A New East Bank Neighborhood in Nashville

A new east bank neighborhood in Nashville

UTK URBAN DESIGN STUDIO AUGUST 2016

A NEW EAST BANK NEIGHBORHOOD IN NASHVILLE The mission of the Nashville Civic Design Center is to elevate the quality of Nashville’s built environment and to promote public participation in the creation of a more beautiful and functional city for all. Towards this end, the Nashville Civic Design Center:

PROMOTES the Ten Principles of The Plan of Nashville, a vision for growth and development, created and endorsed by the citizens of Nashville; EDUCATES the public about civic design through lectures by prominent speakers and workshops; PROVIDES professional staff and highly-qualified design interns to consult on civic and other community development projects;

FACILITATES public dialogue about civic design and its impact through the Urban Design Forum. The Forum meets monthly at the Civic Design Center, provides events, lectures and an open forum for the debate of ideas and issues of interest to its members;

RESEARCHES and PUBLISHES reports on various civic design issues.

This book was designed and written by Vivek Prasad, Design Intern. Significant contributions were provided by Gary Gaston, Executive Director, Nashville Civic Design Center, author TK Davis, Professor at The University of Tennessee Knoxville College of Architecture and Design (UTK CoAD).

The Nashville Civic Design Center would like to give special thanks to TK Davis and the UTK CoAD students. civicdesigncenter.org August 2016

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New East Bank Neighborhood Aerial

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

CONTENTS FOREWORD INTRODUCTION

PRECEDENTS PROJECTS

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6

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UTK URBAN DESIGN STUDIO

1 MEGAN PLAGG

2 EMMANUEL HUBER-FEELY

3 NATE MIDGETT

4 JOHANNA COETZEE

5 AMY ST. JOHN

6 BRITTANY PETERS

7 MARYKATE LEITCH

IMPLEMENTATION

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TOOL BOX

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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INTRODUCTION PRIMARY DESIGN CHALLENGES: How can we learn and apply best practices in quality urban growth to make a new “walkable / bikeable” neighborhood?

How can we overcome a 100-year flood zone on a significant portion of the site?

How can we reconnect nearby neighborhoods and greenways to the river with a new Ellington Linear Park as proposed in The Plan of Nashville?

How can we repurpose a post-industrial urban wasteland, as well as coexist with adjacent in-place infrastructure necessary to retain?

NEIGHBORHOOD PROGRAM ASSUMPTIONS: During the Spring 2016 Semester, The Greater Nashville Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) requested the fourth year undergraduate Nashville Urban Design Studio to explore a proposal for a “New East Bank Neighborhood in Nashville.”

The site is on the Cumberland River, just across from Downtown Nashville’s skyline. At the present time, despite its proximate location, it is an industrial wasteland: what urban theorist Alan Berger terms a Drosscape. The site is inherently bounded and constrained by the CSX mainline railroad embankment to the north, the elevated embankment of the I-65 interstate highway to the east, the Woodland Street embankment and extensive football stadium parking lots to the south, and the Cumberland River to the west. Nonetheless, with downtown Nashville’s extraordinary building boom ongoing, with no end in sight, this 55-acre location would seem ripe for urban redevelopment.

Having made proposals to redevelop “Spaghetti Junction” in 2012, once again studio faculty member T. K. Davis provided his students with a street and block urban design plan, asking them to develop the program and design of blocks as urban architecture, providing public spatial definition and spatial activation as places. “Spaghetti Junction” is a comparable size multi-block area aligned with the Eastgate site, but on the immediate other side of the interstate.

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FOREWORD

The Plan of Nashville, which focused on downtown Nashville and its inner ring neighborhoods, was a four-year civic assessment and visioning process involving 55 public meetings and over 800 citizen participants, culminating in its publication by the Vanderbilt University Press in 2004.

The number one consensus priority coming out of this effort was a mandate to reconnect the downtown and its surrounding neighborhoods to the Cumberland River.

In the design studio’s evolution of the urban design plan, a linear park proposed in The Plan of Nashville ties neighborhoods adjacent to Ellington Parkway to the river, which would incorporate a terrace linked to the Hargreaves’ riverfront development on the stadium site.

The urban design studio assumed the site warranted mixeduse, high density mid-rise development, typically with five to six story buildings above grade, in order to generate well proportioned streetscapes. All streets were to have adequate sidewalks, trees and lighting. Urban spatial definition and activation was to be of paramount importance.

It was further assumed that the following in-place and adjacent infrastructure would remain: the railroad, the Interstate embankment, the Main Street and Woodland Street viaduct and embankments, the stadium parking lots, the large Gerdau warehouse ( jobs) and the Marathon Petroleum Terminal (homeland security and barge access).

