The Kimball Avenue Eco-Community

The Kimball Avenue Eco-Community A Proposal for Manhattan, KS Derek Henry Bestor Spring 2011 Master’s Project Thesis Master’s Professor: Gary J. Coates

“ Everything interesting happens at the margins” -Richard Florida

The Kimball Avenue Eco-Community A Thesis, As Part of a Studio Master Plan: “Sustainable Manhattan 2050: Visions of Resilient Community in the Age of Peak Oil and Climate Destabilization�

College of Architecture, AP Design, Kansas State University Architectural Design Studio 7/8 2010-2011 Studio Professor: Gary J. Coates, Distinguished Regnier Chair

Acknowledgements I would like to thank our studio’s Thesis Advisor Committee comprised of Michael McGlynn, Assistant Professor of Architecture (KSU), Jason Brody, Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture and Community and Regional Planning (KSU), and Stephen Hardy, AICP, Leed AP, Associate Principal and Director of Planning, BNIM Architects, Kansas City, MO for the time they devoted. I would also like to thank my instructor, Gary J. Coates, Professor of Architecture and Victor L. Regnier Distinguished Faculty Chair, for his help in guiding my thesis work throughout the past year.

Table of Contents

Initiation

1_14

Concept

15_26

Process

27_32

Analysis

33_45

Conclusion

46

End Notes

47_48

Disclaimer This publication is not intended for retail sale and cannot be sold, duplicated, or published, electronically or otherwise, without the express written consent of the College of Architecture, Planning, & Design at Kansas State University. The purpose of this publication is academic in nature and is intended to showcase the research, scholarship, and design work of the students of the College of Architecture, Planning, & Design.

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Abstract

“ The living being had no need of eyes when there was nothing remaining outside him to be seen; nor of ears when there was nothing to be heard; and there was no surrounding atmosphere to be breathed; nor would there have been any use of organs by the help of which he might receive his food or get rid of what he had already digested, since there was nothing which went from him or came into him: for there was nothing beside him. Of design he was created thus, his own waste providing his own food, and all that he did or suffered taking place in and by himself. For the Creator conceived that a being which was self-sufficient would be far more excellent than one which lacked anything.”

Ouroboros is an ancient symbol depicting a snake devouring its own tail. The themes of selfreflexivity and self-contained cycles within this symbol is an archetypal basis for the new paradigm that must develop in a future world of sustainable living. Looking at our communities with a new sense of complexity and interconnectedness is essential for our future vitality, and with the new Living City Model of urban design and neighborhood development, the necessary steps are being taken1; after all, what we are trying to create is a system of waste-energy cycles and self-dependence that parallels the idea of a self-devouring creature. Therefore, the Kimball Avenue Eco-Community was generated as a community comprised of self-reflexivity, self-regeneration, and self-reliance that depends primarily upon itself for the sustenance to keep living. Just as important as the functional aspect is the qualities of the life within the community. What we lack in our current suburban developments is real tangible community or a deep personal stake in our environment. The bonds to space and to people, or place identity, are important to the preservation of a community.

The Kimball Avenue Eco-Community is at once a human ecology and a society, always nimble and impassioned to work at growing the community into a place with a strong identity.

-Plato on Ouroboros

Initiation

Ouroboros image courtesy Saki, Copyright 2005

1. www.vanalen.org “ Living Machine City Model”, Van Alen Institute New York. License 2010. Modified 7 November 2010. Extracted on March. 6th 2011.

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A Framework for Development Smart land use is crucial to modern urban planning2. Energy has become precious and the common practice of arbitrarily strewing buildings, parking lots, and connective infrastructure out on the land will have sobering repercussions. The “islands” created by singleuse complexes and big box stores leave a lot of empty nondescript space that only serves to separate us from one another and to make meaningful interaction among people and between people and their urban spaces impossible. When cities are deprived of interaction between buildings, public space, and nature, the livability of a city quickly diminishes.

According to the new Community Preference Survey conducted by the National Association of Realtors, 56% of Americans favor walkable, mixeduse neighborhoods that have access to many modes of transportation3. The critical mass has shifted in this country, away from our current place-deprived culde-sac settlements. Increasing numbers of people, especially the work force emerging from younger generations, the generations of the future, yearn for more livable communities where they can work, eat, and play in spaces that have meaning and deep-seeded value as places where one can share in the identity of the neighborhood as a whole.

There is also a monetary component in the argument. What we have already begun to see, as city after city in America has landed in the red, is that the massive infrastructure that comes with sprawling development can no longer be sustained. As the former president of the Congress of New Urbanism, John Norquist aptly summarizes, “It’s hard rations, and it’s tough times with most all city budgets. Any infrastructure has to guarantee a return on investment.

Convention center expansions, ballparks, gradeseparated streets, and wide streets never yield the expected returns. Cities that continue down those paths will exacerbate their fiscal conditions. Neighborhood streets, complete streets, and walkable neighborhoods have major returns4.”

Initiation

Greenwich Village, NYC, New York A sleepy residential street. “The Village” is a great neighborhood model for intimate, lively, and properly-scaled streets with a mixture of uses.

Eco-Village London, England England has been on the forefront of sustainable community planning. They have approved several new master-planned neighborhoods that are striving for net-zero energy and waste.

Pearl Street, Boulder, CO A “pedestrian only” street that has a wealth of shopping, retail, and restaurants-so much activity that it can usually be found treated like a vibrant outdoor mall.

2 A. Duany, J. Speck, M. Lydon. The Smart Growth Manuel. McGraw-Hill, 2010.

3 2011 Community Preference Survey http://www.realtor.org/government_affairs/smart_growth/survey 4 Borys, Hazel “Let’s Get Small: Placemaking as Antidote for Shrinking City Budgets” retrieved from www.placeshakers.wordpress.com Top image courtesy Travel Guide of America “Greenwich Village” , Bottom Photo courtesy EcoNode Blogspot, publisher: Kaiser

Kronesberg, Germany One of the finest examples of a low-impact, smart growth development. The village stressed community development and green strips as connector-elements providing the site with cohesion.

5 Kunstler, James Howard “Geography of Nowhere”, Free Press. 1994 Top Photo courtesy www.lifewithinme.com, bottom photo courtesy City of Hannover, 2004b via University of Calgary

The future success of the City of Manhattan is intimately connected to the course of action it will take in shaping its spatial form. This is the undeniable reality of our modern world, one that has felt the strain of natural and monetary resources. Autodependant, segregated settlement- the natural byproduct of suburban settlement, is a consumptive form of development that has little focus on its future tenability5. Its primary focus is upon its immediate stability, no matter how expedient it may be.

Our lifestyles are built upon this daily ritual of driving from one place to another. In this respect, we are islands unto ourselves; as Americans we take our islands with us from our suburban homes (where interaction between neighbors takes place sparingly) to our cars, which serve as are little insular bubbles zipping us by, not meaningfully through, our communities. Life in an auto-dependant society has left cities floundering in two distinct and interconnected ways: its physical form (streets, sewers, and parking lots) has taxed us so much of our valuable physical and monetary resources, and it has deprived us of our ability to create meaningful vibrant communities.

So much of what we have lost since the advent of the suburban neighborhood is a sense of belonging to a physical community and to an identifiable place. Public space, where people converge and civic solidarity is forged, goes missing in our piecemeal and isolating suburban sprawls. In considering the future constraints of skyrocketing prices on energy and the oppressive costs of creating and maintaining concrete streets and infrastructure to service the limitless sprawl, the harmful manner of life we currently practice may become unrealistic for the majority of the population.

A perceptible shift has taken place in American society. People are tired of propping up their suburban lifestyles, especially when this sort of environment never provides them with the quality of life that can be offered by walkable, community-oriented, and mixeduse communities. All of the stars have aligned around the idea of Agricultural Urbanism, smart growth, and complete neighborhood design.

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The Perfect Site In a college town like Manhattan, especially one in which the university occupying the town has aspirations to become an eminent research university, the need for vibrant, attractive, and sustainable communities closer to workplaces becomes crucial. Manhattan already has many pleasant old neighborhoods that have blossomed into beautifully quaint places tucked under the canopies of aged trees, but the University has failed to capitalize on the opportunity to make a strategically situated piece of land at the nexus of future growth and synergy on the north side of campus as unique as it could be.

Bounded by the streets of Denison and College to the east and west, and the streets of Marlatt and Kimball to the north and south, 425 acres of Universityowned land sits at a great convergence point of the college and new city development. The future site of NBAF, the National Bio and Agro Defense Facility, is on the opposite corner of Denison and Kimball Avenue.

With it comes 200 new families and a slew of others arriving with the myriad of off-shoot industries that will accompany the one-of-a-kind facility6. Field testing and rapid lab analysis is an asset the University used in attracting the facility to the town, along with our central location in the livestock-animal health corridor7. The city was the perfect site strategically for the placement of NBAF, and in the same manner, the 425 acres north of Kimball Avenue has the same relationship at the scale of the city.

