Putting the Byte on Residential Zoning
This column is being written on a personal computer at home, which raises some interesting land-use and design issues that I suspect will become more prevalent as we move into a new technological age based on the computer chip.
By using a software program for writing on my computer--to generate an article for which I am paid--am I violating the local zoning code that specifically prohibits a commercial use in a residential zone?
And what about persons using software programs in their homes for other business activities, such as accounting, which they normally would have done in their offices before the advent of the home computer?
Can we expect, with the growth of the computer, a resurgence of so-called cottage industries, which, in part, nearly a century ago, led to the concept of modern zoning separating the workplace from the home?
And not just the workplace. Because entertainment uses are also generally excluded from residential zones, would using software in my computer to play a game with friends invited to my home also be a violation?
Indeed, shall the differences between a commercial, an entertainment and a residential zone in the future be dependent not on what scale and style a building someone might construct, but on what type of software is being used in the computers within the building?
Then there also are questions concerning how should the buildings, which in effect are now taking on the functions of an office and a theater as well as a residence, be designed or redesigned to accommodate their new, mixed use?
And beyond the home/office/theater, there are the larger questions of how the recent phenomenal rise in automation, information technologies and telecommunications will reshape our cities and suburbs.
If I can write at home a few days a week, that means I don’t have to go into the office. That means there will be one less car on the freeway, or one less passenger on the No. 10 Santa Monica Express bus. At the office, someone else can use my desk and computer. And the restaurants I frequent when downtown will have one less tab to tally.
Of course, I am just one of nearly 300,000 people who work downtown. But what if the concept of using personal computers keeps expanding, as is expected? What will happen to downtown and the freeways serving it when, say, 30,000 people choose to work out of their homes? What about other areas?
What new forms will office towers, business parks, retail districts, shopping malls and transportation systems take--indeed what will be the demand for these facilities--when people will have the increasing option to bring employment, entertainment, education services, and so-called teleshopping and telebanking into their home?
“Our present land planning rules are really based on the 19th-Century city, in which it was imperative for health and safety reasons to separate residential and industrial districts,” observes George Lefcoe of the University of Southern California’s Law Center.
“But with the home computer, factories in effect becoming part of the residences,” added Lefcoe, who is also a member of the Los Angeles County Planning Commission, “there is a real blurring of some basic land-use issues that I suspect will become more complicated as the computer becomes more pervasive.”
These issues and their effect on planning and development are to be discussed and debated at a conference Lefcoe is chairing Friday and Saturday at USC, and has labeled “Landtronics.” Sponsored by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, the county’s Economic Development Corporation, the Southern California Assn. of Governments and the Annenberg School of Communication and the Law Center at USC, the conference could offer a glimpse at the future.
One effect the new technology already has had on design is the development of a few so-called “smart” buildings, in which tenants are offered a range of on-site telecommunications services. Two such buildings here are 400 S. Hope St., and the World Savings Center at 11601 Wilshire Blvd., both developed by Olympia & York.
The services offered in the buildings include access to central data banks, modem pooling and video conferencing. According to a spokesperson for the developer, these services in time “seem destined to become as ubiquitous as elevators and air conditioning.”
The concept of “smart” buildings is catching on, and catching up is the American Institute of Architects. It has scheduled a major national conference in Los Angeles March 14-18 to explore the latest advances in technology research and architectural design.
The emphasis of the conference will be the application of new design and management tools, “especially computers, and how architects and other design professionals can respond to the increasing interest in “smart” buildings. Those interested are asked to contact Kim Leiker of the AIA at (202) 626-7560 or the local AIA office, (213) 659- 2282.
“Smart,” multi-use office build ings may be the future, but museums seem to be engaging the interest of architects today. Museums have become architectural showpieces, just as public buildings and cathedrals have been in the past.
Reviewing with promised candor the design and history of museums in five lectures beginning tomorrow and running through Friday at UCLA will be Arthur Rosenblatt, vice president of architecture and planning at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Those interested are asked to call (213) 825 9061.
Rosenblatt has set aside Saturday, from 1 to 4 p.m in the Dickson Art Center to discuss the architecture and interior design of the Metropolitan, his own role there as a innovator and what the future might hold.
Museums also were to have been the topic of a lecture by Richard Meier at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art on Wednesday at 8 p.m. But the talk by Meier, who recently was selected to design the new arts complex here for the J. Paul Getty Trust, has been rescheduled for April.
