Design
The Problem With ‘Fast-Casual Architecture’
Washington, D.C., has a huge new waterfront development that’s fun, popular, and easy on the eyes. Is anything wrong with that?
There are no stop signs along the Wharf, the new $2.5 billion waterfront development that opened over the weekend in Washington, D.C. No traffic lights or pedestrian crossings, either, even though the strip stretches for more than a mile along the Washington Channel. The master plan calls for chaos. Let the cars drive where they will.
That’s the free-wheeling vision of Stan Eckstut, principal of Perkins Eastman, the architecture and planning firm responsible for the master plan of the Wharf. In all, 22 different graphic design, landscape, and architecture firms worked together to erect a new mini-city in place of an old strip of dance clubs and seafood buffets in Southwest D.C.