Last Saturday, designers, architects and planners held a charrette, or design workshop, at Fenton Street Market in downtown Silver Spring.

East Silver Spring resident Hannah McCann, who founded the market last fall, organized the event. A senior editor for Architect magazine, she enlisted several local design professionals to lead the workshop, talking and drawing with those who came by. With my help as moderator, we developed three questions to ask the public:

  1. What kind of development should we have in Silver Spring?
  2. How much development should we have?
  3. How should we get around?

Dozens (if not hundreds) of residents stopped by to give input on how they’d like Silver Spring to grow. Most seemed happy with the community they live in today, but there was a lot of disagreement over its future. Today and Tomorrow, we’ll look at some of the issues that charrette participants raised.

Style vs. Character

Style is how most people who aren’t architecturally trained understand the built environment. It’s easy to “get” buildings if you can classify them as Victorian, Modernist or Art Deco. But style doesn’t describe how a building works with or against its occupants, site and neighbors.

Building Strangler (Steve Knight)

An “ugly, modern box.” Drawing by Steve Knight.

Many people complained about the increase in “ugly, modern boxes” in Silver Spring. “I’m sick of all this glass and chrome,” complains one woman. (We eventually figure out that by “chrome” she means “steel,” as downtown Silver Spring is not a 1957 Chevy Bel-Air.) She feels that newer buildings downtown were cold and sterile and preferred older buildings. They’re the soul of Silver Spring, she says.

She also doesn’t like the new development on Ellsworth Drive. It has little glass or steel, but it was designed to feel like an outdoor shopping mall, not a city street. It feels “fake” to her, the woman laments.

“Of course it looks fake,” I say, picking up a marker. “It’s new.” I start drawing and explain. Parts of Ellsworth pay homage to the old stuff — the Majestic 20 theatre, for instance, mimics the curved façade of the historic Hecht Company building (now City Place Mall) across the street.

Fenton & Ellsworth (Dan Reed)Fenton and Ellsworth In The Snow

Left: My drawing comparing the Majestic 20 (left) to City Place Mall.

Right: the Majestic 20 in real life.

“And even though the buildings may seem inauthentic, the people are always real,” I continue. “Kids my age, who grew up with Ellsworth Drive, love this place. I’ll bet you that in twenty years, it will be an integral part of Silver Spring’s culture.”

Nonetheless, she asks me to draw her some traditional buildings for Silver Spring. I draw her a picture of some old storefronts on Georgia Avenue. They look much as they did in the 1920’s, but have since experienced ninety years of history: different shops, different people, different times. “I love it!” she says, throwing up her hands in delight.

“What you’re looking for is character,” suggests Darrel Rippeteau of Rippeteau Architects. “In the future, say you want more character, not less modern.”

Vision of Fenton Village (Tony, Sandy & Steve Knight)

Steve, Tony and Sandy’s “Vision for Fenton Village.”

A few tables away, architect Steve Knight of David M. Schwarz Architects and my friends Tony Maiolatesi and Sandy Schwartz — like me, both recent grads of the University of Maryland — are drawing a “Vision for Fenton Village” with traditional buildings. It didn’t look too different from Bethesda Row or Kentlands, developments purposely designed to feel old.

These places have good urban design, with buildings close to the street and smaller, human-scaled features. There’s also been no shortage of complaints that their style, with lots of bricks, double-hung windows, and arches, feels “kitschy” or nostalgic.

The Good Life (Darrel Rippeteau)

1920’s-era storefronts on Georgia Avenue, drawn by Darrel Rippeteau.

Of course, many people like and often prefer this aesthetic. But these two things are mutually exclusive. You can have an attractive building with poor urban design, like this strip mall in Frederick. But you can also have buildings with great urban design but poor aesthetics, like those along Ellsworth.

Yet none of these buildings can really have “character,” no matter how old they look, if they’re new. Character takes time to create, but it doesn’t discriminate by architectural style. It is helped, however, by good urban form that encourages people to spend time in a place. If we want a Silver Spring with character, we should worry less about the aesthetics of a building and more about how they relate to the user and to their context.

Come back tomorrow for part two of our charrette recap, but in the meantime, check out this slideshow of the Fenton Street Market charrette.

Dan Reed (they/them) is Greater Greater Washington’s regional policy director, focused on housing and land use policy in Maryland and Northern Virginia. For a decade prior, Dan was a transportation planner working with communities all over North America to make their streets safer, enjoyable, and equitable. Their writing has appeared in publications including Washingtonian, CityLab, and Shelterforce, as well as Just Up The Pike, a neighborhood blog founded in 2006. Dan lives in Silver Spring with Drizzy, the goodest boy ever.