The new Eastgate neighborhood is a transit-oriented development, as it is traversed by both local public transit bus service on Main Street and First Avenue. As Peter Calthorpe summarizes in his important book The Next American Metropolis, the principles of transit-oriented development are to: •Organize growth on a regional level to be compact and transit-supportive; •Place commercial, housing, jobs, parks, and civic uses within walking distance of transit stops; •Create pedestrian-friendly street networks which directly connect local destinations; •Provide a mix of housing types, densities, and costs; •Preserve sensitive habitat, riparian zones, and high quality open space; make public spaces the focus of building orientation and neighborhood activity, and •Encourage infill and redevelopment along transit corridors within existing neighborhoods.

Overall objectives of the new Eastgate Neighborhood include designing to meet LEED-ND criteria, including low speed, pedestrian–friendly streets. Surface parking lots should be held to an absolute minimum, with curbside parking emphasized. With Nashville facing an “affordable housing crisis,” 20-30% of the housing was to fall into this somewhat ambiguous and diverse category.

The urban design studio’s strategy for neutralizing the 100year flood zone issue is to provide structured parking typically submerged five feet below grade, to lift both commercial and residential spaces lining streets above the current legally mandated elevations. In the event of a major flood event, this parking would be designed by FEMA regulations to allow water to penetrate the submerged parking unimpeded contributing to the development’s resiliency. This “cut and fill” would also help lift and level the public spaces on the already relatively level site.

One caveat: In the studio’s multi-blocks developed primarily with residential program, especially those lining the Ellington Linear Park, it was assumed that many, different architectural firms would design individual blocks, in order to foster diversity of form, materials, language, color, dwelling unit types, etc. In sofar as the urban design studio was comprised of only seven students to address 21 urban blocks, the design studio was very constrained in demonstrating this latent diversity. It was assumed that dialectical unity of spatial definition and form would be achieved through a future form-based code. As an example, one might point to Commonwealth Avenue in Boston’s Back Bay. In addition, assumed that the development community would seek 1.2 parking spaces per dwelling unit, and 2.5 parking spaces per 1,000 gross square feet of commercial or office space, with bars and restaurants somewhat higher. A significant portion of these parking expectations could be meet with curbside parking, which contributes to a pedestrian-friendly sidewalk condition. When feasible, structured parking should be designed to be potentially convertible to future commercial or residential space. Such parking also should exploit the potential of green roofs to form communal space for residential or commercial use.

FLOOD ZONE BUILDING ELEVATION REQUIREMENTS: Current FEMA 100-Year Flood Zone Level Ground Level Commercial Ground Level Residential Lowest Level Parking Below Commercial Lowest Level Parking Below Residential Level Two

El. 416’ El. 417’ minimum El. 420’ minimum El. 407’ El. 410’ El. 430’

Proposed FEMA 100-Year Flood Zone Level Ground Level Commercial Ground Level Residential Lowest Level Parking Below Commercial Lowest Level Parking Below Residential Level Two

El. 414’ El. 415’ minimum El. 418’ minimum El. 408’ El. 411’ El. 428’

Proposed 500-Year Flood Level

El. 418’

FOREWORD

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precedents

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PRECEDENTS BOSTON BAY BACK

BLAIR RESIDENCE

VICTORIA RESIDENTIAL COMPLEX

BLOCK 2710 VINETAPLATZ

VIA VERDE

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PRECEDENTS

RITTERSTRASSE-NORD

HAUS AM MICHEL

BRONX DEVELOPMENTAL CENTER

ENERPLEX BUILDINGS

HOTEL BERLIN

URBAN VILLAS

PRECEDENTS

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The Back Bay Neighborhood and Commonwealth Avenue BOSTON

Boston’s 40 block Back Bay neighborhood is anchored by the straight, central armature of Commonwealth Avenue.

Commonwealth Avenue is simultaneously a grand boulevard and a linear park tying the Public Garden to the east with the serpentine Fenway of Olmsted’s Emerald Necklace. The treelined boulevard was inspired by Parisian Boulevards admired by its landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted. Back Bay’s urban blocks were the result of filling in a marsh between 1857-1900.

The boulevard is 240 feet wide and its built spatial definition is an example of an early form-based code. Buildings on Commonwealth had to be built of masonry, with party wall frontages respecting a 20 foot setback from the property, while individual slot site facades had considerably variety in their detailing.

Street Views of Commonwealth Avenue

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PRECEDENTS The Back Bay Neighborhood and Commonwealth Avenue

In its earlier days, the Back Bay neighborhood exhibited interesting social stratifications. As Donald Freeman has written in the AIA’s compendium Boston Architecture, “It was generally considered that Beacon Street was occupied by people with family and money, Marlborough Street by those with family but no money, and Commonwealth Avenue the choice of those with money but no family. The water side of Beacon Street and the sunny side of Commonwealth Avenue were held to be the most prestigious of all.”

WORKS CITED Freeman, Donald. Boston Architecture.

Cambridge: MIT Press, 1970.