The open land to the north and east of this national biosecurity complex will become increasingly important as support facilities (branch offices for pharmaceuticals, and animal industry), research flex labs, and start-up enterprises will all want to situate themselves close to the facility. KSU also has plans for creating an Equestrian Complex to the east of the site that will facilitate training grounds and competitive equine events (see fig. 4.1). Existing buildings and complexes flanking the site also hold latent possibilities for interaction with this site. The Jardine Apartment Complex and the various apartment complexes that always cropping up north of campus are indicative of

Initiation

7

8 6 5

2

1

1. KSU Equine Center 2. Joint Firestation

3

3. NBAF

4

4. KSU Sports Complex 5. Mercy Regional Hospital 6. Apartment Complex 7. KSU Large Dairy Farm 8. Meadowlark Center

Fig. 1 The Site: Manhattan, KS At roughly 425 Acres, the site marks the northern boundary of the city (the city service boundary runs down the middle of the site) and become the mediator between town and agricultural fabric.

Fig. 4.1 and 4.2 Site Adjacencies The site holds a central position in an area that will grow in the future. It receives both consistent activity and substantial bursts. The sports complex, which includes Bill Snyder Stadium and Bramlage Coliseum, receive occasional spurts of heavy activity. The Recreation Center (within Sports Complex) and Mercy Regional receive consistent activity.

Fig. 2 Relation to NBAF A closer view of the site with the very important consideration of NBAF, highlighted in blue. The National Bio-Ag Defense Facility has a biosecurity level of 4 and can do laboratory testing on exotic strains of animal and plant disease. Many strains have the ability to spread endemically or pandemically.

Fig. 5.1 and 5.2 Sporadic Development: The three KSU departments occupying the site have developed “islands” that can only be accessed by car. They have poor physical connections between one another and back to the main campus.

Animal Sciences Agronomy Grain Science

KSU Campus

6 A. Duany, J. Speck, M. Lydon. The Smart Growth Manuel. McGraw-Hill, 2010.

7 “Animal Health Corridor”, Kansas City Area Development Council, www.kcanimalhealth.com All Map Underlays courtesy of Bing! Maps

All Map Underlays courtesy of Bing! Maps

the inexhaustible need for good student housing and affordable options for Ft. Riley troops. The areas of the site fronting Kimball Avenue are advantageous locations for University housing inserted within a new mixed-use development. In addition, the Meadowlark Senior-Housing Facility holds a large piece of land to the east of the site, but this site is isolated and devoid of interaction with the larger community. A Meadowlark extension could be viable if it inhabited a block on the site, and would be very attractive if given the context of a more vibrant and diverse neighborhood. Other noteworthy site adjacencies, such as Mercy Regional Hospital, Bramlage Coliseum, Bill Snyder Family Stadium, and the KSU Sports and Recreation Facilities, help bolster the most important aspect of the viability of this site, which is its integration into future transit plans (to be discussed in the next section).

This site could become a new innovative community, one that weds the urbane with the idyllic, that can attract prestigious Bio-Ag researchers, Ft. Riley returnees, retirees, young professionals, and the creative class; it is a unique quality latently held within this site.

The job-creating parts are already in place, they only need the right kind of livable neighborhoods and walkable environment knitting them back to the campus and to the scale of the community. Bio-Ag researchers, value-added agricultural workers, and Kansas State University faculty and students could walk to where they work or learn, could drop the kids off at school or day-care within the neighborhood (on their way to work), could have parks and recreation spaces at their fingertips, and could run their daily errands close to home.

Many of the types of talented people the University wants to attract have lived in urban places with complete neighborhoods and demand these things; other universities can or will offer these things, but our University has a unique opportunity with a truly exceptional site to merge all the University’s aspirations.

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Future Transit Implications Manhattan’s proposed multi-modal transit plan includes a loop-line (both bus and possible streetcar lines) that will run up Denison, along Kimball, and down Seth Childs Road to the Westloop Shopping Center.

This line, considering the extensive use it could receive from NBAF, research facilities, mid-density apartment buildings, Bill Snyder Family Stadium (during sporting events), and all the other institutional buildings in the area, will make Kimball Avenue a very important corridor and streetcar arterial in the future. The land value of the site, so close to job-creating industry and a public transit line will induce greater density and opportunity for a multitude of land uses . In short, the site becomes integral in the creation of a vibrant mixed-use corridor.

As time goes by and energy prices climb, the interjection of public transit will make the EcoCommunity all the more enticing. The real estate becomes increasingly more valuable as walkable, transit-oriented developments such as the one proposed here, located along a viable corridor with dining, retail, and amenities will justify public-private partnerships and the creation of this new master planned community. The principles of New Urbanism, Agricultural Urbanism and Smart Growth help as design tools*.

Future Transit Plan

Fig. 6.1 and 6.2 Transit Corridor Images serve as a diagram of the increased importance of Kimball Avenue in the future. The east-west street will become a more emphasized connector between two primary north-south arterials of the city (Seth Childs on west, Tuttle Creek on east) and will also become a denser arterial that has the possibility to become a streetcar corridor containing more mixed-use buildings, a more pleasant boulevard, and frequent transit stops.

Portland Streetcar System The progressive city of Portland is an anomaly in American urban planning. One of the few major American cities with positive fiscal earnings, Portland has found a way to stay vital by making bold urban planning decisions that have benefitted them tremendously, including a smart growth boundary to reduce sprawl, and the implementation of an incredibly lucrative streetcar system. Publicprivate partnerships have generated $3.2 billion in private investment concentrated in excellent transit-oriented developments and has yielded large monetary returns.

Initiation

*New Urbanism, Agricultural Urbanism, and Smart Growth are all concepts discussed in Duany, Plater-Zyberk, and Speck’s “Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream”, North Point, 2001 Portland Streetcar information and photo courtesy www.city.milwaukee.gov “Barrett Report” Fig. 6.2 underlay courtesy Bing! Maps

Fig. 7 Manhattan’s Proposed Comprehensive Future Transit Plan The future streetcar city of Manhattan. Bus routes will slowly be replaced by a streetcar system that will increase the value of land, , and the amount of growth along its path while generating large returns on the investment.

The Eco-Community holds a pivotal position at the meeting of the two most important lines (red and green) in the comprehensive plan.

Transit Plan devised by I. Pitts, Image complied by D. Bestor, Underlay courtesy of Riley County GIS

9_10 1. A view looking west to the Grain Science complex and farther to Bill Snyder Stadium south of Kimball Avenue.

Site Inventory

6. Looking north towards across agricultural fields of the site to the KSU Large Dairy Farm across Marlatt Avenue.

Marlatt Avenue

Context 2. Looking west down Kimball Avenue towards the edge of the site. The street is too wide, provoking fast speeds and a disconnect between the two sides of the street.

3. The future site of NBAF on the corner of Denison and Kimball Avenues. The grain silo and feed mills will be relocated to the Eco-Community site. The facility will occupy over five acres along this street intersection, but will do little to communicate with its surroundings.

7. Looking north from a gravel trail on the Agronomy Department’s tract of land.

Denison Avenue

Within Site College Avenue

Existing Site Condition

9

8. Grain Silos located in the Agronomy Complex.

Many of them would be preserved and could continue to function as they are. Others could be re-adapted to become play places for children or simply visual reminders of the identity of the site.

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6 8 1 10

4. A view outwards to the southwest corner condition. At the intersection of College and Kimball Avenues is the site of Mercy Regional Hospital. Responsibilities will increase for the hospital with the emergence of NBAF, including rapid response in case of disease outbreak.

9. From Denison Avenue looking west onto the easternmost riparian corridor and the edge of the Large Animal Facility on the northeast corner of the site. This facility would be preserved as the anchor of the Animal Sciences Research District.

4

Removed

2

5 3

Kimball Avenue

Relocated

Preserved Fig. 7 Site Inventory Plan

5 . Looking east to the joint firestation, used by both KSU and the city. It is located across from the site along Denison Avenue.

Initiation

All photos taken by Derek Henry Bestor

10. Image looking west from the Grain Science complex to the Agronomy complex on the high land. A lot of nondescript space left in between the two.

All photos taken by Derek Henry Bestor

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5 Reasons This Is A Good Idea for KSU

The Opportunity What this land could become is an opportunity for the university to showcase its innovative spirit as a leader in sustainability and a shepherd for the well-being of the community in which it resides. The future of agriculture is localization of food production, preservation, and distribution. The rising cost of transporting our food across the globe to our plates will render the current system of global food networks unfeasible8. Kansas State University has been given the responsibility as a land-grant university to fashion agricultural solutions based on the needs of society.

