, with pictures (lots and lots of pictures [187MB PDF]). It’s pretty easy to understand, and you either like it or you don’t. As it happens, all of the members of the general public I’ve talked to (for example, at Wine in the Woods) have liked it a lot. Now that the plan is approved and construction on phase 1 can start, more people will be able to see for themselves what Merriweather Park at Symphony Woods is all about, and I think we’ll find that that experience is repeated.

Finally, before this next phase of the Inner Arbor project begins and Merriweather Park at Symphony Woods starts to take shape, some (I hope) last comments on what went on before. In my year of blogging about the Inner Arbor plan and the associated controversy I have been variously enlightened, delighted, amused, critical, and indignant. However I have never been shocked until last night, while listening to the testimony of Brad Canfield, director of operations at Merriweather Post Pavilion. Assuming I’m correctly recollecting his remarks, in talking about the integration of Merriweather and Symphony Woods he mentioned that Cy Paumier and the original design team had never taken the time to talk to people at Merriweather, except for one phone call a few months after the Columbia Association had rejected the original park design in favor of the Inner Arbor concept.

I quite honestly find that to be mind-boggling. On the one hand you have Merriweather Post Pavilion, the most well-known and best-loved feature of Columbia to the world at large, and a key element in making Howard County an attractive place for businesses and residents. (I believe it was Dick Story who last night noted that while other jurisdictions promoting economic development have universities to help them stand out from the crowd, Howard County has Merriweather.) On the other hand you have Symphony Woods, a largely under-used property whose main function over the past 40+ years has been to serve as a surrounding environment and gateway to Merriweather. If a design team working on a plan for Symphony Woods seemingly doesn’t show any interest whatsoever in working with the Merriweather Post Pavilion operators to figure out ways they could mutually enhance the combination of properties, that speaks volumes to me about that team’s insularity, misplaced priorities, and inability to create a design worthy of what downtown Columbia could become.

Thank goodness there were other people more in touch with the realities of present-day Columbia and Howard County, people who were willing to go out of their way to imagine a better future for Merriweather Post Pavilion and Symphony Woods, and did the work and took the risks to start us on a path to making that future a reality. Thank you, everyone, I’m excited to see where we go from here.

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1. The numbers were a bit off because some people nominally listed as opposing the plan didn’t actually speak about the plan itself, but instead complained about various aspects of how the plan came to be (for example, that CA didn’t put the design out to competitive bid).

I support the plan for Merriweather Park at Symphony Woods

tl;dr: Dear Planning Board: I support SDP-14-073, the site development plan for Merriweather Park at Symphony Woods, and you should too. (signed) Frank

As previously noted by Bill Woodcock and Julia McCready, tonight (Thursday, November 6 at 7 pm) is the meeting [PDF] of the Howard County Planning Board to consider (among other things) SDP-14-073, the site development plan for Merriweather Park at Symphony Woods, otherwise known as the Inner Arbor plan, as submitted by the Inner Arbor Trust. I hope to be able to be at the meeting to express my support of the plan, but just in case I’m not able to do that I also submitted written testimony to the Planning Board earlier today, as follows:

To the members of the Howard County Planning Board:

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on SDP-14-073, the site development plan for Merriweather Park at Symphony Woods. As a longtime independent observer of the work of the Inner Arbor Trust I believe that SDP-14-073 provides a complete and detailed blueprint for a beautiful and functional cultural park. This blueprint more than fulfills the vision and requirements laid out in the Downtown Columbia Plan and the neighborhood design guidelines. In particular SDP-14-073 represents a considerable advance over the final development plan FDP-DC-MSW-1 previously reviewed by the Planning Board. The plan respects the natural landscape of the site and its status as a special place within downtown Columbia, and the various park features display a consistent degree of design excellence, as attested to by the unanimous approval of the Design Advisory Panel and the comments made by its members.

With respect to the conditions put on approval of FDP-DC-MSW-1 by the Planning Board, SDP- 14-073 meets not only the letter of those conditions but their spirit as well. Not only does the plan minimize tree removal through careful siting of the various park features, it provides an extensive system of meandering paths on which visitors can fully enjoy the natural setting of those features. In sum, the plan works with the landscape, not against it.

SDP-14-073 also shows the result of the requested coordination regarding integration of the park and its features with Merriweather Post Pavilion, making the overall Merriweather-Symphony Woods neighborhood the “unique cultural and community amenity” referred to in the previous Planning Board decision. The Chrysalis shared-use amphitheater proposed for Phase 1 will provide a suitable second venue to Merriweather Post Pavilion, the Butterfly guest services building is well-sited to serve visitors to both the pavilion and the Chrysalis (and displays an architectural excellence not found in the existing Merriweather outbuildings), and the Caterpillar “living berm” is an imaginative solution to the problem of controlling access to Merriweather Post Pavilion during events while providing access to the pavilion property during other times.

I’ve previously blogged about the parking situation at Merriweather Post Pavilion. [See here and here.] I agree with the DPZ staff that the parking arrangements proposed with SDP-14-073 are adequate for the various uses detailed. Although some may be concerned about increased traffic and parking needs associated with the development of Merriweather Park at Symphony Woods, those concerns cannot be fully addressed in the context of the park itself, since to a large degree they arise from joint uses with Merriweather Post Pavilion. In that regard I recommend the Planning Board carefully review parking proposals submitted with any development plans for the rest of the Merriweather-Symphony Woods neighborhood and (especially) for the Crescent neighborhood.

In conclusion, I strongly urge the Planning Board to approve SDP-14-073, including both phases 1 and 2 and the subsequent phases 3 through 7, subject to further review as noted. I also urge the Planning Board to adopt the DPZ staff recommendation and allow the access drive from the Merriweather VIP Lot to the Chrysalis amphitheater to extend below the southeastern boundary specified in the final development plan. Among other things, mandating an alternate routing would be inconsistent with the previous Planning Board conditions relating to minimizing tree removal. Finally, I urge the Planning Board to refrain from putting any conditions on the site development plan, now or in the future, where such conditions might compromise the integrity of the park design or otherwise result in the park not fulfilling its promise as a unique and valuable cultural and community amenity for the residents of Columbia and Howard County.

