Midterm Review, pictures

Precedent Study #2: West 8's Governor's Island

West 8's Governor's Island is a 172 acre island in the New York Harbor. The Northern end of the Island is a Historic National Monument including two great forts from previous military use. The Southern end was in need of re-development. West 8's design consisted of certain tactics which were: 1. preserving the island's northern National Monument. 2. A Great Promenade around the entire perimeter of the island providing unobstructed views of the surrounding harbor. [And on the southern end:] 3. Bicycle Paths based on the markings of the butterfly wing. 4. A summer park 5. Marsh 6. Hills as a division of the summer park zone and marsh zone. 7. Using demolished military barracks as the construction material for the hills (that also house a program).

OMA's Melun Senart

When OMA first saw the site for Melun Senart, they instantly grew emotionally attached, "it was heartbreaking if not obscene, to imagine here, a city". The land was too beautiful architecture, too breathtaking to be interrupted. But, they had to surrender and build something despite these feelings...

The strategy for building Melun Senart was ruled not by asking "where to build", but "where not to build". In voiding out the most precious beautiful pieces of the land, turning them into "islands", that these "unbuilt" islands would be the most popular, ecological spaces in the city... and the rest of the constructed landscape can happen/develop/unfold as it may. The built/ designed is not the focus, the original pieces we find attractive, specifically voided, are.

The question becomes, what beauty is worth voiding in Streetsboro, Ohio?

In a hunt for potential "islands" to save in Streetsboro, I actually found deep behind freeway many pockets of mangled trees, tall whispy grass, willows, and jungle-like conditions. These un-seen pieces of Streetsboro (featured on the first board) ruled the application of urban planning.

The Steel Cloud proposal by Asymptote was once called the "horizontal Statue of Liberty". Designed to be a monument to immigration on the west coast, it fills the void, created by Los Angeles freeway.

In attempts to recreate statement of such magnitude in the given context of Streetsboro, the concept was readapted with the consideration of creating an island of density, rather than stitching the void. Different modes of interactions made possible by allowing Rt.14 to follow such construct were interrogated.

The main focus is to create a connection across the busy route as well as to facilitate axial movement. The district generated by the program of the Cloud "landing" and "spilling" in the valley devoid of heavy transit movement should allow to readjust scales of city block and circulation along the pass.

Cheese City

"Streetsboro was put on the map for its cheesemaking/cheesehouses"

MVRDV's Pig City inspires a cheese-based spectacle-ization of Streetsboro

Pig city takes into account biological and economic statistics of pork production (birth/farming/slaughtering) in the Netherlands. By revising this and proposing a complete rehashing of pork farming to fit the current economics, MVRDV is able to propose a radically new system of agriculture; specifically 40 1000' towers that house pigs in a closed pollution free system.

Using MVRDV's method of reanalyzing statistics, McCheeseboro proposes a dairy farm/cheese factory and half-stationary half-transient farm to sustain the Streetsboro McDonalds' cheese intake.

Linear City

Leonidov’s Linear City model was birthed out of 1920s Soviet Russia; a context where communism logic lets people not own but share all land “through the organ of government”. Leonidov become quite interested in “the working people” (being quite poor himself, he did plea to art schools to admit him on scholarship) and began imagining a “worker’s utopia”. The form came out of linear parallel bands, each holding a different slice of a city’s program, of course, centered on a worker’s city. The widely accepted bands go in this precise sequence:

1. Railway

2. Industry

3. Green

( BAND OF TRANSPORTATION )

4. Residential

5. Park/ Sport

6. Agricultural

The “band of transportation” as the center piece of the sequence seemed to be a strong anchor to impose this on the transport-based city of Streetsboro. Siting the route to the highway, and then unfolding the sequence on the land caused an interesting phenomenon, the green trees would line the highways as opposed to the current state, industry/retail on the transportation band. With a Linear City model, you would drive along the most beautiful band, and industry would be pushed away from the highway, hence, a new façade is offered to people driving through one of the busiest roads of America.

Lucca + Streetsboro

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The first precedent given to me was Lucca, Italy, a medieval walled city an hour outside of Florence. The tactics used in building and designing this city were to be studied and applied somehow to Steetsboro, Ohio. I looked at how the edge of the city could be defined better. In this study I looked at a natural path that would intertwine around the city, under and over roads as needed. It would serve to connect the neighorhoods, give a park space to the city and also define the edge of the city.