If the future of agriculture requires new solutions in which our food is grown closer to or even within our urban areas, the Kimball Avenue Eco-Community is the ideal testing grounds for the urban design theory of Agricultural Urbanism. When considering the prototype that is created and the site’s emerging importance as a denser mixed-use neighborhood along a future streetcar corridor, it makes this type of master plan an important framework. The natural inclination to become the grounds for greater collaboration between research and development, housing, and agriculture make this site a one-of-a-kind opportunity for a Land-Grant University.

Ultimately, it is about our university pioneering a new sustainable paradigm that fuses the future integration of localized agriculture and research & development with the concept of Complete Neighborhoods. It could become a national model for resilient community design; a prototype instructing other cities on the best methods of achieving smart growth and resilient civically-based neighborhoods.

1.Land-Grant Responsibility: The agricultural needs of the nation have always been met through the advancements in technology and efficiency developed at land-grant universities. Looking towards the future, an innovative prototype is dearly needed to solve the issues of food security that arise with soaring fuel costs, energy scarcity, climate instability, and an increasingly unaffordable global food system. KSU should provide the solution to the growing need for agriculture closer to where we live.

Fig. 8 Down the Pedestrian Boulevard Tucked underneath a line of boulevard trees, the pedestrian boulevard runs down the center of the site, gives pedestrians priority at street crossings and junctions, and becomes an expressway for bicyclists and pedestrians trying to link to the transit stop along Kimball Avenue.

The Pedestrian Boulevard gives automobiles a narrower queuing street with a lot of activity on the sides (side friction) to keep speeds slow.

Fig. 9 A ground view of a community plot alongside the pedestrian boulevard. Porches would spill out onto the sidewalk space, which benefits those on the street and those watching the street. Everyone enjoys being in places with activity.

Initiation

Fig. 10 A view of the typical block structure present on the site. The block is bisected by mid-block lanes and the center of most residential blocks would include community agricultural plots for the individual households.

3. Smart Land Use and Growth: The campus and the city are growing northwards. With the establishment of NBAF in the area, accommodating all the flex labs, spin-off industries, and synergistic companies will be important. The most important aspect, which often goes overlooked with growth, is how to do it in a manner conducive to future sustainability.

Mixed-use, walkable, renewable energy powered, and transit-oriented communities with localized food production are important elements that can create resiliency in a community.

Fig. 11 A bird’s-eye view of the community’s denser zone along Kimball Avenue. The gradient of density can be clearly seen as one moves from the future streetcar arterial back towards the center of the site.

8 Rubin, Jeff. Why Your World Is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller: Oil and the End of Globalization. New York: Random House, 2009.

9 A. Duany, J. Speck, M. Lydon. The Smart Growth Manuel. New York:McGraw-Hill, 2010

2. Avert Unsustainable Trends: Spatially, the northern edge of campus doesn’t feel like the campus. Its sporadic development has created “islands” of institutional complexes that rarely communicate with one another (see fig. 7) The site desperately needs a comprehensive master plan that can integrate all the sprawling complexes into a form that communicates to its environment and future mixed-use developments. The bottom line is the auto-dependent monocultures on the site won’t be sustainable in ten years.

4.Quality of Life: Attract Researchers & Creative Class to the City: Complete neighborhoods with active public spaces and a sense of community attract the type of people that KSU wants to bring to the academic community. Give them a great place to live close to work.

5.Innovative Prototype: Designing complete communities that include agriculture is a concept discussed but rarely put into practice. This is a prototype that could spread not only to other universities but to other towns across the country looking for viable forms of growth and investments in publicprivate ventures that can garner large returns.

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The Importance of Master Planning Smart land use is difficult without a master plan, which provides a foundational organization and structure to a town or neighborhood. In order to integrate smart growth (mixed-use, walkability, transit-oriented design) master plans are very important ways of giving every move in a city the proper context. The current dilemma with the site in discussion is the lack of context given to the disparate departments of the university using the space. They have developed sporadically and without relation to the environment or one another because there wasn’t an impetus or need to make any cooperative plans.

The argument might be made that such master planning was not necessary when the site was on the outlying area of the city and could easily be driven to with plentiful cheap energy. But fuel prices continue to rise, and peak oil has already been reached in the early 21st century10.

Considering the growth of the city outwards to flank the site, its newly acquired importance adjacent to NBAF, its support labs and complementary industries, and rising fuel costs further stranding the disconnected pieces of this fragmented site, it is obvious the site needs a comprehensive master plan. The plan would be geared towards fulfilling both the city’s need to capitalize commercially (NBAF support enterprises) and the university’s strategy for coupling their BioAg resources with the edifice of NBAF. Most importantly, there needs to be a master plan in order to create an attractive community where researchers and young creative class professionals can live. New talents and prestigious researchers will desire a place to live closer to work and with public amenities, and a place that can foster a greater breadth of research and collaboration in a community setting. The oppressively isolating business parks and research complexes that have become the status quo in land development are no longer desirable. There has been a demographic shift in this country, and this new population wants to be minutes away from work and wants a short walk to a cafe for lunch.

Initiation

Master Plan UW, Seattle, Washington Ambitious universities will often hire architectural firms, such as Mithun in Seattle, to generate master plans periodically to ensure the growth of the campus is done intelligently, and with a solid premise.

District Plan, Sarasota, Florida Historic districts can also be master planned.

It can be an important measure in ensuring historic preservation happens with the most important buildings and future growth blends seamlessly into the current fabric of a town.

Master Plan Olympic Park, Sydney, Australia A new eco-village in Sydney will adapt the Olympic park created for the 2004 Olympic Games into a mixed-use district that can hold 10,000 residents. The park will still be used for sporting events. Adapting the sports park (Bill Snyder Family Stadium and Bramlage Coliseum) across the street from the Eco-Community, for future habitation, instead of its current condition as a sea of parking lots, could be a smart land use project for the city in the future .

10 Heinberg, Richard, The Party’s Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies, New Society of Publishers, 2005 Print Top Image: courtesy of Mithun, Inc. 2009 Bottom Image: courtesy The City of Sydney Sustainable Sydney 2030 via www.room-e.com

11 Peter Calthorpe and Associates “TOD Guide”via City of San Diego Office of Planning, published 1992 Image courtesy Burns Square Property Owners, Sarasota

Master planning for the Kimball Eco-Community encompassed all of these facets. The program manifested spatially into a more compact and interrelated whole, to allow for the synergies that could occur between community open spaces, KSU research facilities, BioAg labs and commercial enterprises, and mixed-use commercial, retail, and civic places. The overarching logic is that it makes practical sense to intensify land use (and the mixing of uses) around the area close to NBAF and the future transit route along Kimball Avenue and throughout the city.

Master Planning as a process of design is about understanding the natural ecology of a site and an urban ecology of interrelation, interaction, and inter-identity.

Understanding the complexity of a city as a systemic whole is often assuaged by making large, pervasive design gestures that bind a city together. The smaller scale design of certain districts, neighborhoods, and buildings is a far easier scale to understand local complexity and to contribute clearly to the urban fabric.

In the design of the Eco-Community, large design gestures were made that developers of individual blocks, and architects at the scale of the individual plot could react to. As will be detailed in further sections, the master plan is built around civic spaces and pedestrian passages, notably with the pedestrian boulevard that runs through the center of the site and connects to the transit stop along Kimball Avenue. The site’s relation to the entire city was also considered, and the design of the site focuses on the Eco-Community’s role as a TransitOriented Development11.

The grid and the preservation of the riparian corridor were also embraced as two primary elements used in knitting the entire site together. The grid allows for greater permeability and connection between all the areas of the development and the riparian corridors are preserved not only as indigenous green infrastructure helping to hold water runoff, but as the lungs of the community; the open recreational spaces and nature trails create not only circuits, but foundational networks of connection and community legibility. The street systems and green spaces give the neighborhood distinguishing social features, and a prevailing identity.

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Concept In many ways, the Eco-Community goes beyond smart growth communities, because it not only takes into account the benefits of less autodependency, cheaper infrastructure, and placemaking, but also completes the circle of sustainability by integrating food production and renewable energy production as a part of the urban design process.

The ultimate goal of an Eco-Community is to create neighborhoods that are resilient in the face of the future problems they will encounter. Localizing food production starts a process of self-reliance, sustainability, and community cooperation paramount to the creation of long-lasting communities.

Concept

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Defining the Eco-Community Designing 425 acres of land is like weaving a tapestry. There is a tremendous amount of intricacy developed over the sprawling canvas and hundreds of thousands of threads completing the whole. It is easy to get lost in the complexity of all the pieces unless one makes an eort to understand the simpler structure behind the synthesis. Every tapestry has a pattern, components repeated over the course of the whole to give the innumerable number of threads a clarity in order and structure.

In the proposed Kimball Avenue EcoCommunity, the process involved a similar patterning of repeating components. The first step is understanding the components in their simplest form and how they can be used to define the whole.