Frank Hecker
Ellicott City, Maryland

The CA board and the Inner Arbor Trust

Unfortunately I won’t be able to attend the Columbia Association board meeting this evening. Here are the remarks I had planned to make during the speak-out portion of the meeting; if anyone else wants to crib from these for their own remarks please feel free to do so:

I have two points I wanted to make tonight:

First, I have not seen the language of the Inner Arbor Trust easement, and am not qualified to comment on legal issues relating to the easement. However I have read pretty much every public source of information I could find relating to the various proposals for Symphony Woods, and everything I’ve read indicates that the Columbia Association has been accepting of the actions taken by the Inner Arbor Trust since its creation. That includes in particular the Trust’s decision to leverage the work already done by CA as part of the county planning process, and concentrate first on developing the part of Symphony Woods covered by the current Inner Arbor plan—a plan whose elements are those contained in the original CA-submitted Final Development Plan, including an amphitheater, café, play area, and so on. There is nothing in the public record to indicate that the Inner Arbor Trust was ever acting in violation of the easement as far as CA was concerned. If the current CA board is determined to test the issue in court I believe that the private record of dealings between CA and the Inner Arbor Trust will also show this to be the case.

Second, if the CA board is determined to pursue action against the Inner Arbor Trust then it will presumably put at risk the construction of the Chrysalis amphitheater, the first feature of the Inner Arbor plan scheduled to be realized. The Chrysalis is a key element of the plan, and a needed complement to a renovated Merriweather Post Pavilion. It is also a beautiful and innovative structure, designed by an award-winning architect who’s been hailed as “the rising star of the 21st century”. It would be a shame if Columbia were to lose the chance to host the first major work by an architect who may become as prominent in this century as Frank Gehry did in the last. And given that construction of the Chrysalis is being funded by the county, it would more than a shame if the CA board’s actions cause schedule delays and consequent cost overruns for which Howard County taxpayers will be asked to pick up the tab.

I believe the Inner Arbor Trust has produced a superior plan for Symphony Woods, a plan of which CA has previously been supportive. By all indications the Inner Arbor Trust has also been executing on that plan in a competent and timely manner. For the CA board to now reverse CA’s previous support of the Trust would I think do a disservice to the residents of Columbia and the rest of Howard County, who want to see a renewed and vibrant Symphony Woods. If that reversal ultimately leads to expensive and protracted legal proceedings then I think the board would also do a disservice to the Columbia Association itself, and risk damaging CA’s ability to effectively serve the Columbians to whom it is ultimately accountable.

As for what the CA board will end up doing, I have no idea. I look forward to reading reports from those who are able to attend the meeting.

UPDATE: Fixed a couple of grammatical errors.

Chrysalis designer wins World Architecture News 21 for 21 award

The Chrysalis in Symphony Woods / Merriweather Park in the Inner Arbor plan. (Click for high-resolution version.) Image © 2013 Inner Arbor Trust; used with permission.

Marc Fornes, the designer of the Chrysalis, the amphitheater planned for Symphony Woods as part of the Inner Arbor plan, and his firm THEVERYMANY are one of two winners of the 2014 WAN 21 for 21 award sponsored by World Architecture News, “an initiative aiming to highlight 21 architects who could be the leading lights of architecture in the 21st century”.

(This actually happened back in the spring, but I was only recently alerted to this when I was checking out who linked to my blog and saw a Rhino News blog post that mentioned the award. I’ve previously written about the Chrysalis, Fornes, and his firm THEVERYMANY as part of my ongoing coverage of the Inner Arbor plan; see in particular my initial post and my follow-up post discussing the structure of the Chrysalis in more detail.)

THEVERYMANY and 2014 co-winner sP+a (Sameep Padora + Associates) were selected from a total of 94 entries submitted, of which 42 were selected for more detailed consideration. The accompanying story notes that “As soon as Marc Fornes’ work was set on the table it was clear that a unanimous agreement [among the judges] was brewing” and quotes one of the architects judging the awards praising Fornes as “an absolute leader” and “the rising star of the 21st century”.

So what’s all the fuss about? The entry submitted by THEVERYMANY highlighted the Chrysalis, and discussed the firm as a “studio committed to the design and construction of prototypical architecture via custom computational methods”. The language of the submission is somewhat dry and abstract, so I’ll try to describe Fornes’s methods more informally:

Traditional architectural practice is based on architects conceiving of a structural form or set of forms in their minds, putting pen to paper to refine the design through drawings, and then using computers primarily as an aid to the rest of the process: creating more detailed drawings to nail down the final look of the structure and make sure everything will fit together as envisioned, doing structural analysis to see if the structure can handle loads, producing good-looking renderings for clients, and so on.

THEVERYMANY turns that process on its head: Don’t use the computer as a simple drawing tool, a substitute for pen and paper. Use it for what it’s truly capable of, including exploring the space of possible three-dimensional structures. More concretely: Start with sophisticated 3D modeling applications (like Rhino, the one Fornes uses). Extend them with powerful programming languages that can be used to drive the 3D modelers (Fornes uses Python as implemented in Rhino). Leverage applications that can take complex 3-dimensional surfaces and join them together into structural elements and then into complete structures (see for example RhinoNest). Add code that can analyze such structures for soundness, and that can produce instructions for computer-controlled machinery to create individual pieces that can then be assembled into the finished structure. Finally (and most importantly), find people like Fornes and his associates who have the knowledge, discipline, and aesthetic sensibility to incorporate these techniques into the heart of their architectural practice.

