Rethinking Cleveland's Public Square

{"The Thread" illustration. A fluidity of paths and hills.}

Cleveland, once dubbed the "mistake on the lake" is considering a major landscape architectural development. Currently divided in a peculiar four-square arrangement, three new proposals re-image Cleveland's Public Square into a united green space design.

James Corner, of Field Operations and High Line Park fame have worked directly with two nonprofit organizations, Parkworks and the Downtown Cleveland Alliance. Corner offers three radically different designs to the square. Deemed, The Frame, The Forest, and The Thread, the concepts address traffic and circulation matters to different extremes, while all providing elements of urban park goodiness.

The injection of the park into Cleveland seems a bit lofty goal, and it is. A city hit as hard as any by economic woes seems an unlikely candidate for a shoot for the stars type concept. But that was Corner's intention. Designing to a current city park budget will inevitably create mediocrity, so why not aim high, and worry about the money later.

{Three concept diagrams.}

I kind of love this approach of finding finance when pockets tighten, excite people and developers about the project, the money will maybe come with them. It seems that a general excitement is being generated around the idea, and those in power are realizing the social and eventual benefits of landscape architecture.

My favorite, and it seems the majority of interest is forming around the organic hill structure, or The Thread, a 70-foot-high manmade hill that would link all four quadrants of the square and separate pedestrians above from cars and buses below on Superior Avenue and Ontario Street. This is clearly the more iconic choice, and holds the greatest potential for spatial interest. It could be interesting to see at least a partial combination of the hill and forest concept.

{"The Frame" 3D and illustrative rendering.}

Will it ever get built in the near future? It's hard to say, but seems Cleveland officials acknowledge the impact that Corner's High Line has had, and looking for ways to make it work. As an Ohio native, I'd love to see its fruition, and hopefully keep stirring the fire in Urban Park Development. Now, if we can only do something about the Great Park?

{"The Forest" 3D concept and illustration.}Story was found here.

Local Codes | [Real] Estates

WPA2 : Local Code / Real Estates from Nicholas de Monchaux on Vimeo.

A finalist in the WPA 2.0 competition sponsored by UCLA Citylab, Nicholas de Monchaux and collaborators have provided a case study showing the impacts of the "spaces between places," spaces owned by the city but unused and still maintained. Monchaux's group, using geospatial analysis identify thousands of these publicly owned, abandoned spaces and quantify their transition into a network of urban greens.

Using San Francisco as a case study, the abandon spaces found happen to exist in areas heavenly burdened with energy efficiency and drainage issues, combining to make up an area that rivals Golden Gate Park. Local Codes/Real Estates, as the project is called, clearly displays the cost savings associated with eliminating needless infrastructural remediation while providing a healthy network of urban ecology.

Given the savings involved, this would seem quite actionable and applicable to any major city. With the intention of the individual spaces being designed by "hyperlocality," communities will be able to develop and fund their spaces to address specific needs.

A New Park for Bilbao

The interstice, the spaces in between "places" often over looked are typically where Landscape Architects in particularly work their mojo. Their presence most felt, when the intervening spaces that were once cause for environmental or physical harm are transformed into something beautiful, something usable.

A compelling new park built on a slope that split two suburbs in Bilbao, Spain is both a landscape cure and adornment. Designed by ACXT, Pau Casals Square is a dynamic of green space connecting adjacent neighborhoods with a source of passive interaction. The park transforms an area prone to landslides and takes on a strong architectural form intermingling existing rock with triangular concrete pieces and green space.

Pau Casals Square is part of a series of projects that Bilbao has undertaken to improve urban spaces in the city’s outlying areas, creating connections between different neighborhoods and increasing the quality of life for residents. These neighborhoods grew during the post-war era, when they suffered from poor urban infrastructure and disorderly planning, which created rocky unused spaces like this site along Jesus Galindez Avenue.

Its not hard to imagine the value this would bring to any neighborhood. Think of all the forgotten sites in your surrounding neighborhoods. How would the transformation of those spaces change the makeup and psychological effects of that area. This can be accomplished relatively cheaply and provide something positive, even if its only temporary.

+ Via Inhabitat, Platforma Arquitectura

Photos by Aitor Ortiz

Dune: Magnus Larsson's Superproject

I wanted to share this TED video I found over at Mammoth. Its of Magnus Larsson first discovered on BLDGBLOG discussing his massive landscape project proposal to stop desertification in the Sahara. His idea: using balloon molds injected with bacteria that will eventually solidify sand into sandstone, creating a wall system and built in ecosystems and habitats that stretch across the continent. And, he believes its very possible, so do we.

The CLOUD

The CLOUD, as named by its designers is the result from an extensive collaboration of multi-disciplinary teams for a competition set up by London Mayor Boris Johnson committed to build a tourist attraction in the Olympic Park "with a legacy for the east end [of London]"

The team, comprised of an international team of artists, engineers, and architects included Arup engineers, architecture largely by Carlo Ratti, Walter Nicolino, Atmos, SENSEable City Lab, and landscape architecture by Agence Ter among many others, one being Dan Hill of City of Sound.

The Cloud, as it is known, and its spheres are intended to be made from from plastic known as Ethylene tetrafluoroethylene (ETFE), the material used to build the Beijing Aquatic Centre. The spheres act as an observation deck, a park, and LCD screens to allow for the digital display of information.

"We could provide a custom feed of… searches made by Londoners during the Olympics to give a real time 'barometer' of the city's interests and mood," said Google, one of the supporters of the project, which has also offered to provide the information feeds.

The team also envisage projecting weather information, spectator numbers, race results or even images of the Olympic Torch on to the building.

Ramps, stairs and lifts would carry people to the top of the structure to look out over the city.

Its a work of interactive architecture, more then a space or structural element, but a beacon of real-time digital communication. The CLOUD brings an illusionary story to its citizens and locale, allowing people to feel as architectural participants rather then simply observers.

While the mayor is still in the "process of the deciding," the design team plans on reaching out to millions of people for micro-donations to build the project. This is interesting, as I recently spoke to a landscape architect friend about applying micro-finance to building parks. The idea, if parks are for people, why wait for developers to supply the money, through small donations from thousands of potential visitors, we can build what we want (at least, that's the idea).

The project brief:

The CLOUD proposes an entirely new form of observation deck,connecting visitors to both the whole of London and the whole of the world, immersing them in the euphoric gusts of weather and digital data. Each individual footstep on the ascent to the CLOUD participates in a vast collective energy-harvesting effort. Everyone from around the world can contribute to the Cloud - whether by visiting or by sponsoring an LED, helping to keep the Olympic lamp aflame. [From the CLOUD website]

I'm looking forward to seeing the progression of the project and hope it comes to fruition. It could make for an excellent precedent in cross-disciplinary collaboration and citizen development.

+ Images via The CLOUD