The Components

Ecological Goals 1. net-zero waste

Living

2. net-zero water

A National Model for Resilient Design

3. closed-loop energy & resource cycles Bottle Recycling Plant

Learning

Land Use Goals 1. Jeersonian Solar Grid 2. Unique Mix of Land Use (Complete Neighborhoods)

Working

3. Agricultural Urbanism Urban Agriculture Shengzhen, China

4. Reintroducing Civic Community Spaces (Sociable Neighborhoods)

Research & Development

Technological Goals 1.net-zero energy 2. district power plant (anaerobic digestion of community waste)

Smart Grid Diagram

3.decentralized smart grid system Define the Whole Kimball Avenue Eco-Community (def): A new approach to community design which focuses on the integration of all life activities within complete neighborhoods as part of a living community

Concept

Image 1 Courtesy conceptsustainable.com, Image 2 Courtesy www.gfcny.net/agriculture.html, Image 3 courtesy www.homedit.com, Image 4 courtesy students.cis.uab.edu/sbark/

Image 1 Courtesy www.ecollo.com/post/2009/01/Coke-takes-on-PET-recycling.aspx Image 2 Courtesy /www.cityfarmer.info/2010/01/12/landgrab-cityfarm-in-urban-square-in-shenzhen-china/ Image 3 courtesy venturebeat.com/2009/11/24/smart-grid-handouts

It has become increasingly clear that this proposed community could pioneer not only the integration of many new agricultural uses, land use mixtures, and building types, but could also achieve many ecological, technological, land use, and social goals. The Kimball Avenue Eco-Community embodies a new paradigm that would truly make it a national model for future community development.

Equally important is its relation to Kansas State’s Land Grant Responsibility (teaching-research-service).

One of the most enticing prospects of the project is the notion that future agricultural innovation will be at the local scale, then the entire development can become a tool for teaching the city of Manhattan and the entire Flint Hills Region techniques in sustainable agriculture, energy efficiency, renewables, organics, and nutrition. The loop connecting food, energy, and ecology could come full circle as a local closed-loop system. It could extend from the scale of the entire community down to the individual household. The types of techniques used at the different scales vary, but all lend themselves as prototypes to be adopted throughout the country and as the teaching tools propagating to other institutions for higher learning.

The eco-community could also become a greater symbol of future American food production. Lending the ideas and technical innovations that create food security for the nation during and after peak-oil. Bio-Ag researchers from around the world would flock to the area over the proposition that they could live on a Student Concept Farm inside the community, do their research on a plot of agricultural land, collaborate with other leading thinkers in their profession, and do it all in an area with abundant access to natural areas, community resources, retail, and dining.

Achieving the goals of a distinguished national model are divided into three categories. What the goals try to illuminate are the necessary steps that will need to be taken to ensure the resiliency and sustainability of all future American cities.

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A New Paradigm

Ecological Goals 1. net-zero waste

Considering the basic use types embodied within the components, the new mixture of uses, and the three areas of innovation the community will aspire to develop, it is evident that the type of project this will become is a conceptual hybrid; a new paradigm that fuses the most essential and intriguing elements from emerging urban design concepts with the idiosyncrasies of the site. The unique quality of this site that allowed for this new paradigm is its ability to seamlessly integrate research, development, and commercialization of research found in modern day business parks, research campuses, and laboratories, into the fabric of complete neighborhoods and a living community.

2. net-zero water 3. closed-loop energy cycles

Fig. 12,13 Biogas Production Two diagrams showing the anaerobic process for creating biomethane using wastes. The photograph shows a more attractive example of a biogas power plant.

New Urbanism traditional street grid mixed-use neighborhoods integration of public places (schools,parks)

Agricultural Urbanism Density Gradient Pervasive, Multi-Scaled Production Food Security & Resiliency

Green Alleyway, Chicago Chicago is on the leading edge of low-impact development with a program called Green Alleys Chicago. It incentivizes the creation of greener infrastructure and more sustainable back alleyways through a certificate process.

Eco-Community Research & Development Net Zero Waste/Energy/Water Systems Social Networks (Growers, Researchers, Community) Solar Ecology (Comprehensive Solar Orientation)

Concept

Fig. 14 (L) 15 (R): Show low-impact solutions for streets, lanes, and verge areas Top image courtesy http://sustainableplanningdesign.blogspot.com/2009_04_01_archive.html second image courtesy “Agricultural Urbanism” DPZ 2009 LLC

Biogas diagrams 1 and 2 courtesy of www.skyrenewableenergy.com/renewable-energy/bio/ 12 P. Condon, 7 Rules for Sustainable Communities: Design Strategies for the Post-Carbon World. Island Press. 2010.

Verge area, fig. 15, courtesy http://www.streetsblog.org/2007/06/07/chicago-seeks-to-green-its-alley-ways/ Green Alley image courtesy of www.re-nest.com/images/re-nest/06-08-09greenalley.jpg

Ecological Goals The concept of Ouroboros is readily apparent in the ecological goals for the Eco-Community. The solutions generated for dealing with waste , water, and energy on the site all deal with these naturally recurring cycles as commodities to be captured, re-purposed, and reused as new resources-not as hindrances to be dealt with through expensive engineering.

One of the most beneficial qualities of a community that practices agriculture and provides places of living is that the wastes from households and agricultural crops can be reused quite easily, especially when considering the technology available to us today.

Animal and agricultural wastes can be inserted into anaerobic digesters that, through natural processes produce methane, can be used to run turbines producing electricity. The residue from the waste becomes a very good fertilizer to be added to soils as an amendment.

The loop comes full circle and the growing process can begin again, and the community is able to capture the methane and excess heat stored within the wastes to supplement its energy supply. Not to mention containing the unwanted smells from animal and plant waste so that it doesn’t spread to the rest of the city.

Water can be thought of in a similar way. Waste water from residences can be stored underground and reused as irrigation water. If infrastructure such as streets, sidewalks, and piping are designed to be minimal and low-impact, then we can build greener, cheaper, and more effective infrastructure12. Water can follow its natural cycle in a low-impact development, and replenish watersheds to begin the cycle anew.

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Technological Goals Not only will food production become more localized in the future, but so will the solutions for power-generation. The Eco-Community could bring the concept of the District Power Plant, which has become so pervasive in town models across Europe, into the discussion for American cities.

Integrating many forms of power generation at many different scales is made possible by the introduction of a smart grid system. A smart grid is something many progressive towns in America have started to implement (Boulder, Chicago, Portland) because of its ability to network with disparate forms of power generation and the many forms of power supply the modern city demands13. Wind, geothermal, solar, and biogas sources of energy can all be plugged into a smart grid with a local substation that has control over supply, demand, and metering.

The Kimball Avenue Eco-Community can pioneer in this category because of its ability to capitalize on the recurring natural wastes generated on and around the site. Using a bio-methane district power plant, that can be supplemented by small-scale wind turbines (placed on the hills east of the site above Denison Avenue) and the integration of pv solar arrays throughout the community, the site could make strides to achieve net-zero energy consumption and possibly become a plus energy site in the future. A smart grid allows the community to connect to the city-wide grid and sell its excess energy as a from of revenue generation.

A low energy bill will be something highly valued in the future, the primary factor in many Americans’ decision of where to live.

Technological Goals 1.net-zero energy 2. district power plant (anaerobic digestion of community waste)

2. Unique Mix of Land Use (Complete Neighborhoods) 3. Agricultural Urbanism

3.decentralized smart grid system 4. Reintroducing Civic Community Spaces (Sociable Neighborhoods)

Co-Generation Plant A type of district power plant that produces hot water for heating and electricity for a district.

Uses boilers to produce steam and hot water which then is delivered to homes through insulated pipes.

Fig. 18 Eco-Community Lot Structure Strong east-west lots characterize the design.

The alleys run long and perpendicular to cross streets. Given a narrow east-west lot will force architects to design houses that are designed with greater south-north exposure. Longer alleyways running across many blocks ties one block to many others. A good stroll along a brick paved alley could lead to run-ins with neighbors or a more subdued setting for a walk.

Land-Use Goals Jeffersonian Solar Grid Orienting alleyways parallel to the long streets, rather than the typical practice of placing lanes perpendicular and bisecting blocks with deep north-south lots, helps create long east-west lots that induce buildings built on the lots to elongate themselves east-west, maximizing possible solar capabilities.

Fig. 16 A Diagram of the smart grid system

The Form: Agricultural Urbanism def. (AU) is a planning, policy, and design framework that focuses on integrating a wide range of sustainable food system elements into urban planning projects and neighborhoods (www.agriculturalurbanism.org, 2009 HB Lanarc)

Agricultural Urbanism can be a useful tool in mediating the environmental concerns of future development with the livability and smart land use principles of New Urbanism. The concept helps ensure self-reliance and food security at the local scale and fosters stronger civic neighborhoods.

Fig. 17 Conceptual sketch of a possible district power plant for the Eco-Community.