As the submission entry states, “The desire is not to generate models, nor installations, but rather 1:1 scale structures, prototypical architectures.” Fornes has been developing such prototypes for many years now, and “continually pushes constraints at larger scales”. The result of this work is the Chrysalis amphitheater as you see it here, a beautiful airy structure that looks as if it had emerged naturally from the earth. I hope it won’t be long before we see it in real life as part of Symphony Woods, replacing the temporary stage that’s been used this year during Wine in the Woods and other events. If all goes well it will be in place sometime next year, and Columbia can (as it did with Frank Gehry) once again boast of hosting the early work of an architect who seems destined for great things.

Promoting the Inner Arbor plan

How can we best promote the future of the Inner Arbor plan? I had a few thoughts following up from my previous post containing my testimony at the joint board meeting of Columbia Association and the Inner Arbor Trust.

“Showing up is half the battle.” Apparently the original quote was “showing up is 80% of life”, which only reinforces the point and is coincidentally apposite, since apparently 80% of the resident speak-outs at the meeting were in favor of the Inner Arbor plan. (Per Julia McCready, of the speakers who expressed a clear opinion on the plan 12 out of 15 expressed support.) Promoting the plan online is great, but I think one speaker at an in-person meeting outweighs dozens of blog posts, tweets, and Facebook likes. There will be other opportunities for Inner Arbor supporter to show up and let their voices be heard, whether through speak-outs or written testimony or both. Let’s continue this practice.

Perception has been diverging from reality. Tom Coale has emphasized that the easement scheme for Symphony Woods, under which the Inner Arbor Trust was granted power to carry out the Inner Arbor plan, provides the plan a very strong guarantee of protection from interference from the CA board: “Let’s be clear – the Inner Arbor Plan is the future of Symphony Woods. CA elections will not change that. The vote from February 2013 became irreversible once the easement was signed, so long as the provisions included therein are followed.” Given that Tom is both a lawyer and a former CA board member, I’ll take his word on this.

That means that talk from CA board members about “going back and reworking the plan”, calling for the “return of Symphony Woods to CA control”, and similar sentiments is for the most part just that: talk. In some ways the Inner Arbor skeptics elected to the CA board are like Republican legislators crying “repeal Obamacare”, who found a hot-button issue that can keep their core supporters outraged and motivated to go out and vote. Whether they can actually keep their (expressed or implied) promises to those voters seems to be beside the point.

Reality has a bias. Tom goes on to write of the irreversibility of CA’s decision: “It would be good, very good in fact, if our local media would clarify this fact for its readership.” I personally doubt this is going to happen. Luke Lavoie and other Baltimore Sun reporters have done great work in providing timely coverage of the Inner Arbor plan and the controversies surrounding it. However by the nature of their positions and the policies of their employers they and their fellow reporters at the Sun and elsewhere are very much locked into what some have called the “view from nowhere”: “a bid for trust that advertises the viewlessness of the news producer”, which “places the journalist between polarized extremes, and calls that neither-nor position ‘impartial.’” If Inner Arbor opponents on the CA board want to distort reality for their own political gain then I suspect their half-truths or even outright falsehoods will get duly recorded in the press without comment or contradiction, except perhaps for an occasional editorial piece in which “opinions” are carefully walled off from “reporting”.

“Use the Source, Luke.”¹ If folks want to really know what’s going on with the Inner Arbor plan then ultimately they need to look beyond Columbia Flier articles and go to the source documents. Fortunately the Inner Arbor plan is extremely well-documented both in its features and its history. A good place to start is the “Making of the Trust” page on the Inner Arbor Trust web site and in particular Michael McCall’s letter to the Hickory Ridge Village Board. Unfortunately primary source documents like this rarely get linked to from press articles—but that’s what bloggers are for.

Where I stand. That leads in to my final thought, about my own small role in all this as someone who supports the Inner Arbor plan and has written a lot about it. The article I quoted above also had another quote about an alternative to the “view from nowhere”, a quote that I think sums up well how I approach blogging about the Inner Arbor plan and other topics of relevance to Columbia and Howard County in general: “‘Look, I’m not going to pretend that I have no view. Instead, I am going to level with you about where I’m coming from on this. So factor that in when you evaluate my report. Because I’ve done the work and this is what I’ve concluded…’”

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1. The “Luke” here is of course Skywalker, not Lavoie, though I admit the coincidence is amusing.

On the Inner Arbor plan, listen to the people, not the protestors

Last night I went to Columbia Association headquarters for the CA board meeting that had been scheduled on very short notice to discuss the Inner Arbor plan. Due to family commitments I had to leave before the main part of the meeting, but I was able to be there long enough to participate in the “resident speak-out” and say my piece:

Good evening. My name is Frank Hecker. I’m currently a resident of Ellicott City, and I’ve been a member of various Columbia Association programs. I’ve also blogged extensively about the Inner Arbor plan, and I’m a strong supporter of it. However I’m not here tonight to talk about my thoughts on the Inner Arbor plan; you can go to frankhecker.com if you want to read those. Instead I want to talk about other peoples’ opinions of the plan.

The weekend before last I spent Saturday afternoon at the Inner Arbor Trust tent at Wine in the Woods. I had the opportunity to talk to several dozen people about the Inner Arbor plan, many of them Columbia residents, some from elsewhere in Howard County, and a few from out of the area. Every person I talked to, without exception, was enthusiastic about the plan and eager to see it come to fruition. They liked the Chrysalis amphitheater and thought it would be in a great location, right where the Wine in the Woods Purple stage was located. They thought having food and restrooms available at the Butterfly was an excellent idea, and that the building itself was very beautiful. When I explained what the Picnic Table was for they got it instantly, and thought it would be a great place to hang out during Wine in the Woods or at other times. Finally, they even understood the purpose of the Caterpillar in providing an improved entrance to Merriweather and an alternative to the current fence, and thought it very attractive.