Aerial view of the neighborhood

Aerial view of the neighborhood

Aerial view

Street view of Commonwealth Avenue

PRECEDENTS The Back Bay Neighborhood and Commonwealth Avenue

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The Blair Residence BOSTON

This micro-housing project was created by a recent graduate of Northeastern University, Chris Marciano, long with class teammates Mark Munroe and Ryan Matthew. The Blair lot is located in Boston next to Dudley Square. The apartments are aimed toward young, recently graduated professionals. The idea is to couple the apartments so they share an interior and exterior “dirty” program space. The shared program includes a re-configurable social space for dining or entertaining.

The idea of shared space is similar to having a roommate, but yet still more separated than the typical roommate situation. This gives young professionals the ability to have more space than they could probably normally afford.

Street view looking toward apartments

Various North American cities have recently been encouraging the construction of an emerging urban housing type: the micro-unit apartment building. Boston, New York, Denver, San Francisco, Seattle and Vancouver have all had micro-housing initiatives in recent years, often promoted by civic leadership, perhaps most notably by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Micro-unit housing, obviously is not for everyone, but it does meet a growing part of the urban housing market.

The motivation for promoting this dwelling type in downtown urban cores is that it potentially doubles a building’s density relative to more conventional sized downtown housing units, and can generate more affordable housing by condensing unit size. With most downtowns having relatively high land cost, by reducing unit size, both construction and development costs are reduced per unit. They can also be affordable workforce housing for all ages. “Empty-nester Boomers,” or seniors, are another potential growth market for this housing type.

WORKS CITED Davis, Thomas K. Micro Unit Housing: Downtown Nashville: UTCoAD 2013.

StudioMAUD. MAUD. 2016. 27 July 2016.

Street view rendering

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PRECEDENTS The Blair Residence

Apartment exterior

Typical floor plan

Public and private space diagram

Dining room rendering

PRECEDENTS The Blair Residence

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Victoria Residential Complex BERLIN

Aerial view

The Victoria Residential Complex may be thought of as a critique, but also as an homage to both 19th and 20th century Berlin architecture. This urban block consists of 12 “urban villas,” roughly 75 feet square in plan and sharing a common cornice line, and four stories in height. There cubic apartment buildings, lining the longitudinal flanks of the block, have an equal spacing of solid to void between them. At both ends of the block, taller “bookend” buildings line the Lindenstrasse and the Alte Jakobstrasse. A garden promenade ties the buildings together longitudinally in the middle of the block. Although it is the project of one developer, each of the urban villas are designed by a different architect, so as to produce variety within the overall unity of the block design.

The linear building on the Lindenstrasse on the opposite side of the Victoria Residential Complex, by architects Hans Kollhoff and Arthur Ovaska, is arguably the most sophisticated individual project achievement of the Internationale Baustellung Berlin (IBA).

It’s sophisticated and layered façade, at six stories, produces an interlocking figure-ground reading of great visual interest. Its parking is located sub-surface below the Lindenstrasse. Here there is an homage paid to the modern architectural achievements of Berlin housing architects during the 20th century, but in an abstracted way completely avoiding any sense of nostalgia..

Aerial view

WORKS CITED Cepl, Jason. Kollhoff & Timmerman Architects: Hans Kollhoff.

Milano: Phaidon, 2004.

Nagul, Wolfgang. Internationale Bauasstellung Berlin 1987: Felgentruff Goebel, 1991.

Neumeyer, Fritz. Hans Kollhoff. Barcelona: Editorial Gustavo Gili, 1991.

Street view

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PRECEDENTS Victoria Residential Complex

Close-ups of the residential units

Site plan Close-ups of the residential units

Axonemetric drawing

Street view of Lidenstrasse, designed by Kollhoff and Ovaska

PRECEDENTS Victoria Residential Complex

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Victoria NEW YORK CITY

The award winning Via Verde (2014) is an apartment building in the Bronx containing 222 apartments. The complex is broken into three different building components: a 20-story tower to the north, 6 to 13 story apartment components in the middle, and 2 to 4 story-townhouses to the south. This is affordable housing intended to promote health and wellness. Architects Grimshaw and Dattner describe the building as taking “the form of a tendril, where it rises from grade to tower, encloses the courtyard, and shows a connection with the world.”

View of the roof garden

The ground floor incorporates mixed-uses to enhance its contribution to the neighborhood and its residents, with retail space, a community health center and live/work units. A fitness center is located near the main entrance. On the roof tops of the contiguous building, as it wraps the block in a stepping formation, are found community exterior terraces and roof gardens. The roof gardens “can be used as a place for gathering, fruit and vegetable cultivation, gardening, and recreation while providing improving insulation and using the benefits of storm water.” This is a very ambitious, and handsome, built “state of the art” project indeed.

WORKS CITED “Via Verde / Grimshaw + Dattner Architects” 11 Mar 2014. ArchDaily.

