City’s Presentation to BCDC Suggests Café Building Redesign
— by Jeffrey Wisniewski — 14 January 2010 — 3 comments below »
The City listed the design components of the future transit plaza during their presentation to the BCDC design review board on Monday (which apparently went very well, as it should have; there is very little to quibble over with the project as a whole), but it included a more historic-themed hipped-roof cafe building as inspiration (although the building is now labeled as “transit annex/cafe,” a marked change of terms)…
The cafe building shown in the composite above (and enlarged below) is a modern and handsome structure that would fit in well with the modern arched station building (which is an interpretation of a train shed), however be significantly different and unique (adding to the eclectic nature and intent of the neighborhood), and a recalling of the structures that once stood on the site (unlike the cafe building that was presented last month)…
Whether or not this image indicates a potential redesign of the modern, mimicked cafe building is not yet clear. The City is planning another community workshop on the subject for later this month.
It should be noted that one image of the previously-released cafe building was used during the presentation, but it did not show the defining attributes of the cafe structure (the front facade, the roof line, the bus shelter), and was shown only in reference to the adjacent transit plaza space. (The City also informed BCDC that plans for the “transit annex,” as well as Hercules Point, would be part of a future presentation.)
Very chic. Reminds me of the amazingly awesome Boonfly Cafe in the Carneros region of Napa.
This is much better! Perhaps they are listening?
The persistent problem that has not gone away, however, is that Hercules appears to be trapped between wanting the idea of a new urbanist, village-oriented development on one hand, while still being tied mentally to the automobile. The result is that everything seems marooned in Hercules, from the new library to the waterfront. What the town is doing is not building new villages. But instead is building corportate-like parks fed by broad parkways. I must note the extraordinary infrastructure and design that is being adopted to feed in parkways and garages to the new intermodal center. Overall, Hercules is building a decidedly unfriendly and sterile landscape for the pedestrian and the bicycle rider. Only by going from point to point by car first, can one arrive at small islands of pedestrianism.
The good news is that this can all be solved without much pain later on. The Hercules library, stranded by a parkway like road with only a very ill-placed cross-walk (laid down at both a rise and a curve) could eventually be served by a dedicated bike path. The road could also be narrowed by bikes paths, and broken with stop lights. As it stands, you’d have to be crazy to try and cross that road with your kids. And that’s what much of the town looks like so far, with little awareness.
But, it’s important to point out that this is standard–not unusual–for the United States. Hercules is still ahead of the game by comparison because most of country remains imprisoned in the automobile and retail paradigm.
Thanks for all your great work.