The lesson here is that while our attention has been distracted by the views of those who are vocal opponents of the Inner Arbor plan,  other Columbians and Howard County residents constitute a vast unheard supermajority who like the Inner Arbor plan and want to see it completed as soon as possible. I suggest those of you who are just listening to the small group of opponents go out and discover the depth of support that the Inner Arbor plan has from ordinary Columbians once you have their attention and they have a good chance to learn more about it. That concludes my remarks. Thank you for providing me the opportunity to speak tonight.

I saw many other supporters of the Inner Arbor plan there as well, several of whom also spoke. I hope to see others blogging about the meeting itself, as I’m curious as to what happened after I left.

Talking about the Inner Arbor plan at Wine in the Woods

The Inner Arbor Trust tent at Wine in the Woods 2014. Click for high-resolution version.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of talking about the Inner Arbor plan to visitors to the Inner Arbor Trust tent at Wine in the Woods. (Full disclosure: I paid my own way into Wine in the Woods, but I did drink three bottles of the free water the Inner Arbor staff were handing out to all comers, to help combat my hay fever cough.) It was a fun afternoon, and prompted a few thoughts:

People like the plan. First, and most important, without exception all of the several dozen people I talked to loved the overall plan, thought the proposed features looked great, and asked me how soon they’d see them realized. Other people staffing the tent had the same experience; apparently only one person stopped by who had negative things to say. Despite the impression you might get reading Columbia Flier letters to the editor, there appears to be a very large (albeit mostly silent) base of support for the Inner Arbor plan. The issue right now is that most people haven’t been following events closely, and don’t have a good feel for the progress that’s been made in putting together a solid plan for enhancing Symphony Woods.

Taking to strangers about the plan is a good way to better understand it. In my job I’ve worked a lot of trade shows promoting my company’s products. Since my company is but one of many with a presence at a show, it’s important to be able to crisply sum up to people why it’s worth their stopping to talk to me instead of walking on by. It was the same here. In talking to people I was forced to boil down the thousands of words I’ve written about the Inner Arbor plan into a few short sentences. My best attempt: The Inner Arbor plan is all about making Symphony Woods a place you’d enjoy visiting even when it’s not Wine in the Woods. Then I’d talk about the path system and explain the various proposed park structures. It helped a lot that the tent was stuffed to the gills with poster-sized renderings of everything. However I found that people got confused sometimes about the renderings until I put them in context and explained more about what they were showing.

Talking about the Caterpillar. People generally thought the Caterpillar was cool and liked the way it looked (again, contrary to the letter writers, who seem to have a special hate for the Caterpillar). However I personally found it harder than with the other park features to crisply sum up what the Caterpillar was. I think that’s because the Caterpillar isn’t an amenity that stands alone, but instead is tied up with the overall strategy of more tightly integrating Merriweather Post Pavilion with Symphony Woods. So in explaining the Caterpillar I had to explain the strategy, which took more time. The best short explanation I came up with is that the Caterpillar is what’s going to replace the unattractive fence currently enclosing Merriweather.

The Purple Stage at Wine in the Woods, at the future location of the Chrysalis amphitheater. Click for high-resolution version.

The Chrysalis is going to have a great location. Wine in the Woods has two temporary stages for musical acts, the Green Stage and the Purple Stage. As it happens the Purple Stage is in the exact location where the Chrysalis amphitheater is planned to be built. As you can see from the accompanying picture, the Purple Stage was a popular place for people to hang out and listen to music. (In fact, it was apparently so popular that vendors at that end of the park were doing a booming business.) The Chrysalis will likely prove to be just as popular if not more so, and it will be much better looking than a temporary stage. It’s also worth noting that the hill on which people sit amongst the trees does a good job of isolating the stage visually and aurally from Merriweather Post Pavilion. It confirmed for me the wisdom of the Inner Arbor plan siting the Chrysalis further away from Merriweather (and further down the hill) than the amphitheater proposed in the Cy Paumier plan.

All in all it was a fun experience volunteering, and the time went by pretty quickly (to be honest, much more quickly than at the trade shows I do at work). The Inner Arbor Trust tent will be open again today, near the northwest entrance near the volunteer tent, so if you’re going to be attending Wine in the Woods please take a couple of minutes to stop by, say hello to the folks there, get a free bottle of water, and find out more about what’s being planned for Symphony Woods.

A better plan for Symphony Woods

Some people are now promoting the Paumier plan as a way to “save Symphony Woods”. But two years ago people concerned about preserving Symphony Woods were signing a petition against the Paumier plan and calling instead for “a unique park with meandering pathways that connect amenities and honor the natural woods”. They couldn’t know it then, but those petitioners were asking for the kind of Symphony Woods park that will be provided by the current Inner Arbor plan.

Previously I rendered my own verdict on Cy Paumier’s plan for Symphony Woods, and relayed the verdicts of the Howard County Design Advisory Panel [PDF] and then the Planning Board [PDF]. Note that the Planning Board actually approved the overall Final Development Plan for the Merriweather-Symphony Woods Neighborhood presented by the Columbia Association, including having the area host a system of walkways and various other proposed features like a café, an outdoor amphitheater, a children’s play area, and (last but not least) a fountain. However they recommended moving to a system of meandering paths rather than formal walkways, and urged closer integration of the park with the Merriweather Post Pavilion property.

After the Planning Board decision CA went into somewhat of a holding pattern with respect to Symphony Woods, with the CA staff suggesting plans be put temporarily on hold, and the CA board considering more formal coordination with Howard Hughes Corporation and Howard County. This period of relative inactivity was broken with the announcement that CA had decided to adopt a new concept plan for Symphony Woods proposed by Michael McCall, like Cy Paumier a Columbia resident and former Rouse associate.