27 Jul 2016.

View of Via Verde

Rendered perspective of the side of Via Verde

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PRECEDENTS VictoriA

View of the apartment interior looking toward the living area and kitchen

View of the apartment interior looking toward the kitchen

PRECEDENTS VictoriA

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Ritterstrasse-Nord BERLIN

Ritterstrasse Nord, planned by architect Rob Krier in 1976, was designed to be a four block, quadratic urban formation, emphasizing a cruciform of pedestrian-friendly streets leading to a spatially celebrated intersection at its center. The site had been an urban wasteland since World War II. Work continued on this initiative with the leadership of the Internationale Bauausstellung Berlin (IBA) program in the 1980s. A number of different architects worked to complete the architecture of these four blocks, such that while there was “a consistent use of materials and details, and buildings have the same number of floors, the individual building plans are all different and form a very eclectic typology of infill and corner buildings.

Bangert, Jansen, Scholz and Schultes designed four of the buildings surrounding the blocks four interior courtyard gardens, each with their own lobby elevator and stair cores. Mixed-use is incorporated as a premise, within the five story massings. One, two and three bedroom flats, as well as maisonettes, provide a variety of accommodation for families of different needs.

Site plan with of Ritterstrasse-Nord with surrounding context

Corner of Lindenstrasse and Ritterstrasse

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PRECEDENTS Ritterstrasse-Nord

WORKS CITED Sherwood, Roger. Housing Prototypes.org. 2002. 2 August 2016.

Floor plan of two blocks along the Ritterstrasse and Lindenstrasse

Ground floor plan

Upper floor plan

Typical floor plan

PRECEDENTS Ritterstrasse-Nord

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Block 2710 Vinetaplatz BERLIN

Josef Paul Kliehues’ Vinetaplatz perimeter housing block in Berlin contains 126 dwelling units, a large courtyard for the residents, and one level of underground parking. This five story building is an implicit critique of the traditional Berlin urban blocks, which are much larger and contain multiple courtyards pedestrianlinked on grade. Two blocks were originally intended to be constructed, but only one was achieved. The four story slots in the corners of the block facilitate visual and walkable linkages between the courtyard, the street, and adjacent park space. Each stair and elevator serve ten units. German law does not require two means of egress, as in the United States. All the units have dual orientation. Balconies are distributed to all units to gain outdoor space looking to both the courtyard and the street.

WORKS CITED “Kleihues + Kleihues”. 8 July 2010. July 25 2016.

Street view

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PRECEDENTS Block 2710 Vinetaplatz

Aerial Drawing

Street view

Street view

PRECEDENTS Block 2710 Vinetaplatz

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Haus am Michel HAMBURG

The Haus am Michel is a powerful, if unbuilt project proposal for Hamburg by architect Axel Schultes. The project establishes an extreme dialectic on its two opposed faces: one side hyper-flat, the other zigzag in the extreme. As Schultes writes, “The new Haus am Michel is to occupy the space of a least three buildings and the Cerebus who watches over the three and three half entrances also has three heads: the zigzag wall of the offices is also threefold and there are three and a half halls, staircase lifts, conference room towers and coffee corners—at least there’s only one chapel.”

The Cerberus that Schultes references is known as “the hound of Hades” in Greek mythology, a monstrous three- headed dog guarding the entrance to the underworld, and denying the dead departure.

Aerial drawing

With its diagonal faces having the potential for visual drama, when experienced from a distance and at the speed of an automobile, it is could instigate a strategy for building adjacent to the Interstate on the Eastgate site.

WORKS CITED Frank, Charlotte. Axel Schultes in Bangert Jansen Scholz Schultes.

Berlin: Ernst & Sohn, 1992.

Site plan

Ground floor plan

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PRECEDENTS Block 2710 Vinetaplatz

Elevation

Section

PRECEDENTS Block 2710 Vinetaplatz

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Bronx Developmental NEW YORK CITY

Regarding the site strategy, architect Richard Meier has written “The triangular site occupies part of a blighted industrial noman’s land—a traffic island—bounded by the Hutchinson River Parkway to the east and a network of railroad tracks to the west. Although a large, dilapidated warehouse by the rail yards was to be renovated, the new building could not be related to its setting in a conventional sense, there being no defining contextual organization or architectural reference on which to base a set of design propositions. The logical strategy was, then, to allow the new structure to create its own context, and the general layout opens inward to a realm where the resident is protected from the external setting.”

The site was originally planned as a residential care facility for 750 mentally and physically challenged children. The massing is comprised of a linear bar of support services fronting on a large, quadrangular courtyard, activated by the gymnasium and physical therapy volumes. The housing component is comprised of four individuated three story pods in a stepped formation towards the expressway, with each pod wrapping around its own small courtyard. These formally concatenating pods, and the complex’s silver aluminum panel system, combine to produce a very strong visual impact when viewed from the automobile at highway speeds.

WORKS CITED Meier, Richard. Richard Meier & Partners Architects LLP. August 12 2006. 24 July 2016.

