Columbia, Maryland

Columbia is a census-designated place in Howard County, Maryland, United States. It is a planned community consisting of 10 self-contained villages. The census-designated place had a population of 104,681 at the 2020 census, making it the second most populous community in Maryland after Baltimore. Columbia, located between Baltimore and Washington, D.C., is officially part of the Baltimore metropolitan area. Columbia proper consists only of that territory governed by the Columbia Association, but larger areas are included under its name by the U.S. Postal Service and the Census Bureau. These include several other communities which predate Columbia, including Simpsonville, Atholton, and in the case of the census, part of Clarksville. Columbia began with the idea that a city could enhance its residents' quality of life. Developer James Rouse attempted to create the new community in terms of human values, rather than economics and engineering. Opened in 1967, Columbia was intended to not only eliminate the inconveniences of then-current subdivision design, but also eliminate racial, religious and class segregation. Columbia was founded by James W. Rouse (1914-1996), a native of Easton, Maryland. In 1935, Rouse obtained a job in Baltimore with the Federal Housing Administration, a New Deal agency whose purpose was to promote home ownership and home construction. This position exposed Rouse to all phases of the housing industry. Later in the 1930s he co-founded a Baltimore mortgage banking business, the Moss-Rouse Company. In the 1950s his company, by then known as James W. Rouse and Company, branched out into developing shopping centers and malls. In 1957, Rouse formed Community Research and Development, Inc. (CRD) for the purpose of building, owning and operating shopping centers throughout the country. Community Research and Development, Inc., which was managed by James W. Rouse and Company, became a publicly traded company in 1961. In 1966, Community Research and Development, Inc.

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Related publications (1)

Battersea: another Brick in the Wall

Andreas Kyriacou, Benjamin Baertschi

La désindustrialisation, dont nous sommes témoins depuis plusieurs années, implique l'abandon d'un large patrimoine bâti qui, combiné à l'étalement urbain présent dans la majorité des villes, pousse les architectes à questionner notre rapport à l'existant. La centrale électrique de Battersea, au Sud-Ouest de Londres, compte parmi ces bâtiments dont l'expression monumentale ne laisse personne indifférent. Construit en plusieurs phases et conceptualisé par l'architecte Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, ce monument de briques est entré dans la culture populaire et fait aujourd'hui partie intégrante de l'imaginaire collectif londonien. Inscrit aux monuments classés depuis 1980 et hors d'activité depuis 1983, Battersea est au coeur d'un développement immobilier dont les grandes lignes sont définies par un master-plan très dense. Ce plan de quartier ne valorise pas suffisamment le bâtiment et ne permet pas de profiter des qualités de cette construction. En effet, la spatialité monumentale de ce bâtiment en ruine n'est pas sans rappeler les constructions de la Rome antique, notamment les thermes romains, qui offrent des typologies formelles particulières. Afin de recréer un noeud dans le tissu urbain en adaptant un tel programme à notre mode de vie contemporain, le projet permet de requalifier les différents espaces, en adaptant des activités sociales et culturelles dans un jeu de pleins et de vides dont l'articulation permet de confronter notre échelle humaine à celle du monument.

2016