This “Inner Arbor” plan as originally presented was not an exact replacement for the Paumier plan, but was instead a high-level plan for the entire northeast and eastern portion of Symphony Woods; thus it included elements (like a replacement for Toby’s Dinner Theater and a new CA headquarters) that were never part of the Paumier plan. However since then the Inner Arbor plan has evolved into a plan specifically for the northern portion of Symphony Woods, the same area covered by the Paumier plan, and in an important sense it can be thought of simply as a continuation of and improvement on the Paumier plan, addressing that plan’s deficiencies as identified by the Planning Board and Design Advisory Panel.

Diagram of Inner Arbor walkway system showing accessible paths. Click for high-resolution version. Adapted from slide 205 of the presentation to the Design Advisory Panel. Image © 2014 Inner Arbor Trust; used with permission.

The best place to start to appreciate that point is not with the Inner Arbor structures but rather with the walkway system proposed as part of the current Inner Arbor plan as recently presented to the Howard County Design Advisory Panel.¹ Note that the plan fully implements the Planning Board recommendation to use meandering paths. This allows paths to be routed to avoid trees and thereby minimize the number of trees needing removal.

Using meandering paths also means that the paths can follow the “lay of the land” and thus avoid steep slopes and the need for stairs as much as possible. As shown in the image above, most of the walkways (shown in green) are from 1% to 5% grade and are thus fully accessible to people using wheelchairs or who otherwise have difficulty walking. Most of the remaining paths (shown in blue), though having somewhat steeper grades in some places, still fall within the relevant ADA guidelines as applied to park trails. Only a few paths (shown in red) have steeper slopes that might require stairs. (One of the places requiring stairs is the entrance across from the mall access road, as in the Paumier plan, although unlike the Paumier plan this entrance is not the primary focal point of the design.)

The Inner Arbor plan also replaces the relatively awkward north-south alignment of the Paumier paths with a more natural east-west alignment that better conforms to the shape and orientation of the northern part of Symphony Woods. This change in alignment allows for longer paths that provide more opportunities to walk within the park, including the more scenic forest in the eastern and northeastern area of the park, which was to a large degree a “no go” area in the Paumier plan. This is made possible in part by an elevated boardwalk that allows visitors to enter at the northeastern corner of the park, at the intersection of Little Patuxent Parkway and South Entrance Road, near the Central Branch library and on the multi-use pathway to Lake Kittamaqundi. The boardwalk carries them through the northeastern portion of the park above the forest floor, and allows them to reach the Chrysalis amphitheater over a fully-accessible route.

Speaking of the Chrysalis, as noted previously the Final Development Plan based on the Paumier design envisioned various park features in addition to the walkways, including a pavilion and café (combined or separate), a fountain (interactive or otherwise), a children’s play area, public art, and an outdoor “shared use” amphitheater that could be used for both Merriweather events (e.g., as a second stage) or for events in Symphony Woods proper (e.g., Wine in the Woods). The current Inner Arbor plan makes provision one way or the other for all those elements, and (unlike the Paumier plan) includes detailed designs for almost all of them.² Put another way, almost every element in the current Inner Arbor plan is referenced in the Final Development Plan previously approved by the Planning Board.

Inner Arbor park features relative to their locations in the Paumier plan. Click for high-resolution version. Adapted from sheet 3 of FDP-DC-MSW-1, Downtown Columbia Merriweather-Symphony Woods Neighborhood Final Development Plan, and slides 25-33 of the Inner Arbor Trust presentation to the Design Advisory Panel.

The major difference from the Paumier plan is thus not the proposed park features themselves, but rather that the park features were moved to different locations within Symphony Woods, in order to improve integration with Merriweather Post Pavilion and/or to address other issues.

In particular, the Paumier plan proposed a pavilion and café located halfway between the two Merriweather entrances, next to the Merriweather Post Pavilion restrooms. In the Inner Arbor plan the corresponding structure, the Butterfly, is moved next to the Merriweather VIP parking lot, near the east entrance of Merriweather Post Pavilion, so that its shared use with Merriweather does not require opening up a new entrance (as the Paumier plan would have).

In the Paumier plan the children’s play area was proposed to be located in the Butterfly’s location; in the Inner Arbor plan the corresponding feature, the Merriground, is moved into the park proper, in a more natural setting. Finally, in the Paumier plan the proposed shared-use amphitheater was to be located next to the children’s play area, relatively close to Merriweather. In the Inner Arbor plan the corresponding structure, the Chrysalis, is moved to the east. This takes it down a hill somewhat, providing more space for the audience and decreasing possible bleed-over of sights and sounds from the Merriweather Post Pavilion to the Chrysalis and vice versa (e.g., when the Chrysalis is used as a shared stage).

The Paumier plan referenced possible public art in the park. That function is fulfilled in the Inner Arbor plan by the Merriweather Horns sound sculptures. The fountain envisioned in the Paumier plan is not in the Inner Arbor plan proper, because the proposal is to put the fountain not in Symphony Woods itself but rather within the Merriweather Post Pavilion property as part of a strategy to integrate the two areas (as recommended by the Planning Board).

Proposed unfenced boundary area between Merriweather Post Pavilion and Symphony Woods in the Inner Arbor plan, showing possible fountain plaza and cultural venues. Click for high-resolution version. Adapted from slide 201 of the presentation to the Design Advisory Panel. Image © 2014 Inner Arbor Trust; used with permission.

Another part of that integration is a proposal to tear down the current Merriweather fence (at least on the north side) and provide a substitute for it in the form of the Caterpillar, a tubular berm intended to separate the area of Symphony Woods close to Merriweather from the main area of the park. The Caterpillar thus provides access control for Merriweather Post Pavilion itself during Merriweather events, and also bounds a shared space for a possible fountain and other amenities in the area straddling the Merriweather/Symphony Woods boundary, making the fountain and its associated plaza accessible to visitors to Symphony Woods on days when there are no events at Merriweather Post Pavilion.