Programmatically, it would be coupled with a renewable energy center and a smart grid center for monitoring, advocacy, and research.

Concept

Land Use Goals 1. Jeffersonian Solar Grid

13 Department of Energy “Smart Grid” www.oe.energy.gov/smartgrid.htm, extracted May 11th, 2011 Smart Grid Diagram courtesy of http://www.osii.com/pt/solutions/initiatives/smartgrid.asp Co-Generation Plant photo courtesy D. Fischer via http://electrical-engineering-portal.com/district-heating

Agricultural Urbanism Rendering from the original concept developed

by Duany, Plater, Zyberk LLC (copyright 2009)

image courtesy DPZ LLC 2009

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The Concept of Agricultural Urbanism

G r e e n h o u s e s / H y d r o p o n i c s / V e r t i c a l G r d n

Concept

C o m m o n

R o o f G a r d e n s

B a l c o n y G a r d e n s

W i n d o w B o x e s

G a r d e n s

C o m m u n i t y G a r d e n s

K i t c h e n G a r d e n s

T6

F r o n t

F a r m s t e a d s

T r a c t o r

F o r a g e a b l e L a n d

T1

Fig 20 The center of the community is formed around community garden plots and public space.

This image shows KSU research facilities sharing plot space with single-family homes.

T2

Y a r d G r d n

Fig. 19 Agricultural Urbanism Diagram Showing the density gradient along the transect (typically a road or pathway) and the coinciding scale of building and agriculture aligned with the transect zone.

E x t r a U r b a n

The Concept of Agricultural Urbanism

T3

I n t r a U r b a n

T4

Fig. 21 Another example of how residential areas and pedestrian passageways weave through agricultural spaces. This rendering is of the KSU Agronomy Innovation Gardens. They could display new types of agricultural techniques in this space including vertical gardens, organics, hydroponics, and aeroponics.

T5

T6

Diagram Courtesy of “Agricultural Urbanism” booklet DPZ, LLC 2009

14 Pfeiffer, David Allen. Eating Fossil Fuels: Oil, Food and the Coming Crisis in Agriculture. New Society Publishers, 2006.

15 Duany, Plater, Zyberk & Company, LLC. “Agricultural Urbanism”. PDF Extracted January 20th, 2011, copyright 2009.

Future energy scarcity and the overwhelming costs of the global food system means transporting food over vast distances will increasingly become unaffordable14. Agricultural Urbanism is a way of localizing food production while generating gathering places for a community. Having KSU Researchers tending to their plots alongside members of the community, sharing the techniques involved in organic agriculture and growing food for the family, can only benefit both parties. Agricultural Urbanism can bring the community together, bring KSU and the community together, and provide a valuable new outlet for future KSU collaboration and interaction.

When farmland, such as this site, is built upon, the worry is that the amount of arable land will decrease with the re-purposing of the land. To the contrary, the premise of Agricultural Urbanism is that buildings can still work to grow food, at different scales and to supply food to the community in a different form. By incorporating growing in a more compact development, one-third of site will be urbanized while the productivity of the whole will triple. The balance is struck by intensifying the agricultural activity at every level of the transect; from window boxes, balcony and roof gardens in the denser urban zones, to progressively larger community gardens, yard gardens, small farms, and ultimately large farmsteads and tractor farms in the rural zones of the transect15.

Agricultural Urbanism is a useful tool in addressing the environmental concerns of future development with the livability and smart land use principles of New Urbanism. This concept helps ensure greater self-reliance and food security at the local scale while at the same time fostering stronger civic neighborhoods and civic institutions at the community scale.

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Urban Design Theory-Concept Tools

The Physical Form: Transect and Density Gradient The structure of Agricultural Urbanism is predicated upon the transect concept. The transect is comprised of six interdependent zones along a physical transect, such as an arterial or pathway corridor. The building density creates a gradient from one end of the transect to the other end, starting from most dense to least dense, while the gradient created by the level of agricultural production works inverse to the building density. As building density decreases, land dedicated to agricultural production increases and vice versa.

Using this system, localized networks of food production bring a neighborhood and community together as one linked whole. Slow production movements, such as the slow food or slow fashion movements are reinforced by the networks created along the transect when value-added agriculture (canning, bottling) or textile and clothing production in the denser transect zones have direct physical access to the fields where the raw material is harvested and transported along the transect. These localized agricultural networks also make closed-energy loops and renewable energies much easier to implement.

In the Kimball Avenue Eco-Community, plant material and livestock wastes are inserted into an anaerobic digester that creates biomethane. The biomethane can be used to power a turbine that can provide electricity to the smart grid of the community. It’s the way the Kimball Eco-Community is master planned to use closed-energy loops, renewable energies, and smart grid systems to move towards greater sustainability.

These four urban design principles, developed by highly regarded urban theorists, all had a part in guiding the design process for the Kimball Avenue Eco-Community. They acted as supplemented tools in the proverbial “architect’s toolbox” that continually assisted in guiding the project.

Space Syntax is a dynamic way of thinking about travelling through urban space. In order to break the rigidity of the New Urbanist grid, Hillier’s notion of axial and convex spaces, or transitory and congregation spaces, forming more organic-looking systems of “beads and rings”, guided the development of path networks on the site. Developing variation in paths, multiple ways of getting to a location, and an enriching pedestrian experience were prime design concerns.

Jane Jacobs’ “Exuberant Diversity” Her 1961 book, Death and Life of Great American Cities, was a daring condemnation of urban planning processes in her time. Sadly, these processes are still eminent today. Her central argument for mixtures of uses, community-based design, described space (open spaces given context), and localized governance and policy all influenced decisions made with the Eco-Community. “Exuberant diversity” was strived for, along with the mixing of uses that help keep activity on the streets at all times of the day.

Fig. 22 Diagram of the field agriculture dispersion throughout the site. In addition to these allocated spaces for agriculture, the riparian corridors could become another area for plots. Individual housing units could supplement field agriculture with window boxes, kitchen gardens, and terrace gardens.

The field plots move from community and common plots in the middle of blocks to large block-size tractor farms.

Kevin Lynch’s Image of the City Imageability and mental mapping can seem like an academic exercise, but many believe there is a connection between his theories and those of people like Jane Jacobs. The designers of the Eco-Community also believe that imageable places, with a clear physical structure of districts, nodes, landmarks, edges, and paths lead to stronger place-based communities. Places with strong identities make it easier for people to latch onto personally because they have unique qualities the collective can identify as unique to their daily lives.

Patrick Condon’s 7 Rules for Sustainable Design

Fig. 23 Organic Market & Value-Added Agriculture Center Redefining how we buy our food goes hand-inhand with how we grow it. This facility could couple a daily indoor market with a twice-aweek outdoor market and value-added agriculture on the upper floors (bottling, canning, drying). A great way of creating jobs, selling local produce, and designing a grocery store with windows.

Concept

Bill Hillier’s Space Syntax

Using the city of Vancouver, a unique success story in the quest to become sustainable (or to have a net-zero carbon footprint), Condon outlines the techniques employed by Vancouver, which are used as the criterion to measure the Eco-Community. They are: 1.

Restore the Streetcar City 2. Design an Interconnected Street System 3. Locate Commercial Services, Frequent Transit, and Schools within 5-minute walk 4.

Locate Jobs Close to Affordable/Diverse Housing 6. Create Linked System of Natural Areas 7. Invest in Lighter, Greener, Cheaper, Smarter Infrastructure.

Space Syntax image courtesy of www.lydiahear.com “urban design forum”, Jane Jacobs image courtesy of www.janeswalk.net intro page Kevin Lynch’s image map courtesy of csiss.org, and rendering of Vancouver courtesy of www.waterbucket.ca.

-See endnotes pg. 47 for referenced works by these urban theorists

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Process To design an eco-community from a virtual greenfield site all the way to a functional and complex comprehensive plan can be an overwhelming proposition. In many respects, the most important part of master planning is ensuring that the initial moves that are made create the proper basis for detailing (i.e. the architecture of the block and single building) to react appropriately and within the parameters of the community’s single vision. What is outlined in this section is a clear and concise depiction of the process taken in shaping the site.

Process

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Site Development Process

The Steps In Developing The Kimball Avenue Master Plan

Commercial Institutional University Residential (Mid Density) Residential (Low Density)

Fig 24: Site Context w/zoning A context plan showing adjacencies by zoning type.

The vastness of KSU owned land (light purple) is impressive, and continues to extend northwards past the site and KSU Large Dairy Farm.

Fig 26 & 27: Initial Grid Layout The site dimensions made it easy to take eight 1/4 mile squares and create 330’X660’ blocks. The dimensions characteristic of the original Manhattan, KS grid, when the downtown was still a vibrant streetcar corridor.

Fig 25:Preserved Site This plan image shows the site to be worked with once an inventory has been made and certain buildings relocated or removed (see fig. 7). The process of designing the site started with this as an underlay.

