The Urban Roles of a Semi-Dry River: Chihuahua & Its Chuvuscar River
GSD 1513, Spring 2008

Humanity delights in and finds inspiration at waterfront settings, and often chooses to celebrate or express civic ambitions at water's edge. Imagine the Sydney Opera House, or the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, or even Cleveland's Rock-and-Roll Hall of Fame, not juxtaposed against that city's body of water? The London Eye, London's majestic Ferris wheel, actually sits in the Thames. Much of contemporary Chicago's identity and self-image, not to mention wealth, comes from its spectacular 20-mile long facade stretching along Lake Michigan. Where else but along their portion of the mighty Mississippi would the citizens of St. Louis construct their monumental Gateway-to-the-West?

In their post-industrial eras in particular, cities worldwide are rediscovering the pleasures — and competitive advantages — of direct adjacency to bodies of water. But what if the local river is a mere trickle for much of the year, yet prone to seasonal flooding? What if the climate is semiarid? What if the river's banks have been canalized and largely abandoned? What if a city has for years treated its river less as an amenity and more as a nuisance? What if the city is growing rapidly, yet still relatively poor in terms of modern infrastructure and amenities, but wishes to grow in a more sustainable way relative to its desert environment? What roles should its river play?

The relationship of the Chuvuscar River to its host City of Chihuahua in North Central Mexico is the subject of this studio. The studio develops strategies both at the citywide scale for better reconnecting Chihuahua to its river, and at individual sites requiring specific programmatic intervention and specific design solutions. The studio and a studio field trip to Mexico is being sponsored by the City of Chihuahua, whose leadership asks: how can the city take greater advantage of its river environment, both to achieve wiser environmental stewardship and to improve its citizens' quality of life?

Historically cities needed to be near a body of water for transportation, sustenance and trade, but also to protect their citizens from those same bodies of water from floods and, not uncommonly, secure approach routes of potential enemies. As modern societies continue their millennial shift to service and lifestyle-based economies the potential civic 'uses' of rivers change. The studio will explore potential uses and how to achieve these.

The Studio is open to, indeed welcomes, the participation of, students from each of the disciplines at the GSD: architecture, landscape architecture, urban design and planning.

Reconnecting City & River: Vienna, Austria & the Danube
GSD 1502, Fall 2006

One imagines the City of Vienna along its Danube as readily as London along its Thames or Paris along its Seine. But while the Thames and the Seine wind through the center of their respective capital cities, indeed centering city life around them, the great Danube rushes past Vienna — realigned, re-engineered, and remote from the city center. Having been radically manipulated for well over a century, to subdue its propensity for seasonal flooding, and to enable it to become a more efficient transport channel, the Danube River today (apart from its romantic status in book and song) is a broad canal accompanied by an equally broad, parallel flood relieving channel both separated from the old city, and separating it from the 'new' Vienna far off on the opposite banks.

Whereas historic cities needed to be near a body of water for transportation, sustenance and trade, they also had to protect their citizens from those same bodies of water from floods and potential enemies. This meant lining banks with industrial and mercantile enterprises, while locating the civic and residential districts at some distance. Today cities worldwide are rediscovering the competitive advantages — and pleasures — of direct adjacency to great bodies of water.

Urban waterfronts are unrivaled in their potential for providing for an exceptional or celebratory enterprise. Imagine the Sydney Opera House, or the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, or even Cleveland's Rock-and-Roll Hall of Fame, not juxtaposed against each city's body of water? The London Eye, London's majestic Ferris wheel, actually sits in the Thames. Much of contemporary Chicago's identity and self-image, not to mention wealth, comes from its spectacular 20-mile long facade stretching along Lake Michigan. Where else but along their portion of the mighty Mississippi would the citizens of St. Louis construct their monumental Gateway-to-the-West? Humanity, it seems, delights in and finds inspiration at waterfront settings, but increasingly asks more of them than mere spectacle. Along an urban waterfront it seems possible to accommodate the changing needs of today's urban dweller, as modern societies continue their millennial shift from industrial-based economies (and their spatial demands) to service and lifestyle-based economies and their requirements.

The studio develops design ideas and strategies for how the City of Vienna can reconnect with its great river.

The Vienna/Danube River Studio is open to, indeed welcomes, the participation of, students from each of the disciplines at the GSD: architecture, landscape architecture, urban design and planning.