In conclusion: The Inner Arbor plan is more respectful of the alignment and topography of Symphony Woods than the Paumier plan, provides a better walking experience for visitors, sites the various park amenities more intelligently, integrates Symphony Woods much better with Merriweather Post Pavilion, and (last but certainly not least) requires significantly fewer trees to be removed (particularly when the park amenities are accounted for).

Finally, thanks to the comprehensive and detailed work that has been done by the Inner Arbor team (work that for whatever reason was never done for the Paumier plan), the current Inner Arbor plan is an example of the design excellence that can be produced by talented local firms working in concert with leading designers and architects from around the world, and meets the challenge that Del. Elizabeth Bobo set for those designing the future of Columbia Town Center:

There is great anticipation in the community of bold, creative public spaces …. Where are the grand designs that excite the spirit and capture the soul, becoming material for textbooks to train future architects and planners? Columbia, Mr. Rouse’s “next America” and arguably the most successful new town in the world, is a perfect home for them.

This concludes my series on the Paumier plan and the Inner Arbor plan as compared to it. In future posts I’ll briefly revisit the Inner Arbor plan as presented to the Design Advisory Panel, and comment on some of the changes since my original series of Inner Arbor posts.

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1. For more information see the Design Advisory Panel meeting minutes [PDF] and the Inner Arbor Trust Presentation at that meeting [304MB PDF].

2. To give a rough indication of the relative completeness of the two plans, the presentation to the Design Advisory Panel for the Paumier plan contained 36 slides, while the Inner Arbor presentation to the DAP contained 236.

Five thoughts on Symphony Woods

When I was writing my post on Symphony Woods and sacred lands I had a number of thoughts that were too long to put in that post and too short to each deserve a post of their own. So here they are, all collected together:

“15 Reality Checks on the Plan” from the Inner Arbor Trust. Click for high-resolution version. Adapted from “Merriweather Park at Symphony Woods: By the Numbers”, © 2014 Inner Arbor Trust; used with permission.

Sacred lands and the facts don’t always get along. Recently the Inner Arbor Trust released a document (“Merriweather Park at Symphony Woods: By the Numbers” [PDF]) that attempts to correct misconceptions about the Inner Arbor plan. It’s a good document (though at almost 180MB it takes a while to download), and if and when I have time I’ll blog more about it in detail. However I suspect it’s also probably a wasted effort as far as many people are concerned: When people come to think of land as sacred they often stop thinking about the reality of the land as opposed to its sanctity, and the facts are then often ignored, overlooked, or distorted.

For example, in my last post I wrote about a controversy in New York City relating to 9/11; you have probably heard it referred to as “the mosque at Ground Zero”, but in fact it was neither: not an actual mosque but an Islamic community center with a prayer space (albeit a fairly large one), and not at Ground Zero but rather two blocks away. But the emotion around the 9/11 attacks was (and is) so intense that the juxtaposition of “mosque” and “Ground Zero” was much more memorable than the actual reality, and once that juxtaposition lodged in people’s minds it was difficult to impossible to get it out.¹

Those who preach a land’s sanctity aren’t always saints. Going back to the example above, did people just happen to innocently get the facts wrong and decide a mosque was going to be built right where the twin towers stood? Well, no, not exactly. There were plenty of people who worked to actively spread this idea because they themselves stood to benefit if others believed it were true: news channels trying to increase their ratings, politicians trying to attract votes, advocacy groups trying to raise money, and so on.

A map of the trees to be removed as part of the Inner Arbor plan. Click for high-resolution version. Adapted from “Merriweather Park at Symphony Woods: By the Numbers”, © 2014 Inner Arbor Trust; used with permission.

There’s no reason why Columbia should be exempt from this phenomenon, and based on reports from others some reasons to think that Columbia and CA have their own versions of it. (For example, consider the case of the elderly CA voter who was convinced Julia McCready was running for the CA board in order to run old people out of Columbia.) I would not be surprised to hear that some Columbians are now firmly of the opinion that the Inner Arbor plan will result in wholesale cutting of trees in Symphony Woods, because someone else saw fit to put that idea in their heads. (In actual fact the Inner Arbor plan as proposed will result in many fewer trees being removed than in the previous Columbia Association plan, also known as the Cy Paumier plan after its lead designer.²)

This is all Jim Rouse’s fault, really. Recently Robert Tennenbaum, the former chief architect and planner for Columbia, quoted Jim Rouse’s words about Symphony Woods from the 1964 presentation “Columbia: A New Town for Howard County”: “Today a magnificent stand of trees, this 40 acre woods will be permanently preserved and cultivated as a quiet, convenient and strikingly beautiful asset of the town.” All well and good; however I think it’s also useful to consider what Jim Rouse did and not just what he said.

First, as I’ve previously mentioned, Jim Rouse saw fit to put a large outdoor amphitheater smack in the middle of the “magnificent stand of trees” in question. Second, Jim Rouse also saw fit for the Rouse Co. to retain ownership of the Crescent property surrounding Symphony Woods, as opposed to deeding it to CA or to the county. Did he do this because he planned for that property to be “permanently preserved and cultivated as a quiet, convenient and strikingly beautiful asset of the town”? Given that Rouse was a canny and successful businessman, I presume instead that he did it because the Crescent was a potentially-valuable piece of centrally-located property that the Rouse Co. or its successors could at some point profitably develop for high-density office, retail, or residential use.

So if you’re concerned that “Symphony Woods” (i.e., including the wooded area next to US 29 and Broken Land Parkway) will soon start looking much smaller, and that Symphony Woods itself (i.e., the CA property) is going to be across the street from 20-story condo towers, be aware that this is not because evil outsiders invaded Columbia and betrayed Jim Rouse’s vision, it’s because Rouse himself took the actions that made these developments possible, and perhaps inevitable. (However, in Rouse’s defense there are in fact areas in the Crescent that will remain undeveloped, for example between Area 1 and Area 2 and between Area 2 and Area 3. So more woods will remain than one might think, and it’s possible that given appropriate easements and paths that they could be used as an extension of Symphony Woods itself.)