Fig 28 & 29: Path Development Preserving the riparian corridors and placing streets around these features (which the contours of site coincide with these natural drainage patterns) helped to create a unique warped grid that became a parti for the entire master plan.

_Two 1/2 Mile Squares _Eight 1/4 Mile Squares _Foundation for the Jefferson Grid

_Preserve Riparian Corridors (200’ wide) _Natural Water Flows/ Low Impact Development _Warped Grid

Process

_Further Organized Into 330’X660’ Blocks _Typical New Urbanist Grid _Allows For Mid-Block Lane _Good Permeability

_Unique Street Network Leads to Imageable Places and Community Identity _Pedestrian Boulevard Running North-South _Plazas and Pedestrian Passages created alongside and parallel to Kimball Avenue (Yellow)

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Comprehensive Master Plan-Lots & Buildings

Zone Attributes 1. Transit Stop & Bike Center 2. Organic Market, Grocery Center 3. Grain Science Conference Center 4. Promenade Park & Shopping District 5. Community Harvest Silos 6. Multi-Media Library & Black Box Theatre 7. Recreation Center 8. Community Center 9. Neighborhood School 10. Community Park 11. District Power Plant 12. KSU Large Animal Facility 13. KSU Sheep & Goat Facility (relocated) 14. Outdoor Pavillion

T1 Natural Zone-Growth Boundary

T2 Rural Zone 1-2 DU/Acre T3/T4 Interface Intra-Extra 2-7 DU/Acre

T5 Urban Center Zone 10-20 DU/Acre

T6 Urban Core 20-45 DU/Acre

DU/Acre: 1-2 Total Residential Units: 60 Housing Types: Concept Farm, Small Farmstead, Large Farmstead, Cluster Farm/ Plantation Style, Full-Scale Tractor Farm Other Building Types: Smart Grid Center, Recycling Center, Renewable Energy Lab, District Power Plant, KSU Animal Sciences Agricultural Types: Farmstead Plots, Tractor Farms, Large-Yield Plots

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11

Fig 30: Jeersonian Solar Grid Orienting alleyways parallel to the long streets, rather than the typical practice of placing lanes perpendicular and bisecting blocks with deep north-south lots, helps create long east-west lots that induce buildings constructed on the lots to elongate themselves east-west, maximizing solar capabilities.

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10

T2 Rural Zone 55 Residences

7

6

T3/T4 Interface Intra-Extra 96 Residences 14

T5 Urban Center Zone 500 Residences

4 2 3

Process

DU/Acre: 2-7 Total Residential Units: 96 Housing Types: Small Townhouses, Bungalows, Kitchen Garden Homes, Front Garden Homes, Small Farmsteads Other Building Types: Elementary School, KSU Agronomy Agricultural Types: Large Agronomy Test Plots, Community Gardens, Kitchen Gardens, Front Gardens, Farmstead Plots

1

Fig. 32 Comprehensive Master Plan The last iteration of the master plan for the Kimball Avenue Eco-Community

DU/Acre: 10-20 Total Residential Units: 560 Housing Types: Courtyard Clusters, Internal Street Townhouses, Rowhouses, Duplex, Split-Level, Live-Work, Single-Family w/secondary suites, Layer Houses Other Building Types: Medical/Professional, Live-Work, Co-Working Facility, Recreation Center, Community Resource Center, Multi-Media Library w/Black Box Theatre, Montessori Schools, Middle Schools Agricultural Types: Kitchen Gardens, Community Gardens, Orchards, Terrace Gardens, Display Gardens, Agribusiness/KSU Plots

T6: Urban Core Zone

5

Fig 31. Figure-Ground Plan Once the lots are implemented, the next step is to simulate what the possible shape of the community would be when homes and buildings are designed with strong east-west orientation.

T3/T4: Interface

T5: Urban Center Zone

T1 Natural Zone-Growth Boundary

T6 Urban Core Zone 250 Residences

T2: Rural Area

DU/Acre: 20-45 Total Residential Units: 525 Housing Types: Loft Apartments, Courtyard Apartments, Meadowlark Extension, Single-Loaded Condos/Apt., Atrium Apartments, Communal Villas, Short/Extended Stay Villas, Row Houses, Lift Apartments Other Building Types: KSU Research and Grain Science Forum, Flex Labs, Restaurants, Organic Market, Value-Added Produce, Commercial/ Business OďŹƒces,Live-Work Units, KSU Facilities, Agribusiness, TOD Center, Eco- Brewery, Theater, Kansas Wheat Commission, Communal Live-Work (Slow Business Networks) Agricultural Types: Balcony Gardens, Roof Gardens, Display Gardens, Vertical Gardens, Community Plots, Greenhouses

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Analysis Clearly disseminating a complex master plan is an important step both for designers and viewers. In the comprehensive plan, there are three ways in which the material can be more clearly presented.

The first way, which was introduced in the previous section, is to organize the site based on Agricultural Urbanism’s transect zone structure. This form of organization served as a guide in making decisions concerning what types of buildings and agriculture would be present at each zone, the space requirements for each type, the mixture of uses present, and the gradient as one moved north to the back of the site.

The second way is through binding elements.

These are the elements of the design that give it continuity and act as prevailing qualities or distinct entities giving the entire site cohesion.

The third way is through imageability, a concept developed by urban theorist Kevin Lynch (pg.

26). Imageability leads to a stronger sense of place identity, which consequently helps residents develop stronger personal attachments to the collective identity of their neighborhood and community.

Imageability also helps one to decipher the place in which he or she is experiencing and can help with the legibility of the entire Eco-Community. Legibility can also be described as a tool to help orient oneself in the Eco-Community, making travelling throughout the site more meaningful. In the Eco-Community, the easiest way to organize and dierentiate is through imageable districts. Pieces of the tapestry that can be analyzed as a unique element which can stand alone, but also holds an indelible link to the functioning of the whole.

Analysis

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Diagrams of Binding Elements

Binding Elements: Green Spaces & Civic Places Public green space, when sufficiently provided, delivers a very clear and concise statement to the residents of a neighborhood: we want you to live well together. The responsibility of urban designers is to ensure that the spaces essential in creating real palpable society are handed over to the residents, and through the people, are refined into distinct places that the community as a whole can take pride in. Civic pride leads to many great things; If people can identify with a place, and attach themselves to its living persona, than they will end up investing in their environment’s well-being. Jane Jacobs, a seminal urban theorist, is one of the greatest proponents of neighborhoods designed around the central theme of shared public space. As she puts it, “a city’s very wholeness in bringing together people with communities of interest is one of its greatest assets…….a city district needs people with access to the political, the administrative, and the special-interest communities of the city as a whole16.” What this usually means is neighborhood and individual block governance and community organizations, better schools, safety, and the greater likelihood for neighborly bonds and camaraderie.

Society lives in the frame of hierarchies-spatial and social organization that help one make sense of their environment. Public spaces require a network of diverse hierarchies. This notion is paramount to the daily lives of the people; where do you take the children to play during a break from work and where the community gathers as a whole to discuss an important city ordinance. The setting for these two daily occurrences is different; an identifiable hierarchy helps a resident understand the closest small park is good for a stroll and the green square at the center of the neighborhood is the greater forum for the community.

Designing down to the smallest level of the hierarchy and up to the largest, whether it is a community garden plot or the larger promenade park is a crucial task for a prudent master planner.

Diagrams of Green Spaces Fig. 34 (Left) Riparian Corridors Fig.35 (Right) Parks & Green Spaces

Fig. 36 (Left) Agricultural Plots Fig.37 (Right) Composite

Diagrams of Path Networks

Fig. 38 (Left) Street Network Fig. 39 (Right) Pedestrian Passages

Fig. 33 Pedestrian Boulevard The Pedestrian Boulevard: 10’ Bike Lane Has Priority Over Automobiles At Intersections. Connects to Transit Center, making it a pedestrian expressway for workers in the morning and strollers.

Fig. 40 Composite 15’

Analysis

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16 Jacobs, Jane, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Modern Library, 1993.

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Creating Imageable Districts

The New Paradigm: Contributing to an Exclusive Identity The Kimball Avenue Eco-Community is intended as the first of a new paradigm. In its integration of uses that have usually been designated as separate from a city’s fabric, the Eco-Community makes the assertion that the university campus, research & development complex, and business park should be integral parts of a vibrant mixed-use community.

Generating a community around this new exchange between living, research, agriculture, and innovation sparked a path in the development of the project as something that not only pioneered in its integration of so many new agricultural uses and building types, but also its ecological, technological, and land use goals. These become the elements of the new paradigm that truly make it a national model for future community development as well as primary factors contributing to the building of a collective identity. Being a part of a living community which practices a new paradigm of living and development is something that through spatial design and daily activity, creates a palpable atmosphere everyone feeds off of. An atmosphere containing a sense of contribution to something unique and ground-breaking that instills a feeling of purpose. The motivation to live more sustainably, to tread lightly on one’s environment, and to make the planet a better place are qualities to be highly valued and would be carried forth in the Kimball Avenue Eco-Community.