View from the Bronx Expressway

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PRECEDENTS Bronx Developmental

Outside view from the street

Close up of the top of the building

Bridge that leads to the developmental center

Axonemetric drawing of the proposal of the developmental center

View looking toward the east side of the developmental center

PRECEDENTS Bronx Developmental

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Enerplex Buildings PRINCETON

The two Enerplex Office Buildings, located in an office park in Princeton, NJ, are an early 1980s attempt to explicitly test active versus passive strategies for energy conservation. Both buildings have the same size, shape, height and footprint. The north building designed by Raul de Armas and Tom Killian of SOM is an active solar collection system, with extensive amounts of glazing and transparency. The south building,

by Alan Chimacoff, is a passive solar collection system, characterized by more solid, limestone facades. Hence, they may be thought of as “fraternal twins,” simultaneous alike, but at the same time, profoundly different. Each of the two buildings, of course have numerous other innovative tactics, Both buildings face each other across a linear courtyard, leading to and from the parking area. The other three sides of the site plan are landscaped.

While the Chimacoff, more passive building, seems to have proven more successful in terms of overall conservation, a similar type of twin building sustainability comparison could be imagined for the office building type, as much has changed in technical knowledge and building industry products from 35 years ago.

WORKS CITED Diamond, Richard. A Post Occupancy of Two Energy-Efficient Office Buildings. Philadelphia, 13 May 1990.

Fisher, Thomas. “Opposites Attract.” Progressive Architecture (1984): 82.

Exterior view of the North Enerplex Building

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PRECEDENTS Enerplex Buildings

Site plan of the Enerplex buildings

North side (top) and south side (bottom)

Ground floor plan

Interior views of the Enerplex Buildings

Glass enclosed building (north side)

Limestone building (south side)

PRECEDENTS Enerplex Buildings

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Hotel Berlin BERLIN

O. M. Ungers’ unbuilt 1977 proposal for the Hotel Berlin at the Lutzoplatz was to address the Tiergarten Park. The large hotel proposed is inspired by the full block 19th century urban hotels found in both Europe and America. One would enter the building on grade from the north, with that floor having extensive restaurant and bar venues, as well as kitchen and back of house functions.

The rectangular arrival atrium is lined by registration counters, with a stair and escalator option ahead to ascend to the back 2/3s of of the block. This portion of the “palazzo’s piano nobile” is dominated by a large, cylindrical outdoor garden, centered by a green house gazebo. Rooms on various levels look either outward or inward.

The top floor would contain garden terraces for guests, located to the outside of the cylinder. An arcade continuously wraps the ground floor and roof top garden terraces surrounding the cylinder.

A subterranean parking level would absorb much of the parking needs for the building, with additional parking in the triangular surface parking area adjacent.

Site plan

The composition is essentially symmetrical on its longitudinal axis, while tripartite in its organization on its lateral axes. One interesting aspect of the composition is that the intent was to have each third of the block capable of functioning independently as a potential phase one, with the adjacent third of the composition becoming a potential phase two.

WORKS CITED Kiren, Martin. Oswald Mathias Ungers. Zurich: Artemis Verlags-AG, 1994.

Oswald Mathias Ungers Architecture 1951-1990. Milano: Electra Press, 1991.

Axonemetric drawing

Section

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PRECEDENTS Hotel Berlin

Ground floor plan

Second floor plan

Third floor plan

Fourth floor plan

PRECEDENTS Hotel Berlin

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Building Along the East Bank PRINCETON

Proposal for the East Bank

Aerial View of the East Bank

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SITE ANALYSIS Building Along The East Bank

Close-up on the projected Ellington Linear Park with site area

Initial masterplan of “Spaghetti Junction” (T. K. Davis, 2012)

Proposed redevelopment of “Spaghetti Junction” (T. K. Davis, 2012)

SITE ANALYSIS Building Along The East Bank

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Aerial view of east Nashville (1936) (The Plan of Nashville, 2004)

“Spaghetti Junction” superimposed on Downtown Nashville (The Plan of Nashville, 2004)

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SITE ANALYSIS Building Along The East Bank

“Spaghetti Junction” (2016) (The Plan of Nashville, 2004)

projects

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1

2

4 3

6 5

7

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PROJECTS

Projects 1 MEGAN PLAGG

2 EMMANUL HUBER-FEELY 3 NATE MIDGETT 4 JOHANNA COETZEE 5 AMY ST. JOHN 6 BRITTANY PETERS 7 MARYKATE LEITCH

PROJECTS

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UTK CoAD Partnership The Nashville Civic Design Center maintains a strong partnership with the University of Tennessee Knoxville College of Architecture and Design (UTK CoAD). Through this partnership, NCDC coordinates various studies throughout the year that allow architecture students to study potential “real world� projects in

Aerial view of East Bank with highlighted site area

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PROJECTS UTK CoAD Partnership

Nashville. As a part of this collaborative effort, NCDC partnered with UTK CoAD faculty member TK Davis in the Spring 2016 semester. Students were asked to analyze the East Bank, and envision what the future could hold in a new urban plan.