Cy Paumier plan for Symphony Woods showing park features proposed to be constructed. Click for high-resolution version. Image adapted from FDP-DC-MSW-1, Downtown Columbia Merriweather-Symphony Woods Neighborhood Final Development Plan.

There is no “let’s not build stuff” plan for Symphony Woods. Many people think of the choice for Symphony Woods as between a new plan involving radical changes and a prior plan preserving Symphony Woods pretty much as is. This is in fact not the case: The previous CA plan by Cy Paumier envisioned as many new park features in Symphony Woods as the Inner Arbor plan, just in different places. To be specific, as presented to the Howard County Planning Board [PDF] the plan “proposed future parkland improvements, including a network of pathways, a fountain, a shared use pavilion, a shared use amphitheater, a shared use cafe, play activity area, woodland garden area, [and] parking within a 16.1 acre project area ….”

Almost all of these features have direct counterparts in the Inner Arbor plan: The shared use amphitheater became the Chrysalis, the shared use café and pavilion were combined to become the Butterfly, and the play activity area became the Merriground. The Inner Arbor plan has no fountain in Symphony Woods proper, but the Inner Arbor Trust has proposed locating one in a plaza next to Merriweather Post Pavilion. The Paumier plan had no equivalent to the Caterpillar, presumably because unlike the Inner Arbor plan the Paumier plan assumed that Symphony Woods would be closed to the general public during most Merriweather events. (A primary purpose of the Caterpillar is to control Merriweather access closer to the pavilion itself, rather than at the park boundaries.) There also was no direct equivalent to the Merriweather Horns in the Paumier plan, although the plan did state that “[The] entire park is a potential site for future public art.”

Being “Disneyesque” is not necessarily a bad thing. One of the persistent charges against the Inner Arbor plan is that it is “Disneyesque” and turns Symphony Woods into an “amusement park” with “attractions” (in scare quotes) unsuitable for the wooded setting. This seems an odd accusation for several reasons. First, as noted above the Paumier plan had pretty much the same set of “attractions” as the Inner Arbor plan. Second, given that Jim Rouse was apparently quite the admirer of Walt Disney—he said in 1963 that “the greatest piece of urban design in the United States today is Disneyland”—I suspect he would have thought the term “Disneyesque” to be more a compliment than an insult.

In fact, I’d go so far as to say that preserving Symphony Woods for future generations to enjoy will require more than a bit of the same sort of design thinking that went into Walt Disney’s theme parks. In particular, once the Crescent property is developed the remaining area of Symphony Woods is going to seem relatively small: the Inner Arbor plan preserves almost 80% of Symphony Woods as a natural wooded area, but that’s still only 14 acres or so—about the size of a small subdivision in western Howard County (land of 3-acre lots). A prime task is then to make Symphony Woods seem bigger to visitors than it actually is—the same problem faced by theme parks like Disneyland, and one that their creators did a good job of addressing through artful design.

Walkable paths and roads in the Inner Arbor plan. Adapted from “Merriweather Park at Symphony Woods: By the Numbers”, © 2014 Inner Arbor Trust; used with permission.

The Paumier plan with its straight paths does a poor job of this in my opinion; in particular the main path through the park makes it glaringly obvious how short the distance is from Little Patuxent Parkway to Merriweather Post Pavilion. The Inner Arbor plan instead has lots of “meandering paths” (as called for by the Howard County Planning Board after the Design Advisory Panel found fault with the Paumier plan), together with access roadways forming about two miles of walking surfaces within the confines of the park, and featuring over two thousand places to sit along the way. But I suspect people will probably prefer to walk than to sit, since as with the best theme parks walking will continually bring new sights to visitors’ attentions, between the natural beauty of the woods and the various attractive park features.

That concludes my thoughts on Symphony Woods, at least for now. I hope to come back later with more thoughts on the Crescent development.

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1. I’m as culpable as anyone else when it comes to not letting facts get in the way of my emotions and convictions. A few blog posts back I wrote that some people seemed to oppose the Inner Arbor plan because “Jim Rouse (or one of his disciples) didn’t propose [it]”. Soon afterward Michael McCall wrote me and politely pointed out that he had worked for Jim Rouse for many years; in other words, one of Jim Rouse’s disciples was in fact behind the Inner Arbor plan. I actually knew McCall had worked for Rouse, but I was so invested in the narrative of forward thinking vs. “What would Jim Rouse do?” nostalgia that my mind conveniently forgot this particular fact.

2. The Inner Arbor “by the numbers” document lists the total number of trees to be cut as 31, at least half of which are not considered to be in good condition; see the full document for a complete list of exactly which trees are proposed to be removed, their species, and conditions. Contrasting this to the original plan, Cy Paumier wrote in July 2012, “Between 50 and 60 trees will need to be removed to construct the Symphony Woods Park walkways.” According to testimony at the Howard County Planning Board hearing on the plan, also in July 2012, up to 64 trees could be removed, or a bit more than twice the number proposed to be removed for the Inner Arbor plan. Note that unlike the Inner Arbor plan these figures do not appear to account for any trees to be removed for the shared-use pavilion, shared-use amphitheater, play area, and other park elements proposed in the CA documents submitted to Howard County.

Symphony Woods and sacred lands

“Symphony Woods” is at risk of disappearing. Not the literal Symphony Woods, the trees on the Columbia Association property surrounding Merriweather Post Pavilion—as I’ve written before, the Inner Arbor plan proposed for that property would result in the removal of very few trees, fewer even than the previous Cy Paumier plan that’s been touted by some as more true to Jim Rouse’s vision. Rather what’s at risk of disappearing is a certain idea about what “Symphony Woods” actually is, and I think understanding better what that means is key to understanding the ongoing resistance to the Inner Arbor plan and related developments concerning CA and downtown Columbia. This post is a first attempt at such an understanding.

