OPINION: Where urban furniture is more than what it seems in Pullman

Work on downtown Pullman is by now complete, just in time for the holidays, a gift we can all enjoy. For years the sidewalks had been broken and unsightly, soliciting scorn and neglect. Today they look much better, wonderful to walk on.

Indeed, there is so much that the downtown project got right. My favorite is the articulated connection between Main and Grand, where Main narrows and gives way to a dignified and pleasant pedestrian crossing. Between hard and soft surfaces, there is a nice balance, even whimsy, just enough to inspire the walker to slow down and look around.

But one thing it got wrong is the furniture. Let’s start with the benches. Two types have been added, the first with a backrest, the second without. In the interest of space, let’s focus on the benches without the backrest. Seen from a thousand feet above ground, they make sense, namely as incremental lines marching down the sidewalk and visually reinforcing the lines of both street and sidewalk. Both, street and sidewalk, take a great deal of time and money to design and build. It would be too bad if they were left to lie there flat, as mere surfaces on which to drive and walk. They need to be recognized as critical contributors to civic action. The backless benches do that job nicely, adding just enough height and visual volume to give the new infrastructure spatial definition and integrity.

All is well so far but dig a little deeper and soon matters will begin to make much less sense. Consider specifically the bench in Figure 1. Facing a blank concrete wall on one side and cars on the other, it is difficult to look at it and not wonder: For whom was it designed and located? Is it the young, the old, the father who has just picked up his daughter from school and is keen on using the urban fabric to explore lessons in art, physics, economics? Out of scale with the sidewalk and facing nothing of the kind that would invite human reciprocation, it is for none of these people.

No doubt the lawyer down the street heading to lunch and discovering that his shoelaces are untied will stop at the bench and fix the problem. And yes, no doubt that during fun festive gatherings, once or twice a year, a mother will use the same bench to feed her toddler. But can we think of other scenarios where this piece of urban furniture can serve a redeemable civic purpose at all, or in any way foster action and synergy of any sort? I can’t. Wasn’t this, in good part, why we sought to improve downtown? Modernizing infrastructure had always been the priority, to be sure, but a very close second was answering the urgent call to restore life to a rundown and desolate place.

The problem is neither difficult nor insurmountable, but it does require a moment of thought. Adding a table to the bench in the picture, and others like it on Main Street, would have made a huge difference, not willy-nilly, but in a manner that integrates the two, bench and table, and invites residents to consider their city an extension of their living room. Instead of a useless bench, appreciated only as picture taken from a soulless drone, now we would have had one that could compel people to come out of their shell and use public space to achieve important ends, including teaching emerging generations about the role the built environment plays in social and political unity.

And speaking of willy-nilly, please consider the image in Figure 2, showing a cylindrical trash can next to another bench, this time with a backrest. The two hail from two very different design sensibilities, the first round and elephantine, the second slender, straight and diminutive. What the latter tries so hard to do to be elegant, the other shamelessly blows out of the water. Back and forth the two go in an endless and mutual show of middle fingers between the two. Making matters worse is the fact that the sidewalk is not straight but leans toward the curb, causing the trash can to similarly lean and appear misaligned with the context of nearby buildings, light posts, signage and so on. The whole composition looks sloppy and aesthetically clueless. And yet the problem is not one of simply relocating the trash can away from the bench, but more critically of understanding scale, space, design intent and so on.

Other design flaws persist elsewhere, but I am already out of room and must wait until a different column to talk about them. Had we had a design review committee that examines projects and situations of this sort, the problem would have been spotted and corrected immediately. But of course we don’t, an issue mentioned in this column many times in the past but to no particular reception. Aesthetic blindness need not be the reputation on which we hang our hat, unless of course it should mean moral deficiency or a waste of time. If so, let’s collectively say so and move on with our lives.

Rahmani is a professor of architecture at Washington State University where he teaches courses in design and theory.