Steve Kapsinow (bio)

Beware of Artist Renderings

The two local architecture firms hired to provide their vision of the Town Center South area, based on the Town Center South committee's recommendations and local and state zoning and environmental regulations, used computer aided illustrations embedded in Power Point presentations to simulate beautifully landscaped greens, perfectly scaled and fitted Federal style residential dwellings, pristine cement and brick walkways that gently hugged all environmentally protected areas, and, of course, unobtrusive parking lots without a car in sight.

The illustrations included everything we wanted to see and nothing we didn't want to see. I'll admit, to me, it looked damned nice. What a quaint little computer-generated village. Who wouldn't want something like that? Much better than the public works facilities, over grown vegetation, and dilapidated buildings that exist there now (to be fair, there are nice residential areas that are set back bit).

Well, without going into too much detail. The concept had its detractors.

Oh. I forgot to mention the whole area sits about 5-15 feet above sea level, and much of it is wetlands if not flood plains.

But all the skeptics, naysayers, and critics could not taint those color-rich illustrations that still beamed from the large white screen at the front of the room.

Snapshot into the Future

Enter Sid.

Sid, an accountant, used to be the chair of Town Center South committee. It was his turn to speak. He eased his CD into the computer. Down came the illustrations and up popped his photo-rich Power Point presentation.

His basic argument against what had been proposed and reasoned in the architects' presentations is that all the info they used for their models is based on historical data and current conditions and regulations. Neither the Town Center South committee, nor the architecture firms, Sid asserts, had seriously considered projected population growth and environmental changes that would occur over the life of the project, which was estimated at almost 100 years!

For visual impact, Sid used photos to show what the town could be like in even 40 years. No Photoshop. Just simple snapshots.

He photographed large dwellings and endless seas of car-pressed pavement around train stations in neighboring towns with populations similar to what our town's would be in 40 years.

In 2040 it is predicted that the tides in our area will be a foot higher than they are now. What does that look like? The solution was simple. Sid photographed the areas to be developed during a recent storm, when high tide was a foot higher than usual.

Many of the roads were covered over, and much of the land was under water. The foundations of the few buildings that exist there now were submerged—a vastly different interpretation than the architects.

Despite the story that proves to be more accurate, one thing was for sure—the presentation that used snapshots of recent events and shared experiences to show what the future could hold for the town in 40 years sunk those architects' utopian renditions in a sea of applause.