Existing site

Proposed site development

Proposed East Bank urban design plan (T. K. Davis)

PROJECTS UTK CoAD Partnership

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A CULINARY PLAZA AS AN URBAN CENTER MEGAN PLAGG

This proposal assumes the establishment of “The Ellington Linear Park,” an idea first proposed in The Plan of Nashville (2004). This new park, as a greenway, will need to shunt one half block to the north to continue under the interstate bridge spanning over the CSX Railroad line northeastward. Fortunately, there is adequate room for this to occur, including a street connection to the east, but it does require visual termination of the linear park to the east by a civic or institutional structure.

Axonemetric Drawing

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PROJECTS A CULINARY PLAZA AS AN URBAN CENTER

The proposal here imagines a Culinary Institute (or equivalent) as the institutional termination of a plaza at the eastern end of the linear park. Two flanking mid-rise buildings fronting on this plaza are assumed to contain micro-unit housing for culinary students (and others), with the plaza activated by restaurants and bars that can extend outdoors with café tables. The plaza would also contain a clock tower, fountain splash pad, a small market and community meeting hall, and in the winter, an ice skating rink. Beneath the plaza and the three buildings are two levels of continuous parking decks.

Site plan of Culinary Institute Plaza

PROJECTS A CULINARY PLAZA AS AN URBAN CENTER

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Ground floor plan

First floor plan

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PROJECTS A CULINARY PLAZA AS AN URBAN CENTER

Section

Section

PROJECTS A CULINARY PLAZA AS AN URBAN CENTER

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Rendered perspective looking from the Institute into the plaza

Rendered perspective looking toward the plaza of the Culinary Institute

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PROJECTS A CULINARY PLAZA AS AN URBAN CENTER

THE ELLINGTON LINEAR PARK WITH MID-RISE HOUSING EMMANUEL HUBER-FEELY

An idea embedded in The Plan of Nashville (2004) is to funnel the green corridor of the Ellington Parkway under the interstate bridge for the CSX railroad mainline. A greenway adjacent to the railroad and the Ellington Parkway, tying together various neighborhoods, could then connect to the river and its greenway south via the Ellington Linear Park Urban mid-rise housing, atop a half level sunken parking deck, would line the Ellington Linear Park. The housing would include a limited amount of ground level commercial space. The roof of the housing would be accessible to residents, and contain edible gardens. At the western end of this space, two 12 story towers

would frame an amphitheater and a performance barge, or an “eco-barge� used to explore the ecosystem up and down the Cumberland River. The eastern end of this space would culminate in a plaza and a Culinary Institute, with associated micro-unit housing above restaurants and cafes. This linear park is imagined to be a contemporary version similar to Commonwealth Avenue in Back Bay Boston, which culminates in the Boston Common to the east and the Fenway to the west. Commonwealth Avenue is a wide boulevard, having the feel of a linear park lined by trees. The Ellington Linear Park to the river would incorporate an orchard, a beer garden, open activity spaces, and public art.

Axonometric drawing

PROJECTS THE ELLINGTON LINEAR PARK WITH MID-RISE HOUSING

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Roof floor plan

Typical floor plan

Elevation

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PROJECTS THE ELLINGTON LINEAR PARK WITH MID-RISE HOUSING

Section detail

Structure diagram

PROJECTS THE ELLINGTON LINEAR PARK WITH MID-RISE HOUSING

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FOUR MIXED-USE BLOCKS NATE MIDGETT

In the center of the site, four square mid-rise blocks are proposed in a quadrant configuration. This arrangement forms a cruciform pattern of two pedestrian-focused streets, lined by entertainmentoriented commercial space, such as restaurant and cafes. The four blocks are “liner� buildings, wrapping around one or two story parking decks at and above grade. This parking is covered

by green roofs, allowing the formation of elevated courtyards to be shared by residents with dwelling units above the commercial level(s). Each of the four courtyards are interpreted and programmed differently as gardens, as is the development of the blocks as building masses, facades, and dwelling unit types.

Energies diagram

Axonemetric drawing

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PROJECTS FOUR MIXED-USE BLOCKS

Ground level commercial Diagram

Ground floor plans

PROJECTS FOUR MIXED-USE BLOCKS

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Typical floor plans

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PROJECTS FOUR MIXED-USE BLOCKS

Section

Section

PROJECTS FOUR MIXED-USE BLOCKS

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Courtyard inside of housing block

Street view

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PROJECTS FOUR MIXED-USE BLOCKS

Housing block exterior view

Night view of street

PROJECTS FOUR MIXED-USE BLOCKS

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A CORPORATE HEADQUARTERS ALONG THE INTERSTATE PRINCETON

A corporate headquarters is proposed adjacent to the interstate, designed to be a dynamic visual experience viewed from the high speed travel experience of the elevated highway. The ground floor would have employee wellness and other amenity spaces. A spine of cellular offices lines the street to the west of the site. To the east of the site, interpenetrating open plan floor plates in a saw tooth plan pattern would address the interstate.