Fig. 41 Riparian Corridor View Down Southwest Riparian Corridor

Fig. 42 The Neighborhood Center Overhead Shot of Neighborhood Center: Intended as the vibrant meeting place for the community.

Fig. 43 Sketch of KSU Agronomy Innovation Display

Fig. 44 Sketch of the Neighborhood Center

Fig. 45 Sketch of the Business/Shopping/Dining District

Analysis

17 Lynch, Kevin, The Image of the City, The MIT Press, 1960. March 13th 2011 18 Relph, Edward, “Place and Placelessness” Pion, reprint 2009. Oct. 1st 2010 19 Hester, Randolph, “ Sacred Structures and Everyday Life: A Return to Manteo, North Carolina”. PDF Extracted November 10th, 2010.

Designing imageable places is an important aspect of urban design that is often overlooked. Some of the most influential urban theorists, such as Kevin Lynch and Jane Jacobs have stressed the importance of the social identity of neighborhoods17. Without a strong connection to the place where one lives, or a feeling of being a member of the community (part of its identity) then the Eco-Community falls apart.

In this regard, social sustainability is just as important as physical sustainability. The overlooked aspect of the plight suburban sprawl has created is the phenomenon of place-deprivation18. Giving a suburban neighborhood deeper personal meaning is difficult when there isn’t a vibrant life to its streets and there is a scarcity of communal space. In order to create meaningful place, an individual must interpret the environment not only as a single consciousness but as one in a collective. This concept is best described by Jane Jacobs, who acknowledges that, “people must take a modicum of public responsibility for each other even if they have no ties to each other”, in order to protect and preserve that social structure19.

The failure of so many New Urbanism projects has been the monotony of their design. The inflexible grid, and the lack of variety in the form. They lack distinction in a New Urbanism project’s parts, the type of nuance and singularity that so many European towns have developed within their public spaces, is often missing in their formal compositions.

The imageable districts were developed through the process of site development and the introduction of the unique street system (see fig. 11), which allowed for the further exploration of uniquely shaped and programmed districts. Designing places that residents can prescribe meaning and importance to is crucial to the community’s attitude towards preserving the place, strengthening its interests, and helping the community to evolve over time.

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The Business District & Promenade Park Shopping District

The Neighborhood Center The convergence point of all the residential areas and the community hearth. The Neighborhood Center is intended to provide the ideal civic space for a complete neighborhood.

The gathering place for the “insiders” of the community, where community recreation and resource centers would be located. The neighborhood park would be flanked by two schools so that the park spaces could double as school playgrounds (increase land efficiency). Shared community resources like the multi-media library, community center, and black-box theatre would also benefit from the proximity to the two schools. School plays, community performances, concerts, evening classes (foreign language, music lessons, clubs, etc.), and community meetings could all take place in a vibrant place where activities would overlap in public spaces.

One of the most important elements of this district is the Co-Working facility or “Bee-Hive” for

“out-of-house” workers. A community resource that would offer internet, teleconference, and printing/ copying resources for the new class of technologybased, entrepreneurial, and creative class people working from the house who could use a congregation space to connect with peers, collaborate, and feed off of one another- like a community think-tank. People prefer to live and work around people, the prospect of working alone at the house usually becomes cold and isolating, this becomes a good remedial resource.

The green plaza is a terraced open space nestled between the recreation and community centers. It serves as both a spill-out area for both of these structures, and as the most important outdoor civic space in the community. “Movies-on-thegrass” and important community gatherings would presumably take place here.

Fig. 46 1. Middle School 2. Community Resource Center 3. Neighborhood Park 4. Co-Working Facility “Bee-Hive” 5. Green Plaza, Pool, and Courts 6. Recreation Center 7. Community Black Box Theatre 8. Montessori School 9. Multi-Media Library 10. Live-Work & Knowledge Industry Units 11. Medical & Professional Service Units

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Fig. 47 1. Organic Market & Grocery 2. Transit & Bike Center 3. Transit Stop and Covered Outdoor Market 4. The New Business Center (Flex Labs, NBAF Spin-offs, Office Space, AgTech and Knowledge Based Industries) 5. Eco-Brewery & Restaurant(s) 6. Promenade Park & Shops 7. Lounges, Cafes, Theatre 8. Covered Parking (under plaza) 9. KSU Research Forum (adjacent)

Designed as a mixed-use area where the NBAF support industries, flex labs, and research extensions could be positioned close to a future transit stop (good future commuter stop), the promenade park (shopping, dining, entertainment) and adjacent to the KSU Forum and the Organic Market.

This area is designed as the ideal interface between the community and the city. The intent was to design a space that would attract residents of the community and surrounding areas of the city by providing both residents and workers with closer options for eating, shopping, and an organic locallygrown food market.

As the interface between the city and community, the area could be an exciting walkable plaza area for people to congregate after work and weekends to use as a walkable shopping area, and a convenient place to go for night entertainment.

The location of this district, along Kimball Avenue, makes it a very desirable residential location for Ft. Riley troops and their families, KSU students, researchers, and young professionals looking for a good location for commuting to work close to home (affordable lofts and apartments).

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Analysis

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The KSU Research Forum

The KSU Agronomy Innovation Campus

The current spatial form of the extension campus for the KSU Grain Sciences is sporadic and disjointed. This proposed district attempts to create a cohesive complex of buildings with a greater scope of research and synergy between NBAF, KSU, the rest of the Eco-Community, and the general public.

The district becomes a forum, or exchange of innovative ideas and information between horticulture, grain science, agriculture, renewable energies, and ecology. Large parking lots should be avoided (a blemish on the current site), parking garages with green roofs and PV panels will be introduced.

The essential move is to give KSU Grain Sciences Extension Campus a “campus feel”. It could be a place located adjacent the proposed business district, where KSU researchers could walk to a pleasant outdoor park and shopping area with ample eateries and coffee shops for lunch/breaks.

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A public display space and research garden for KSU agronomy. The district’s most important quality is its ability to showcase new agricultural techniques such as organics, hydroponics, vertical gardens, and the center for an Agribusiness model (local food growing and distribution) in a highly-trafficked area. KSU Agronomy would receive a lot of exposure and good connectivity to test crops throughout the community at this point, where they could jump on the Pedestrian Boulevard, the spine of the development, with motorized carts.

The three silos at the primary street intersection of the community would be used for storing the grains from the harvest of the entire community. A way of building community out of the visual reinforcement of an entire years-worth of growing and collecting.

The Forum is also an interface between KSU extension and field studies, the community-at-large, and NBAF spin-off corporations and their laboratories.

The Land-Grant Responsibility (teaching-researchservice) manifests itself here. With field study and new innovative solutions to preserving ecologies, horticultural therapy, food security, organic agriculture, and even nutrition and baking science developing inside the community and then presented to one another and to the general public.

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Fig. 48 Existing & Proposed 1. Water & Ecology Center (proposed) 2. Kansas Wheat Commission (proposed) w/outdoor lecture space 3. Baking Sciences Facilities and Offices ( north existing & south proposed) 4. Grain Science Silo & Offices (existing) 5. Grain Science Conference Center (existing) 6. Horticulture & Greenhouse (proposed) 7. Alternative & Renewable Energies (proposed) 8. New Offices w/ habitable green roof (proposed) 9. Parking Garage w/PV display (proposed) 10. Bio-Refinery (Existing) 11. Extended & Short Stay Offices & Suites (guest researchers, professors, etc) (proposed) 12. Neighborhood Park Green Pavillion (Green and PV Roof) (Proposed)

Fig. 49 1. Community Grain Silos 2. Pedestrian Boulevard & Gardens 3. Agribusiness Headquarters 4. Vertical Gardens, Botanical, Agriculture Display 5. Greenhouses, Hydroponics, Aeroponics 6. Pocket Playground & Grain Silos 7. KSU Seed Lab & Agronomy Headquarters(Existing) 8. Seed Labs 9. Administration & Storage Facility 10. Vehicle & General Storage Facility

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Analysis

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As important display and community-campus interface, the shape of the district signifies its character as an important node for pedestrian and automotive movement. The district is bounded by streets connecting the neighborhoods to Kimball Avenue, and the laneways and pedestrian pathways to the retail, dining, and entertainment amenities along Kimball. The Pedestrian Boulevard bisects the district and grabs both automotive and foot traffic moving east-west. The junction of all these circuits is at the silos at the bottom of the image.

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The KSU Agronomy Neighborhood Camp In this project, the KSU Agronomy Department stands to lose the freedom it had when it had full reign over abundant open land on the site. But there is a silver-lining to the Kimball Avenue Eco-Community for the Department of Agronomy. The proposal could strengthen their standing in both the academic and physical community, give them access to the entire site, and provide them with the ability to broaden the scope of their research while providing a more diverse base of agricultural options.

