The community of Carpenter Village can expect to maintain a fairly high level of sustainability throughout the life of the development.
Carpenter Village has achieved a compact and consolidated form of development that will ensure a high level of intensity of the uses within the development.
Provided that the development can attract retail and commercial uses to occupy the commercial core of the development, it will have achieved a comprehensive and complimentary use of the land throughout the development.
However, if this objective is not met, then the community will suffer greatly with regards to its overall sustainability.
The extent of the use of the land in Carpenter Village has been designed to achieve a contained and consistent development plan, provided that development does not occur in the north side of the northern boundary of the community.
The communication network of the development has been designed to provide for a connected and combined system of transportation throughout the community that fosters and encourages inter-personal communication.
Carpenter Village’s inability to attract commercial users to the commercial core has greatly limited the community’s ability to create a unique sense of place.
The implementation of the design of the development has failed to create a centered, configured and comprehensible sense of place that will ensure the development’s ability to sustain itself.
In addition to the lack of a unique sense of place, Carpenter Village’s future development plans for the opposite side of Morrisville-Carpenter Road detracts from its ability to formulate a flexible use of the land that is re-configurable.
This is the most important quality that the development needs to address in order to ensure its sustainability and to prevent the development from becoming yet another sprawling neighborhood that has no identity of its own.
I’on Village is a disappointing attempt at the creation of a sustainable community that is integrated into the existing community fabric.
The many legal factors that contributed to the development’s failure to meet a majority of the qualities overshadow the poor execution of an unsustainable development plan.
I’on fails to create a compact and consolidated development through the proliferation of large single-family detached homes on mostly over-sized lots.
In addition to a disappointing density yield, the lack of a diverse mix of housing-types and mix of uses results in a development strategy that is neither comprehensive nor complimentary.
I’on does manage to create a development that is contained and consistent with regards to its extent of use of the land and the definition of its boundaries.
Unfortunately for the I’on community, this is not sufficient enough to create a truly sustainable community.
The implementation of a connected and combined communication network is the only other successful achievement of the I’on development plan.
Even though the communication network can be considered a success, the lack of density and diversity within the development detracts from its communication successes.
I’on does not achieve a centered, configured and comprehensible sense of place largely due to the lack of density in the development and the lack of diversity on various levels throughout the development.
The lack of flexibility in the uses at I’on is the final attribute that the development fails to meet. The development plan for I’on is not nearly as re-configurable as the other developments analyzed.
The failure to meet the minimum criteria for the creation of a sustainable community places I’on’s future in jeopardy and indicates that the development is just another planned unit development that does very little to improve the global community.
Alternative Methods of Execution
Carpenter Village and I’on have failed to meet the criteria necessary to ensure the community’s sustainability throughout the life of the development. Both of these developments would benefit greatly by redirecting their design and implementation efforts in order to achieve a higher level of sustainability.
With regards to the creation of a unique sense of place, both of the developments could facilitate the creation of this sense of place by simply adding a diverse mix of housing types to their commercial cores.
The addition of mixed-use housing to the commercial cores would help to create a centered, configured and comprehensible sense of place within the community.
The two developments would also benefit from an improvement of their flexibility of uses within each community. Providing for a re-configurable development plan will help to ensure that these communities could achieve a higher level of sustainability than the level that they currently face.
Allowing for flexibility over time would make these developments more attractive to observers and would help to change the predominant development pattern of suburban sprawl.
I’on Village needs to address the issue of density if it expects to achieve any level of sustainability. In addition to density, the development must provide for a greater level of diversity within the community.
This diversity is not limited to a mix of housing-types, but to the inclusion of a diverse range of economic and social groups as well.
Without addressing these concerns, these two developments may evolve into typical sprawl-driven neighborhoods that contribute nothing to the global community.
You cannot simply put something new into a place. You have to absorb what you see around you, what exists on the land, and then use that knowledge along with contemporary thinking to interpret what you see. -Tadao Ando
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