ALFRED A. YEE
Perspective: Planning
RICHARD LOWE
Richard Lowe is a planner and founding partner of Lowe and Associates in Honolulu. He graduated from MIT with a degree in City Planning in 1961 and moved to Hawaii in 1964, where he worked on the master plan for the Honolulu Civic Center, among many other projects.
Kevin Lynch, the famed professor of City Planning and Urban Design at MIT, thought that people made mental maps of the places they lived using five key elements: paths, nodes, edges, districts, and landmarks. The first landmark in my mental map of Honolulu was the gracious Queen Emma Gardens, designed by the architect Minoru Yamasaki and engineered by Alfred Yee. I later had the privilege of living there.
Lynch’s five elements provide a way of defining or describing a city, neighborhood, or other urban place, but can also be used as a framework for enabling others to participate in the design of a city, or part thereof, and achieve a quality environment. Queen Emma Gardens (1964) exemplifies this approach to planning, serving as a “city in miniature” and a local example of the Corbusian ideal of “towers in a garden.”
Lynch’s five elements provide a way of defining or describing a city, neighborhood, or other urban place, but can also be used as a framework for enabling others to participate in the design of a city, or part thereof, and achieve a quality environment. Queen Emma Gardens (1964) exemplifies this approach to planning, serving as a “city in miniature” and a local example of the Corbusian ideal of “towers in a garden.”
Photo Credit:Robert Wenkam
Photo Credit: Robert Wenkam
The complex comprises 582 apartment units in three towers (the King and Queen, each 25 stories, and the Prince Tower, 14 stories). A recreational garden tops the 600-stall parking garage, offering a pool, pool terrace, and, for the property’s vigorous, athletic residents, a walking path. Visually, the garage is hidden underground. A large lawn stretches from the Prince Tower to the King and Queen towers, and surrounding the King Tower is a rich landscape of lagoons and islands with Japanese-style pavilions, which can be reserved for events and entertainment. Extensive wood decks hover over the water, creating additional space for outdoor and indoor entertaining (wedding receptions, for example). As a result, Queen Emma Gardens residents have private gardens for outdoor escapes, although the otherwise strict managers do allow registered visitors to explore the gardens.
Queen Emma Gardens is a city in miniature, but it is also connected to the city. It is conveniently located within the city center. Adjacent blocks feature Foster Botanic Garden and a YMCA with excellent athletic facilities. The Honolulu Civic Center, which includes the City Hall, the State Capital, and the Federal Building, is just two to three blocks away, as is Chinatown. Also nearby are cathedrals of major churches and Queens Hospital, which is surrounded by the offices of various clinics and private doctors’ offices. Thus its location is the beneficiary of excellent land use and city planning.
Other powers for implementing plans for city betterment are the “police” powers of zoning, subdivision control, and control through building permit procedures. There are also the powers of persuasion, which could be counted among the leadership traits of the late Alfred Yee, who was as much a salesman as he was an engineer.
My own training in City Planning at MIT under Kevin Lynch taught me that the five elements— path, node, edge, district, and landmark—can help cities evaluate, describe, and inform plans to renew and improve the urban environment. At Queen Emma Gardens, these elements are legible: Physical pathways are planned to provide distinct and pleasant experiences for both pedestrian and vehicular traffic, particularly in the arrival sequence. The property’s edges are composed of landscaped “cushions,” creating a buffer zone on each side of the property between the living areas and the adjacent roadways. And the outdoor amenities transform a private housing complex into a community node that hosts wedding receptions and other events. My own cousin was married at Foster Botanical Garden. The wedding was followed by a reception around the Queen Emma koi pond across the street.
Alfred Yee may not be single-handedly responsible for these elements, but his creative problem-solving enabled their presence. Not to mention that his frequent collaborations with Yamasaki and other aesthetically minded architects reveal an appreciation for quality urban design, and an understanding of Lynch’s elements of the city.
Queen Emma Gardens is a city in miniature, but it is also connected to the city. It is conveniently located within the city center. Adjacent blocks feature Foster Botanic Garden and a YMCA with excellent athletic facilities. The Honolulu Civic Center, which includes the City Hall, the State Capital, and the Federal Building, is just two to three blocks away, as is Chinatown. Also nearby are cathedrals of major churches and Queens Hospital, which is surrounded by the offices of various clinics and private doctors’ offices. Thus its location is the beneficiary of excellent land use and city planning.
Other powers for implementing plans for city betterment are the “police” powers of zoning, subdivision control, and control through building permit procedures. There are also the powers of persuasion, which could be counted among the leadership traits of the late Alfred Yee, who was as much a salesman as he was an engineer.
My own training in City Planning at MIT under Kevin Lynch taught me that the five elements— path, node, edge, district, and landmark—can help cities evaluate, describe, and inform plans to renew and improve the urban environment. At Queen Emma Gardens, these elements are legible: Physical pathways are planned to provide distinct and pleasant experiences for both pedestrian and vehicular traffic, particularly in the arrival sequence. The property’s edges are composed of landscaped “cushions,” creating a buffer zone on each side of the property between the living areas and the adjacent roadways. And the outdoor amenities transform a private housing complex into a community node that hosts wedding receptions and other events. My own cousin was married at Foster Botanical Garden. The wedding was followed by a reception around the Queen Emma koi pond across the street.
Alfred Yee may not be single-handedly responsible for these elements, but his creative problem-solving enabled their presence. Not to mention that his frequent collaborations with Yamasaki and other aesthetically minded architects reveal an appreciation for quality urban design, and an understanding of Lynch’s elements of the city.