Chapman Expert Says OC’s a Model
for Modern Planning
Hamid Shirvani has always liked to shock people. As a boy growing up in England, Shirvani showed an affinity for building things,from bookshelves to a movie projector he crafted before he was 10. One day, his parents discovered the young Shirvani fiddling with a fuse box and a screwdriver.
“I’ve always had some fascination with opening things and understanding how the mechanics work and then putting them back together,” he said.
An expert in urban planning, Shirvani is Chapman University’s new provost. His views about Orange County could come as a shock to some,he’s ecstatic about the place. He has nothing but praise for the masterplanned cities of Irvine, Mission Viejo and Aliso Viejo.
“People are living here, neighborhoods are thriving and the economy is good,” he said. Forget lofty academic critiques about OC’s bland housing tracts, indistinctive shopping centers and soulless communities. The telltale sign of good urban planning, he said, is that people love to live here.
“They do like gated communities, manicured landscapes, shopping centers with plenty of parking,” he said. “If people didn’t like it, they wouldn’t live here.”
Shirvani said this goes for all of the county, and not just Irvine and its copycats in South County.
“A variety of areas follow this rule of pleasant, clean, environmental living,” Shirvani said. “In terms of quality, aesthetics, living,all of those things. It makes it unique, a model for the rest of the country.”
Shirvani comes from the City University of New York’s Queens College, where he served as vice president for graduate studies and research. He holds four advanced degrees,three masters, and a doctorate in urban planning from Princeton University. He’s written three textbooks on public architecture and urban design.
At Queens College, Shirvani had a big hand in the planning and development of a $34 million AIDS research center.
He’s also seen controversy in his career: at the University of Colorado at Denver, he became involved in an academic row and resigned in 1990 as dean of the school’s architecture program, which subsequently was put on academic probation by a national accrediting agency.
Shirvani said he sought to bring about changes at the school but met resistance.
“Change is difficult, but to move an institution from A to B there are certain things you have to do,” Shirvani said. “If you’re committed, based on that commitment, you have to move and accomplish that task. You’re going to do it as sensitively and methodically and collegially as possible, but that doesn’t mean that everyone’s going to be happy.”
Advanced Design Concepts
While OC has taken knocks by some for its high-density homes, small yards and big-box retail stores, Shirvani said that the area’s urban design actually reflects the top-thinking of the period.
“The most recent advances in urban planning and theory have been applied here,” Shirvani said. “Ideal theory and concepts of urban design developed by top scholars in the field of architecture and urban design in the 1960s have been applied in Irvine, in Tustin Ranch, Mission Viejo, Aliso Viejo. And these concepts have been revised and enhanced in Newport Coast.”
Shirvani remembers when trees covered large swaths of OC and homes in the Woodbridge section of Irvine cost $140,000. He has family in the area and has been traveling here off and on for more than a decade, he said.
He notes that development here in the next 20 years will be just as challenging,though in a different way,as in the past 20. But he said he believes Orange County is up to it. And, he said, the country is watching.
“We’re known as a county,” Shirvani said. “Part of the fascinating thing,and I’m talking about this as an architect,is that very few places are referred to by county, not city. They don’t say ‘Anaheim,’ ‘Newport Beach,’ ‘Tustin.’ It is always ‘Orange County.'”
If it sounds like Shirvani likes most everything about the area, he does. Even his criticism is tempered. Sometimes homeowner associations can go too far in regulating what residents can do with their houses, he said. Even so, he’s quick to add, that can be good for the community.
He commends some of OC’s newest communities for their preservation of open space while meeting a clear demand for more housing. He also gives OC high marks for its technology and financial centers, which have emerged in the shadows of San Diego and Los Angeles.
As Chapman’s provost, Shirvani is working to gather resources,people, money, creativity,the same kind of input needed to build a city for various and ever-changing constituencies. Instead of municipal officials, builders, landscapers and homebuyers, he’s digging in with faculty, administration, alumni and students.
“I decided I would practice architecture of a different kind,” he said.
Creativity Counts
What he sees happening at Chapman,a huge growth spurt over the past decade and a lot of work yet to be done,is mirrored by what faces the county at large.
“You have to meld the different constituencies and yet be creative,” Shirvani said. “You have to satisfy your client.”
Architecture and urban design, Shirvani said, melds the art of drawing and spatial thinking with the science of actually carrying it out.
“I give very high credit to the form and content of the city planning and urban design here,” Shirvani said. “For years to come these places are well-orchestrated, working well, and aesthetically they are going to be pleasing, as long as they’re well maintained.”
One of the reasons Shirvani came to OC and Chapman is because both places are growing, he said.
“This area, economically and socially, is moving forward,” he said. “The university wants to go with the community. Both are moving. The question is, does this place have the potential and what are the resources?” n