My personal thinking on this topic has evolved. As readers of this blog are well aware, I’ve been a big supporter of the Inner Arbor plan, and I remain a supporter. While I’ve tried not to demonize them, I have not been particularly sympathetic to those who opposed the plan, an opposition that in my opinion was misguided and not in the best interests of Columbia and Howard County. I even felt a touch of schadenfreude when I read that some current CA board members were upset about the Inner Arbor Trust referring to “Merriweather Park” instead of “Symphony Woods”—“reduced to arguing about a name”, I remember thinking.

But, but… as I myself drove by the woods on my way through Columbia and looked more into the Crescent development plan, I came to realize how small Symphony Woods the property was in relation to what I had traditionally thought of as “Symphony Woods”. I had been used to thinking of the entire area bounded by Broken Land Parkway, Little Patuxent Parkway, US 29, and the South Entrance Road as encompassing a relatively unchanging “Symphony Woods”. It certainly looks that way from the road, and also when I ventured into the area for events like Wine in the Woods and Symphony of Lights. So I was surprised and a bit disturbed to find that much I had thought of as “Symphony Woods” wasn’t really Symphony Woods at all, but simply undeveloped commercial property that had been originally acquired by Jim Rouse and passed down by the Rouse Co. to GGP and now to the Howard Hughes Corporation, ultimately to be the site of the intensive development represented by the current Crescent proposal.

My consternation didn’t end there. In reviewing the Crescent plans I compared them to current maps of the area and went looking for Symphony Woods Road, what I thought of as the current and future boundary between the Crescent development and Symphony Woods itself. But there is no Symphony Woods Road in the Crescent plan—or if there is it is reduced to a mere stub of what it once was. In its place is a ring road named “West Crescent” after the development itself. It’s another symbolic encroachment on the idea of “Symphony Woods”, even if it leaves Symphony Woods (the property) itself undisturbed.

At about the same time I read an article by Peter Turchin (whose writings I’ve previously recommended) explaining why (in his opinion) Vladimir Putin and indeed the vast majority of Russians were so intent on wresting control of Crimea from Ukraine. In essence Turchin’s argument is that evolutionary dynamics since the invention of agriculture have favored those who defend their core territories—their “sacred lands”—with an intensity that is impossible to account for as a “rational” weighing of costs and benefits. In Turchin’s view Crimea is such a place for Russians, sanctified by a history that includes the Crimean war and the siege of Sevastopol, the Crimean capital.

The example of Crimea may be off-putting given Putin’s reputation as an authoritarian and corrupt leader. But (as Turchin writes in a follow-up post) almost all countries have their own sacred lands and sacred ground—consider for example the vehement opposition to building an Islamic community center near the site of the destroyed World Trade Center towers.

I believe that Symphony Woods—or, if you will, “Symphony Woods”—is in a strong sense “sacred land” for some Columbians, especially including many Columbia “pioneers”. It is in the heart of Columbia, and because of its location is not seen as being part of any one village (as, for example, Lake Elkhorn is part of Owen Brown) but rather as part of Columbia as a whole. And because of its ownership by CA it both literally and symbolically belongs to all Columbians in a way that a commercial development like the Mall in Columbia (or, for that matter, the Crescent development) never could. Note also that much of the opposition to the Inner Arbor plan is couched in terms of sanctity and disgust, honor, invasion by an alien presence, and so on—“deeply disturb me”, “bizarre sights”, “Disneyesque”, “disrespect”, “betrayal”, “a threatening … insect looming over the pathways”—a clear sign that more is at work here than a measured weighing of pros and cons.

So where do we go from here? My first thought is for myself: Whether I agree with Inner Arbor opponents or not, the distress they express is for the most part sincerely felt and deserving of respect. (I say “for the most part” because in every controversy there are always people on both sides who enjoy controversy for its own sake, or for the opportunities it brings them to advance their own agendas.) It’s also good to remember that my own reasons for supporting the Inner Arbor plan are also in large part emotional and “irrational”. (For example, I’d like to see Columbia and Howard County be a site for good contemporary architecture. I’m sick and tired of the former Rouse building and Merriweather Post Pavilion being the only well-known examples of architectural distinction in the county— that was forty years ago, folks, and there are good architects other than Frank Gehry.)

My next thought is for the Inner Arbor Trust and the Howard Hughes Corporation: Don’t be so quick to discard the “Symphony Woods” name in pursuit of your own branding strategies. Names aren’t simply names: The one who names a place exerts (symbolic) ownership over it, and the one who renames a place is symbolically seizing ownership of that place from those who formerly called it their own. Yes, retaining the “Symphony Woods” name may be only a symbolic concession, but this is a situation in which symbolism is, if not everything, at least a great deal.

My final thought is for everyone: To wait and see what happens, especially in the case of the Inner Arbor, for which the need for additional funding means that the plan will be (can only be) realized in many steps over many years. The first phase of the Inner Arbor plan will be the Chrysalis outdoor amphitheater. As it happens, a “shared-use small outdoor amphitheater on CA land” was also proposed as part of the former plan, so in that sense the Chrysalis is in the spirit of an alternate approach touted by Inner Arbor opponents.

And maybe it will turn out that they and others will like it. It’s not uncommon for new works of architecture to be derided before being embraced—consider for example the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the Mall, now almost universally praised but condemned before its construction as a “black gash of shame” and a “nihilistic slab of stone”. I wouldn’t put the Chrysalis and the other Inner Arbor features up there with Maya Lin’s design, but I think they are solid examples of good architecture, respectful of the Symphony Woods setting, and potentially great additions to Columbia and Howard County. They deserve a fair judgment on their merits, and I hope will receive it. In the meantime no more schadenfreude from me.