Axonometric drawing

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PROJECTS A CORPORATE HEADQUARTERS ALONG THE INTERSTATE

This would result in a concatenating sequence of angled building faces, seen by both north and southbound vehicles, all atop a subterranean parking deck. Colorful, faceted metal panels would form a strong identity for the building, and thereby the corporation, to the millions of travelers who pass by the site annually. A wildflower garden atop the parking deck would further the overall colorful effect.

Site Plan

Roof Plan

Typical Floor Plan

PROJECTS A CORPORATE HEADQUARTERS ALONG THE INTERSTATE

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Elevation

Exterior view of green roof above parking deck to east of the Sawtooth building

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PROJECTS A CORPORATE HEADQUARTERS ALONG THE INTERSTATE

Interior view of lobby

View from interstate looking toward headquarters

PROJECTS A CORPORATE HEADQUARTERS ALONG THE INTERSTATE

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TWIN OFFICE BUILDINGS AMY ST. JOHN

The zone of undeveloped land between Main Street and Woodland Street, linking Downtown to East Nashville, is developed to capitalize on its vehicular access, traffic and visibility. As an inducement for development, surface parking would be located on the adjacent football stadium lots. Two office buildings are proposed, thought of as “fraternal twins,” identical in height and footprint, but opposite in facade and courtyard interpretation.

The eastern building has a courtyard developed as an interior glass-covered atrium, with rooftop, north-facing saw tooth skylights. This building is imagined to perhaps be a “wellness” corporation, emphasizing a healthy workplace in its programming.

A swimming pool is located in the subterranean level below the atrium. For sustainability, largely “passive” systems to minimize energy consumption are assumed.

The western building is programmed to be a design center, meaning a consortium of art and contemporary home furnishing vendors, with both retail and administrative space. An auditorium is located in the subterranean level below the courtyard. This building’s exterior envelope has substantial glazing to show off the products within, not unlike the iconic Design Research Store Building in Cambridge, Massachusetts. For sustainability, largely “active” systems to minimize energy consumption are assumed.

Axonemetric drawing

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PROJECTS TWIN OFFICE BUILDINGS

Roof plan

Top level floor plans

Ground level floor plans

Typical level floor plans

Subterranean level floor plans

PROJECTS TWIN OFFICE BUILDINGS

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Elevation

Elevations

Section

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PROJECTS A CORPORATE HEADQUARTERS ALONG THE INTERSTATE

Urban Hotel BRITTANY PETERS

An urban hotel is imagined to be located as a full block between Main Street and Woodland Street, less than a half block from the interstate. At the heart of the building is a six-story cylindrical atrium space, wrapped by rooms. This atrium is surmounted by a circular rooftop bar, affording panoramic views of downtown Nashville and the Cumberland River. The entrance is located to the west of the block, within a generous forecourt to accommodate arrival and departure. The ground level has a circular registration desk in the center of the cylindrical atrium, recalling the stage set of the Hotel Berlin, celebrated in the classic 1932 film Grand Hotel.

Fronting the forecourt on grade are two restaurants and bars, each accessed from both sides of the lobby. The eastern end of the site has back of house functions, as well as access to below grade parking. This subterranean level also could integrate a swimming pool and fitness center. The second floor of the hotel would have various meeting rooms for conference events. The top four stories contain various hotel rooms or suites, while the rooftop is a green roof terrace, accessible by guests from the bar.

Axonemetric drawing

PROJECTS Urban Hotel

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Roof plan

Garden terrace floor plan

Typical floor plan

Ground floor plan

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PROJECTS Urban Hotel

Elevation

Exterior view of forecourt

View inside rooftop bar

PROJECTS Urban Hotel

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URBAN VILLA HOUSING ON A PUBLIC RIVER GARDEN MARYKATE LEITCH

The zone between Main Street and Woodland Street, in the block immediately adjacent to the river, are proposed to be a green roof parking “plinth.” This plinth is on grade to the east, but gradually emerging to one story height on the west as the site contours fall away. Ten six-story apartment buildings, thought of as “urban villas,” line both sides of the garden plinth as a public access quadrangular lawn, culminating at the river. Each building, and the spaces between them, are 75-feet square, which spatially aligns precisely with the monumental pylon spacing of the adjacent Main Street bridge. A skate park is envisioned below the bridge viaduct. Each “villa” would be designed be different architects, in order to produce a variety of architectural language and dwelling unit types, while all would be unified with the same footprint and

Axonemetric drawing

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PROJECTS URBAN VILLA HOUSING ON A PUBLIC RIVER GARDEN

height. The space between the apartment buildings become semiprivate gardens for the adjacent building residents, separated from the public garden quadrangle by five foot walls. Building lobbies would be accessed from the public garden, while elevators and stairs could continue down to the subterranean parking level. At the river, the cadence of six story apartment buildings transforms into a pair of 12-story towers, tied together at the top by a bridging multi-story trussed element containing shared amenity spaces.