Centers for an Edge City: Transforming Tysons Corner, Virginia
GSD 1506, Spring 2006

One of the largest "downtowns" in America does not bear much resemblance to anyone's image of downtown, nor evoke any conventional notions of urbanity. Tysons Corner, Virginia, located a mere dozen miles west of Washington DC, is the poster child for sprawled America. Literally a rural intersection as recently as mid 20th century, today's near incomprehensible assembly of autonomous shopping "centers" and office parks (and recent demand for housing) represents in gross amount of built space the 13th largest commercial center in the nation. And the area has the traffic congestion to prove this. Transit, however, is on the way, with a new transit line connecting Washington to Dulles Airport soon to deposit four stations in the area of Tysons Corner. This arrival of an archetypal urban instrument, public transit, serves as the departure for the studio. The studio explores the phenomena of the "Edge City," a term coined by journalist Joel Garreau in a book of the same name published in 1991, while postulating its next transformations.

Edge Cities such as Tysons Corner are themselves evolving from mere highway interchange-focused, dense suburban commercial agglomerations, ala Garreau's definition, to environments that accommodate most of the components of contemporary urban life, albeit in very non-traditional spatial configurations. Evolution is necessary as the limitations of places like Tysons Corner—offering all of the deficiencies of a sprawled landscape with few of the benefits of either pastoral suburbia or energetic urbanity—become ever more evident to those who work or shop there, live in the vicinity, or commute across the area on their way to other parts of the metro area. Will the arrival of transit to Tysons Corner allow it to become more "urban"? Can its future growth modify in form to provide the benefits of mixed activities, cultural interaction and density? Can it become a good place to live? Any urban formation in its earliest manifestations appears chaotic. Can Tysons Corner be made less so, or does it, indeed, contain the DNA of the city of the future? If so how can one seize this potential?

These are among the questions that the studio addresses through design and planning probes. The Tysons Corner Studio is open to, indeed welcomes, the participation of, students from each of the disciplines at the GSD: architecture, landscape architecture, urban design and planning.

A New Neighborhood for Charleston, SC
GSD 1506, Spring 2005

Participation: The Charleston Studio is open to, indeed welcomes the participation of, students from each of the disciplines at the GSD: urban design, planning, landscape architecture and architecture.

Site: Approximately 150 acres of largely undeveloped land located on the edge of Charleston’s growth ring, a part of the country which is experiencing substantial growth pressures.

Program: Whatever would produce a vital, mixed-use, reasonably dense, non-generic, public amenity rich, choice in housing laden, attractive to multiple economic and demographic segments, environment protecting and conservation minded new neighborhood for the City of Charleston. In other words, the studio explores the qualities, programs, planning and design strategies that are necessary to creating good places to live in contemporary urban America.

Pedagogic Intent: Urban observers, including students and faculty at the GSD, seem better able to articulate the shortcomings of homogenized development patterns, privatization, real estate theming and New Urbanism then to postulate plausible alternative models. This studio presents the challenge to do the latter. As we critique sprawl and imagine (hope) that existing urban centers will repopulate with aging baby-boomers, empty nesters and young cosmopolitans, 90% of all new development continues to – and will continue to – occur at the periphery of existing cities. We ignore this fact at our own professional peril, and disdain for conventional development is not a convincing substitute for the posing of wise and imaginative alternatives.

Four Key Questions:

1. If conventional suburban models seem banal and New Urbanist proposals too sentiment driven and equally narrow, what should the sources of inspiration be for new urban growth near and outside of traditional urban cores?
   
2. The center of Charleston is among the most charming and historically preserved of American cities. What influence should this have on the design of new neighborhoods for the city?
   
3. If the idea of ‘a home’ remains the aspiration of most citizens, indeed around the world, while the image of ‘housing’ often (and unfairly) suggests the un-attainability of a home for all (or a compromise of its ideal), how can the design of new dense neighborhoods overcome such a dichotomous perception?
   
4. The “Low Country” refers to the fact that most of the region is essentially marshland, beautiful and fragile and very low to the water table. It is not a landscape particularly conducive to intense development. What images of occupying such a landscape come to mind, and how can additional development be designed with minimal harm to the environment?

Format and Working Method: Students ultimately produce plans and designs for much or all of the 150 acres of land in Charleston. However, there is a major analytical and investigatory component to the studio. Research and documentation of housing prototypes, of historic and contemporary urban precedents, of housing density gradients and their implications for related facilities and infrastructure, and about strategies for developing environmentally sensitive territories engage us for the first third of the semester. Much of this investigatory work is done in teams. It is expected that final planning and design solutions are developed and advanced individually.

Class Trip: The studio travels to Charleston and visit other nearby historic and new communities, including Savannah, Georgia, in late February. The purpose of the trip is to visit the site, of course, meet with landowners, neighbors and city representatives, and also gain insight and some familiarity with the traditions of urbanism in the region. Travel and accommodation expenses are covered by the studio sponsors.

Sponsorship and Support: The major landowners in the area, along with the planning department of the City of Charleston are supporting the studio, and provide the resources and data necessary for the work of the studio. The Honorable Joseph P. Riley, longstanding and legendary Mayor of Charleston and one of the truly urban-minded of American mayors, is especially interested in following the studio progress.

