At the Rhode Island School of Design on the evening of Sep. 18, architect and planner Vishaan Chakrabarti pulled off what can be a difficult feat — getting an audience jazzed about zoning, building codes, and the nitty gritty of urban development.

In his talk titled “Getting to Goldilocks: Housing Communities, Building Neighborhoods, Preserving Nature,” Chakrabarti delved into the ways in which architecture can tell stories and enable people to come together. He identified “connective design” — intentional work by planners and architects to encourage deeper relationships at every scale of society — as key to addressing the housing crisis, climate change, and other crucial issues facing American cities today. 

The talk was moderated by PPS Executive Director Marisa Brown and Jacqueline Shaw, chair of the Architecture Department at RISD. 

Chakrabarti is the founder and creative director of Practice for Architecture and Urbanism (PAU), has authored multiple books on urbanism, and has garnered attention for his widely-read essay in the New York Times titled “How To Make Room for One Million New Yorkers.” 

Ahead of Providence’s City Council vote on the draft Comprehensive Plan later this session, Chakrabarti’s discussion of how planning can be a tool to foster deeper community bonds and improve quality of life resonated with current events in the city.

‘We are Growing. We Can’t Stop that Force’: Smiley Talks Comp Plan, Affordability, Climate

Mayor Brett Smiley spoke before Chakrabarti’s talk. He discussed the ideal of strategic density, the importance of the Comprehensive Planning process, and how to “facilitate growth in an incremental way without destroying neighborhood character.”

Smiley said that Providence is facing a housing crisis and that adding to the housing stock is necessary. “It is a crisis that’s driven by the fact that our population is expanding, and the growth of housing stock is not expanding at a commiserate rate, and therefore prices are going up,” he said.

Apartments are roughly 96% occupied in Providence, Smiley mentioned. “That is what’s driving costs both on home ownership and on rentals,” Smiley added. “It is our goal as an administration to have housing options available at every price point, both homeownership and rental.”

He mentioned the Providence Redevelopment Agency’s recent allocation of about $55 million for affordable housing throughout the city.

Smiley discussed development incentives as an area for growth. “We are working on incentives, which is the place where I think we’ve made the least amount of progress because of political cross-currents and funding.”

Smiley touched on the importance of considering climate change and stormwater management in all new developments in addition to the need for increased affordable housing options. 

“We are growing. We cannot stop that force,” he said. “I don’t think we should, but we do have the ability to control how that growth happens and we’re trying to do it in a thoughtful way.”

‘Getting to Goldilocks’: Chakrabarti’s Method of Strategic Density

Chakrabarti touched on the history of zoning and urban planning, the collaborative potential of design, and how to enable sustainable growth of cities throughout his presentation.

He mentioned examples from his own work — such as the adaptive reuse of the abandoned Domino Sugar Refinery on the Brooklyn waterfront — and from around the world to illustrate a vision of cities that bring together people of different backgrounds in the same spaces.

He described how American urban planning in the twentieth century often divided cities across identity lines. Whether through redlining or racial covenants, zoning in America influenced and was influenced by systemic racism; the consequences of these urban plans radiate throughout our cities, including Providence, today.

Chakrabarti discussed the idea of urbanity as grit and “the positive social friction of difference” — meaning that cities should bring together people of different communities, whether socioeconomic, racial, religious, or ideological, to interact with each other outside of the silos of urban living.

He highlighted the adaptive reuse of the Domino Sugar Refinery in Brooklyn and a waterfront park. Chakrabarti emphasized bringing history into the present with his design, juxtaposing the brick facade with a sleek glass interior structure. The park around the building has become a gathering place for several different communities — from Orthodox Jewish residents to Black residents to hipsters.

With his firm, “we try to forge the idea of connection,” Chakrabarti said. He also emphasized that architecture is a form of storytelling, and that architects and designers must be able to convey visual ideas in a way that resonates with residents. “It’s a discipline where you have to explain visual things to non-visual people. And that’s what architects spend a lot of their time doing all day.”

He concluded with a deep dive into what he called “Goldilocks housing” — housing that is not too big and not too small, and can be adapted to a variety of contexts.

These structures are bigger than single-family homes but smaller than a skyscraper. A building at about three stories optimizes the building code standards, creates a structure that can be net-zero, and still allows for increased density without disrupting the fabric of more residential areas in cities.

Chakrabarti highlighted the need for a different kind of developer than the norm in places like New York City and Providence to greenlight these “Goldilocks” projects. There’s a “need for a different kind of building, for smaller scale builders. Builders often, I think, from underrepresented communities, women, people of color, [are] not what you think of as the typical New York real estate developer.”

Ultimately, Chakrabarti hoped that more people can become a part of the design and development process. “So what I’m advocating [for] is what I call this idea of connective design, where every building [decision] about where you put, a door, a loading dock, a canopy, those decisions all either invite people or shun people,” he said. “And so it’s really quite granular, but it leads to these larger ideas of diversity, positive social friction, joy, nature and culture.” 

The next public hearing on Providence’s Comp Plan is at 5:30 pm on Oct. 2 at the City Council Chamber. Attend and testify to voice your thoughts on the plan before the Council moves to approve it later this fall.

By Katy Pickens / Planning and Preservation Writer / kpickens@ppsri.org