WORK, PLAY | INDUSTRY, NATURE
SPRING 2020
INDEX STUDIO | FUTURE WORK: COMPARATIVE GLOBAL URBANISM IN LORDSTOWN/WARREN, OHIO + CURITIBA, BRAZIL
[Adobe Illustrator ; Adobe Photoshop ; Rhino 3D]
AIA Cleveland Design Awards | Student Work Honor Award 2020
Kent State University | Studio Competition Award 2020
RESEARCH STAGE: ECONOMIES & POLICIES
The first stage of the project involved researching a specific area of interest for each city. We worked in teams of two to dive deeper into the research.
BOARD 1: WARREN'S ECONOMIC OUTLOOK
For my portion of the research, I chose to investigate the current and future opportunities that were present in Warren. These opportunities include:
The federally designated Opportunity Zones (that cover roughly 1/3 of the city) offer investors tax incentives to put money into a business and the area. The goal is to boost well-being and the economic conditions, but the risk is gentrification.
The infiltration of electric vehicle technology to the area. The city's rich automobile history, including the recent GM plant closure in Lordstown, shows excellent promise in pursuing the "Voltage Valley," which seeks to make the Mahoning Valley an EV hotspot.
The rise in clean energy jobs in Ohio shows potential for implementing new, utility scale production of clean energy in the area.
The desire for longevity, especially in an area that has seen massive job and population loss, is an important issue. My study into cooperatives shows that these economic models are typically more resilient, fair, and rewarding than the traditional models. Therefore, this may be an interesting opportunity to harness in order to make new economic changes happen.
Furthermore, I took a look into the political atmosphere of the area, as Trumbull county had flipped from a longstanding democratic county to red in the 2016 election. The rhetoric surrounding the working class, as well as a variety of other issues, hit home with the community who was actively looking for change and not yet getting it.
BOARD 2: CURITIBA'S ECONOMIC & POLITICAL ATMOSPHERE
Similarly to Warren, I chose to investigate the economic opportunities that were in the Reboucas area of Curitiba. Here, there is already a plan in place to foster economic opportunities in the innovation and technology sectors through the Vale do Pinhao plan recently adopted by the city. However, this plan seemingly fails to address those with lower incomes and limited transportation options. It also fails to address any sort of environmental aspect to the city's rapid development and motorization. As a comparison to Warren, electric vehicles are expensive and hard to come by due to national import laws, and few hybrid options means pollution from cars is only set to worsen.
The investigation into the political system in Curitiba showed a long history of urbanist mayors, namely Jamie Lerner who left quite the legacy. At the national level, much of the country voted for Bolsonaro, who as been commonly compared with Trump for his rhetoric surrounding capitalism and other issues. This offered an interesting parallel with our most recent presidential election that I did not expect.
DESIGN FUTURES EXERCISE
In this exercise, we were asked to take on a persona of someone living in the area and design a future based on what our persona would potentially envision. For Warren, I chose former GM employees. For Curitiba, I chose the perspective of a local urban equity group.
DESIGN STAGE: WORK, PLAY | INDUSTRY, NATURE
Two unique design proposals were subsequently devised after intensive research and site visits. My approach utilizes a larger corridor to support a network of economic and social platforms that are aimed to push each location into the future of work. See the narrative below for more information.
WARREN, OHIO: THE VOLTAGE VALLEY TRAIL
Utilizing an electrical easement that cuts through Lordstown and into Warren, a new multi-modal trail was created that incorporates new and old industry along the pathway.
Faced with decades of job and population loss, it appears that Warren’s most pressing issue is attracting and maintaining new industrial or economic opportunities. However, it is not like the area doesn’t have new economic development: with the federally designated (and underutilized) Opportunity Zones, there is a broader nationwide push for post-industrial cities to rebound, and the (slow) infiltration of clean energy and electric vehicle jobs offers some serious potential with the already out-of-work automotive workers. With this in mind, it appears that there needs to be a greater incentive for self-ownership and risk-taking. Coupled with this, the former industrial life has left scars on the land that pose environmental health hazards, so it may be possible to further incorporate new business within a larger land remediation narrative.
The proposal for Warren is entitled “the Voltage Valley Trail,” which seeks to embed new, “clean” industry into a new dual recreational and infrastructural trail network. This trail weaves in and out of an existing electrical easement that cuts through the southern part of Warren to interact directly with new and old industry, all while winding through various ecological habitats such as meadows and forests. Architecturally, the design interventions along the trail seek to blur the line between what is industrial and what is natural by lifting and peeling away from the ground to reveal a new type of economic and manufacturing infrastructure. These winding and half-buried forms offer flexible and low-impact spaces for large and small businesses to occupy. With intensive green roofs connecting directly to the ground, these “buildings” easily disappear into the landscape, totally redefining the term “business park.”
AXON 1: EDUCATIONAL & INFRASTRUCTURAL "PIT STOPS"
With the trail weaving through a wide variety of natural and industrial land, multiple opportunities for educational experiences emerge. In the dual agricultural and energy generational fields, trail users are able to get up and close and personal to the technology that is working to power the area with clean energy.
AXON 2: ACTIVE REMEDIATION & RETROFITTING
With past industrial activity leaving heavy scars on the landscape, it is important for any new interventions to actively remediate the land that surrounds them. Just as importantly is to retrofit these previously scarred industrial lands with remediation strategies. A trail user can pass a number of different strategies as they go along, including reforested areas, pollinator gardens, meadows, and wetlands.