Detroit
GSD 1508: Spring 2004
with Matthew Kiefer

Over time, cities inhale and exhale. Detroit grew from a frontier trading post to an industrial metropolis, reaching its population peak of about 2 million people in 1955. Since then, like manufacturing cities around the world, Detroit has shrunk, losing over 350,000 jobs and over 1 million residents. Although efforts to revitalize the downtown and riverfront seem to be bearing fruit, over 40,000 land parcels have reverted to city ownership and the city continues to demolish more than ten times the number of housing units it constructs each year. Detroit’s situation presents unique challenges for the urban planner: how to reconceptualize a city whose physical form accommodates twice its current population. Using extensive research into the origins and scope of Detroit’s current situation and into possible new uses and their constraints undertaken during a fall term research seminar, students develop land use strategies and physical plans for Detroit. A student trip to Detroit is arranged at the beginning of the term to see the city firsthand and to meet with studio sponsors. While students who participated in the fall term research seminar are encouraged to apply for the studio, such participation is not a prerequisite.

Planning in Paradise: Urban Redevelopment - Honolulu, Hawaii
GSD 1504: Fall 2002
with: Janine Clifford

Situated on the southeastern shore of the Island of Oahu, within the Urban Core of Honolulu, is Kakaako, a 670-acre postindustrial district. To the east of Kakaako is the world-renowned Waikiki Beach, and to the west is Honolulu's financial and business district. At Kakaako's southern boundary, where the land meets the sea, it is now a scenic recreation spot for tourists and residents alike; as well as an ideal location for harbor activities. Hemmed in on the north by the foothills of the Koolau mountain range, and one of the major transportation arteries into the city, Kakaako's northern edge is a no-man's land of vacant lots and derelict buildings; casualties of the 1980s when private enterprises were planning high-rise mixed-use residential structures to be marketed mainly to overseas investors.

Kakaako, sandwiched between two densely populated areas, is ideally situated for a multitude of uses. As such, any new development proposals for the area immediately become controversial.

Between the 1950s and 70s, Kakaako was a thriving residential area that was rezoned for industrial use to take advantage of its close proximity to Honolulu Harbor. As Honolulu grew into a major metropolitan city, (today's population approximately 840,000) the state recognized that a major sector of the urban core was being under-utilized and its infrastructure neglected. In the 1970s, the land was rezoned as mixed-use and placed under the jurisdiction of a single state agency, the Hawaii Community Development Authority (HCDA).

HCDA, patterned after the New York Port Authority, was created specifically to shepherd the redevelopment plans for Kakaako. The agency's goal remains to this day to "reclaim and transform Kakaako's shoreline and waterfront lands into a magnificent new public place."

Since the 70s when Kakaako was rezoned, the quaint but vibrant cottage industries have all but disappeared. In recent years, the State has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in creating unique park settings, widening roadways, and upgrading the existing utility infrastructure. Yet little private redevelopment has occurred beyond a hand-full of high-rise residential structures. The warehouse type structures that remain in Kakaako have become appealing to automotive showrooms, and big-box retailers.

The firm of Cooper Robertson and Partners, designers of the 1979 Master Plan for Battery Park in New York City, was recently hired by The Kamehameha Schools to create a master plan at one corner of Kakaako for a new medical center intended to spearhead the revitalization of Kakaako. While the future looks promising for this portion of Kakaako, outdated development guidelines and regulations based on zoning-by-density and land-use designations hamper the future development of the balance of the district.

Since the late 1920s when Hawaii enacted the first comprehensive land-use plan in the nation, residential development patterns in Hawaii have followed the traditional subdivision patterns of the United States. Suburban sprawl now stands on some of the most fertile lands in the islands. Where once there were fields of sugarcane and pineapple, there are now housing developments. Much of the available lands considered to be greenfields by housing developers have already been converted to subdivision-type communities, or is designated conservation or agriculture. Accordingly, a viable, high-density, urban redevelopment plan for Kakaako is both essential and vital to the near-future sustainability of Honolulu's housing market.

The studio semester is divided into roughly three parts. First, an investigation into the language analogous to "urban intensity"— spatially, functionally, and conceptually. A study of other successful models around the world also forms a part of this first phase. The second part of this studio focuses on the investigation of urban design and planning strategies that can integrate the existing juxtaposed land-uses into to a specific master plan intervention for the Kakaako district. The third and final part of this studio focuses on a series of selected sites, from which the student groups may choose to develop an integrated urban design/architectural/landscape architectural response to the proposed master plan intervention strategy. The solutions are multiuse in nature, and should address residential, retail, commercial, light-industrial and recreational uses.