The Neighborhood Camp, at the very center of the community, is intended to be the nexus of all agricultural activity on the site. From here, the Department of Agronomy has full access to various plots around the community where they can work alongside members of the community tending to their personal plots. This becomes a valuable relationship where KSU teaches within the neighborhoods. They could pass on new techniques and ways to make a better garden and in exchange, every member of the community becomes an extra-hand for the University.

The Mews Live-Work District Work downstairs, sleep upstairs, play outside. The emerging creative class of self-employed design professionals, infotechs, artists, and entrepreneurs desire tight-knit communities where like-minded people can interact. The proposed district posits that the alienation felt working at home in suburbia is unnecessary.

The Mews concept works well as a place that has a unique composition, enriching pedestrian experience, and can be converted into an outdoor market/exhibition with plenty of window exposure to the passer-by or potential customers.

The Mews neighborhoods in Britain served as a model for this district. Their rambling, crisscrossing pathways and compact forms give them a charming and intimate quality that encourages quaint little communities with tight social bonds to form. Hopefully, a tightly-knit district of creative people who enjoy the intimacy of the community would organize themselves and spontaneously create events showcasing their work and the diverse services they can offer to the public.

Through trial-and-error, Agronomy gains a new source of information on what works and what doesn’t.

The Pedestrian Boulevard and the network of riparian trails offer tremendous connectivity to disparate areas of the site, and many different soil types. From the Neighborhood Camp, there is a strong link to all the areas of the site, and in using the Pedestrian Boulevard, an uninterrupted link to the Display Gardens, the KSU Student Concept Farm, and full-scale production fields to the north. There is also connectivity to a wide range of different-sized plots. Agronomy could test certain crops on larger plots in the northern portion of the community and others on small plots in the center of residential blocks (see pg. 45 for typical block structure).

The clarity of organization the plan affords could make their operation more technically efficient then how it currently functions.

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Fig. 50 1. KSU Agronomy Greenhouse 2. KSU Agronomy Field Headquarters 3. KSU Agronomy-Eco-Community Resource Center 4. Montessori School-Cooperative Agriculture 5. KSU Test Plots 6. Community Plots (alongside KSU Test Plots-for Lofts & Apartments in denser zones) 7. Bungalow District 8. Pedestrian Boulevard and Riparian Corridor w/ access to trail network and full-scale agr. fields to north (see locator map)

Fig.51 1. Pedestrian Boulevard (connecting neighborhoods to the north to Kimball Avenue to south) see locator map.

2. Community Garden Plots (per live-work unit) 3. Detached Live-Work Units w/terrace garden 4. Liner Live-Work Units (attached) along major thoroughfare

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Analysis

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Conclusion

The Kimball Avenue Eco-Community Typical Neighborhood Block The most important features of the typical Kimball Eco-Community block is the mid-block lane running north-south in order to ensure lots running east-west for solar orientation. The other important feature is the communal house at the center of each block which spills out into the community garden space. The common house is a civic resource for residents of an individual block. In order to make lot and house sizes smaller, and to design blocks with greater land efficiency, the common house is an essential introduction to future neighborhoods.

The common house takes some of the superfluous and under-utilized functions of the selfisolating suburban home and places it in a communal building where neighbors can join together and build physical community- much like the cooperativehousing projects being constructed across the country.

Though the type of housing and size of lots may change depending on the blocks location along the transect of the development, the block will always have a central open space to be shared by the families of the block, common house, some form of communal agriculture, a water retention/children’s play area on one end, and a long mid-block lane running down the center that carries across residential streets to other blocks, binding blocks together and connecting neighbors from different blocks.

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Analysis

Fig. 52 1. Brick-paved mid-block lane 2. 30’ Residential Street w/street parking (6’ parking-,18’ two-lane, 6’ parking) 3. Residential Lots 4. Inner-Block Parking (Replaces Garages) 5. KSU Ag Plot 6. Community Garden Plots (Per Household) 7. Common House Possible Common House Functions: 1. Mailbox Room 2. Dry Cleaning & Sewing Repair 3. Guest Rooms 4. Block Meeting Space 5. Communal Dining Space 6. Community Kitchen 7. Lounge 8. Day Care or Dry Cleaning (Denser Blocks) 9. Tools/Equipment Storage 10. Car Sharing 11. Energy Usage Monitoring 12. Energy Substation 12. Community Support Service 13. Recycling Center

The complexity of the design process and the manifold concepts involved in the creation of the Kimball Avenue Eco-Community are belied by a simple motive: to design communities that are resilient in the face of current and future tribulation. It has become increasingly important to design the communities where we work, live, and play for a future where climate destabilization, energy scarcity, diminished human health and welfare, and place deprivation will be problems requiring new innovative solutions.

It has also become increasingly evident that current land use practices, stubbornly entrenched in the ethos of city governances, are a detriment to future economic growth and public welfare. Courageous decisions will have to be made by the University and the City of Manhattan if the paradigm is to shift towards a city form embracing future sustainability and resilience, not to mention fiscal returns and economic growth.

The Kimball Avenue Eco-Community is a new paradigm and a shift away from the current practices of land development leaving our future city with a trail of expensive infrastructural maintenance and auto-dependent “islands”. It makes the proclamation that it is in every party’s best interest to build a new mixed-use, transit-oriented, renewable energy-powered, and “agriculturally urbanized” community.

The Eco-Community’s identity is forged by its unique position adjacent the future site of NBAF and its location at the center of the Kansas State University’s growth northwards. With its strategic placement at the interface between these two research and information-based entities, and the need for new housing for a growing city population, the site has been brewed into a “perfect storm” of activity.

Capturing this storm by integrating a new use: the research and knowledge-based industries commonly sequestered in business and research parks, into the mixture makes this community a trailblazing idea that could become a national model for sustainable community design.

The Kimball Avenue Eco-Community is a new approach to community design which focuses on the integration of all life activities within complete neighborhoods as part of a living community. An approach that makes the bold claim that the future of American progress will start with re-imagining it spatially- to be more resilient and sustainable. The Eco-Community claims to be this sustainable and resilient solution to land use at the margins, at the interface of the urban and rural fabrics, where future food security will be generated and a new exchange of ideas and resources will grow sustainable communities that are self-reflexive, self-regenerating, and self-reliant; at once a human ecology and a society working to find solutions to future progress and evolution.

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End Notes 1. www.vanalen.org “ Living Machine City Model”, Van Alen Institute New York. License 2010. Modified 7 November 2010. Extracted on March. 6th 2011.

2 A. Duany, J. Speck, M. Lydon. The Smart Growth Manuel. McGraw-Hill, 2010.

3 2011 Community Preference Survey http://www.realtor.org/government_affairs/smart_growth/survey 4 Borys, Hazel “Let’s Get Small: Placemaking as Antidote for Shrinking City Budgets” retrieved from www.placeshakers.wordpress.com 5 Kunstler, James Howard “Geography of Nowhere”, Free Press. 1994 6 A. Duany, J. Speck, M. Lydon. The Smart Growth Manuel. McGraw-Hill, 2010.

7 “Animal Health Corridor”, Kansas City Area Development Council, www.kcanimalhealth.com 8 Rubin, Jeff. Why Your World Is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller: Oil and the End of Globalization. New York: Random House, 2009.

9 A. Duany, J. Speck, M. Lydon. The Smart Growth Manuel. New York:McGraw-Hill, 2010 10 Heinberg, Richard, The Party’s Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies, New Society of Publishers, 2005 Print 11 Peter Calthorpe and Associates “TOD Guide”via City of San Diego Office of Planning, published 1992 12 P. Condon, 7 Rules for Sustainable Communities: Design Strategies for the Post-Carbon World. Island Press. 2010.

13 Department of Energy “Smart Grid” www.oe.energy.gov/smartgrid.htm, extracted May 11th, 2011 14 Pfeiffer, David Allen. Eating Fossil Fuels: Oil, Food and the Coming Crisis in Agriculture. New Society Publishers, 2006.

15 Duany, Plater, Zyberk & Company, LLC. “Agricultural Urbanism”. PDF Extracted January 20th, 2011, copyright 2009.

16 Jacobs, Jane, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Modern Library, 1993.

17 Lynch, Kevin, The Image of the City, The MIT Press, 1960. March 13th 2011 18 Relph, Edward, “Place and Placelessness” Pion, reprint 2009. Oct. 1st 2010 19 Hester, Randolph, “ Sacred Structures and Everyday Life: A Return to Manteo, North Carolina”. PDF Extracted November 10th, 2010.

20. Hillier, Bill,Hanson, Julienne “The Social Logic of Space”, Cambridge University Press, 1989, print

FIN

“ Everything interesting happens at the margins” -Richard Florida