AXON 3: VARIETY OF ACTIVITY & EASY ACCESS
The implementation of several trail heads allows users to decide where and how far they want to use the trail. These trail heads offer a variety of new recreational activities, while having the opportunity for economic and social events to occur, such as company picnics or craft shows.
DESIGN LANGUAGE: "LANDFORMS"
The architecture seeks to blend the landscape & building into one, inseparable form, thus blurring the lines between industry and nature, work and recreation.
Pictured here is the Electric/Autonomous Vehicle Test Track, which uses forms such as mounds, tunnels, and pits to emphasize the design language.
CURITIBA, BRAZIL: THE BELEM RIVER PASSAGE
By reimagining the overlooked river through the implementation of a riverwalk and multiple crossings of various sorts, a new system of economical, social, and environmental well-being is achieved.
With a legacy of sustainable development and urbanist mayors, Curitiba’s rapidly developing landscape poses completely different issues than those in Warren. The heavy focus on innovative and technological economic opportunities, coupled with years of Transit Oriented Development (TOD), has wildly increased the cost of living as well as the disparity between rich and poor. This attention to new and capitalistic investment has muted some other concerns that jeopardize the city’s status as “sustainable” : viable and realistic opportunities for those without the money to go to private universities as well as severe pollution of the city’s major river, the Belém. Not to mention the rapid motorization of residents means a decrease in ridership of public transportation (which the city was once famous for) with no end in sight. Instead of banking solely on the economic success of the technology and transportation sector, the city should instead turn its attention to issues of quality of life and quality of the environment - going well beyond the statistic of square meters of greenspace/resident.
The proposal in Curitiba is entitled “the Belém River Passage,” which seeks to reopen the river for recreational, transportational, and economical use. Partnered with this proposal is the implementation of strict environmental regulation and remediation policies that aim to treat the polluted water. Once these measures are taken, the design interventions that follow flow along the river in order to create a nature trail-like experience in the middle of the city. In comparison to Warren’s landforms, the architecture here takes on much more infrastructural forms such as bridges, docks, booths, and nodes while still utilizing immersive green walls and local plants to establish a strong connection to nature. While traversing along the river, the mixture of nature and industrial urbanization simultaneously provides a means for all residents to enjoy a shared experience while also reimagining how the city measures its sustainable development success.
AXON 1: INTERCONNECTIVITY
The close proximity of the riverwalk and craft booths allow for connectivity between the land and the water where there was a severe disconnect previously. Those using the river for recreation or transportation can easily access the booths as well as the docks located periodically along the riverwalk.
AXON 2: OPEN ACCESS & SIGHTLINES
Gone are the twelve foot high fences! The visibility of the river is drastically improved, and new crossings are implemented through the use of bridges or custom river crossings like the one pictured here. The river is now open and free for everyone to use.
AXON 3: PASSIVE COOLING & ACTIVITY
Using the climate to an advantage involves keeping outdoor spaces cool through passive cooling brought about by vegetation. These spaces are then activated through economic and social interventions, including the craft pedestrian bridge you see here.
DESIGN LANGUAGE: BRIDGES
The architecture seeks to connect across divisions like the river through the use of the bridge typology - which is common for the area. These bridges adopt vegetation on their roofs and/or walls in order to emphasize the connection of the natural and infrastructural.
Pictured here is the Living Machine Collaborative, which functions as an educational opportunity as well as a means to clean the river water.
QUESTIONS OF BALANCE, LONGEVITY
Issues of sustainability manifest differently across various types of cities; post-industrial and rapidly urbanizing cities both have concerns with balancing their increasing need for economic opportunity with environmental best practices and social equity/justice. Economy, Ecology, and Equity are commonly referred to as the three pillars of sustainable development, and finding where the scale sits in equilibrium is the question of when something is actually “sustainable.” By using these pillars as a metric in measuring the past, present, and future development of a city, it is possible to compare strategies across vastly different scales and places. In doing so, areas in which a city is “lacking” (in terms of the “3 E’s”) can be targeted in a proposal in order to accurately and effectively address concerns surrounding the balance of present-day success and future longevity.
Balance - or a perceived balance - between present, future and the three pillars can alternatively be presented as a question surrounding the balance between work and play, as well as industry and nature. The polarity of these topics poses interesting questions around the very nature of how we tend to operate and come to expect out of our built environment. Challenging the status quo oftentimes involves dramatic and infrastructural changes or interventions that redefine how we live and interpret our lives. The two design projects proposed here are of this nature - challenging the narrative between industry and nature and reimagining how we see things that might be forgotten otherwise.
WORK, PLAY | INDUSTRY, NATURE
By challenging the traditional dichotomy of work versus play, industry versus nature, both projects seek to reimagine how we define sustainability through large infrastructural change. While both interventions utilize a corridor approach, Warren’s proposal focuses on establishing a new design language for industrial buildings and alternative transportation (and recreation) routes, dissolving the harsh barriers between nature and industrial practices. Curitiba’s proposal involves creating a new appreciation for how nature and the urban environment do not necessarily have to be at odds with each other and can instead coexist. Also in both cases, the importance of self-sufficiency and entrepreneurship is emphasized through the introduction of an architectural language that can morph and adapt to varying requirements and conditions, as well as the infiltration of “work of the future” relating to sustainable practices (EVs, clean and localized energy production) that can dramatically improve everyday life. Nonetheless, both projects identify pressing issues in each city, and aim to establish a platform for future growth and improvements to quality of life for everyone.