The ultimate effect is to form a monumental frame for views back to Downtown. These views are essentially on axis with the the City Hall and Courthouse facing the Public Plaza.

Site plan

Parking floor

Ground floor

PROJECTS URBAN VILLA HOUSING ON A PUBLIC RIVER GARDEN

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Loft floor

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PROJECTS URBAN VILLA HOUSING ON A PUBLIC RIVER GARDEN

Tower typical floor plan

Site elevation

Section through the “urban villa” apartment buildings

PROJECTS URBAN VILLA HOUSING ON A PUBLIC RIVER GARDEN

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Exterior view from the river

Exterior view of garden terrace above parking

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PROJECTS URBAN VILLA HOUSING ON A PUBLIC RIVER GARDEN

Implementation

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Tool Box

The components that create a successful neighborhood can be likened to a “kit of parts” that, when used correctly, produce a tightly knit community. Careful attention when applying these various tools ensures quality of design and functionality. These infill components can be molded together to form a cohesive neighborhood plan, creating a beneficial environment that will better all of Nashville.

Design for walkability + ½ mile in diameter (Clarence Perry ideal neighborhood diagram 1929)

The following neighborhood images are from the source The Smart Growth Manual, by Andres Duany and Jeff Speck with Mike Lydon.

Design for a comprehensive sense of identity including a center and an edge. (Cornell in Markham, Ontario)

Design for a connective network of slow traffic streets. (Kendall, FL)

Design buildings that define and activate streets and sidewalks.

(Silver Spring, MD)

Design for a diversity of building types and functions, but a unity of scale. (Harbortown in Memphis, TN)

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TOOL BOX

Design to have civic buildings in prominent locations. (Davidson, NC)

Design to have public open spaces for residents.

(Tributary in Douglasville, GA)

Design for access to public transit options. (King County, WA)

Design public space for a range of community activity.

(Hiawatha Line, Minneapolis, MN)

Design for a diversity of housing types and incomes.

(Glenwood Park, Atlanta, GA)

Design to have “Complete Streets” for pedestrians, bicyclists, as well as cars. (New York, NY)

TOOL BOX

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Access and Livability, Re-establishing Urban Fabric: Retrofitting Antioch is a project of the Nashville Civic Design Center, in partnership with the Nashville Area Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) and the University of Tennessee’s College of Architecture and Design.

NASHVILLE CIVIC DESIGN CENTER The mission of the Nashville Civic Design Center is to elevate the quality of Nashville’s built environment and to promote public participation in the creation of a more beautiful and functional city for all.

Nashville Civic Design Center Staff: Gary Gaston, Executive Director Ron Yearwood, Assistant Director Melody Gibson, Education Coordinator Eric Hoke, Design Coordinator Joes Mayes, Program Coordinator Jolie Yockey, Special Projects Emma Grager, Research Fellow Fuller Hanan, Design Fellow Mike Thompson, Research Fellow Billy White, Digital Fellow Lindsey Bradley, UTK Student Intern Shanese Brown, UTK Student Intern Vivek Prasad, UTK Student Intern civicdesigncenter.org

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

THE UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE, KNOXVILLE, COLLEGE OF ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN For nearly twenty years, the College of Architecture and Design has been helping to envision the future of Nashville. Architecture students annually participate in pertinent real-world concerns through an academic rigor that results in visionary design solutions for Nashville’s neighborhoods.

Thomas K. Davis, Professor

ArchDesign.UTK.edu

NASHVILLE AREA METROPOLITAN PLANNING ORGANIZATION The Nashville Area MPO is the policy, planning, and programming authority for all surface transportation projects in Davidson, Rutherford, Sumner, Williamson, Wilson, and parts of Maury and Robertson counties. The MPO is committed to providing leadership in the planning, funding, and development of a regional multimodal transportation system.

Nashville Area MPO Staff: Michelle Lacewell, APR, Interm Director Lou Edwards, Administrative Assistant Peter Bang, PhD, Director of Technical Programs Jeffrey Leach, Finance Officer Peter Westerholm, Senior Policy Analyst Anna Emerson, ACIP, Senior Planner Rochelle Carpenter, Senior Policy Analyst Nicholas Lindeman, Economic & Systems Data Analyst Mary Connelly, Senior Planner Harry(ono) Prawiranata, Senior Modeler Wesely Rhodes, Policy Analyst Sam Williams, GIS Analyst Shelly Hazle, Regional Governance Fellow Hannah Plummer, Policy Intern

NashvilleMPO.org

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

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