CUA Summer Institute for Architecture: At The Edge Of, Volume 8

E EDGE SUMMER INSTITUTE FOR ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL 2012

1

OF...

Diller Scofidio + Renfro Studio

Travel Studio with Stoss LU and

Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects Reclaim + Remake: Reconstruction Solar Decathlon, Team Capitol DC Summer Planning Lab Experiences in Architecture

Summer Speaker Series

June Williamson “Designing Suburban Futures: Now!”

Stephen Vogel “Architectural Education in a Shrinking City”

Billie Tsien “Keeping Quiet”

Ben Gilmartin “Performance Anxiety in Public Life: 5 Experimental Treatments”

2

LETTER FROM THE EDITORS

Setting out upon the Summer Institute’s theme of “At the Edge of…” we considered the possibilities of articulating this theme through image and text. Not unlike our approach to architecture, from the outset it was decided that the journal should accentuate and elevate what already exists “on site” rather than invent what is not there. You may notice a marked lack of bold, graphic elements within the journal; this is intentional, as it is a journal of student work and lectures, and not meant to be an object for its own sake. This in mind, within our grid we allowed permutations, bringing in subtle articulations of what “edges” can do using the content of the journal in opposition to our own system. Where images extend beyond margins or bleed off the page completely comes from a sensitivity to how an image should be represented, or how it may aid in tying together its respective section.

graphic elements. Yet, how much of that is actually read and not just glanced over? You will find within that each title is in a modified sans serif font for visibility purposes, all body text uses serif for legibility.

If you choose to look through this journal, you are given little to focus on beyond each body of text or image.

Of course, as less is more, so becomes the intention behind each decision.

Our most difficult challenge came from the balancing act between page and content, white and black, and how the conglomeration of both could engage both the page and the reader.

Having met with each student with regard to what is included of his or her work, we hope to provide a taste of personal expression within each project presented; as editors we structure what has occurred, but as creators each student is given some control over their representation.

Thus you will see a large swath of material presented, but in a way that responds to each individual project.

We hope you enjoy the read, and find something of interest within.

Adam John Williams Toni Lem SIA Journal Editors

If we had to pick one motivation over all others, it would be to make the work as legible and enjoyable to read as possible. It is all too tempting to create a “design journal” by recreating the wheel through complex or distracting

3

LETTER FROM THE DEAN

This ninth edition of our Summer Institute for Architecture Journal at the School of Architecture and Planning at the Catholic University of America engages the theme “At the Edge of…” to explore the boundaries between our existing urban condition and the possibilities for change and reevaluation. Our students were given the opportunity to engage with a range of internationally acclaimed architects renowned for pushing these boundaries, from Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Tod Williams, Billie Tsien Architects and Stoss.

Boundaries have always served to divide and fracture space from the great, endless public expanse into purposeful, architectural bodies of space. Traditionally, If you wanted to cordon off a parcel of land for religious, political or economic reasons, the obvious choice was the wall; massive, impenetrable and very matter-of-fact as to whom is welcome and who is not.

Within old hierarchies and monarchies, the architecture of the wall flourished, both serving to reinforce each other’s legitimacy in a recursive way.

4

However, widespread democratic ideals and modern sensibility have challenged this notion of what a boundary is and can be. An edge may be as much about drawing people in as it is about separating groups of people.

Walls are no longer load bearing by necessity, and structures have the ability to completely open themselves to the public if they choose to do so.

One of the most exciting prospects within architecture today concerns how these edges and boundaries may be reinterpreted and further opened to public access. With the rise of network theory, online connection and community-based initiatives, the role our buildings assume going forward may result in drastically different practices and characteristics.

We now live in a “social age” where Facebook, Twitter and other forms of social media provide connection and interaction on a 24/7 schedule, collapsing time and space to create constant interaction.

Through crowdfunding and media updates, traditionally closed institutions are increasingly allowing the public into spaces once reserved for a select few. The question becomes how buildings and structure can change to accommodate this change in behavior, how this new voyeurism and “public performance” may open to viewing what was once closed.

Edges are also significant where there are few are to be found. Forgotten plots of land lacking definition, Cities with shrinking populations and untended spaces that blur the line of where human presence in a landscape truly begins. The optimism resulting

in acres of suburbanization has not been lost, but redirected towards reinterpreting our own sense of what it means to be urban and communal.

Ultimately, the role of an architect today is to serve the public. Beyond simply producing structure that performs for people, we may produce buildings that encourage performance.

Randall Ott, AIA Dean

LETTER FROM THE DIRECTOR

“A boundary is not that at which something stops but, as the Greeks recognized, the boundary is that from which something begins its presencing.” – Martin Heidegger Boundaries suggest limits aimed at containing an investigation, a situation, a context. They can establish a datum, a beginning point. They can also be permeable and dynamic.

Architects may begin a design process by recognizing this edge, but will quickly move forward to unravel, to challenge, and to test the perceived limits of the circumstance or situation.

What emerges are exciting open-ended models of practice; alternative lenses through which to consider geographical delineations; and innovative methods of collapsing theory and building.

The theme of the 2012 Summer Institute for Architecture “at the edge of…” employed a diverse range of tools to test the idea of edge or boundary as a beginning, or, as Heidegger suggests, the place where a presence is perceived.

Through intensive design studios and workshops, students rigorously interrogated the multiple ways to test ideas of the threshold between things

from the scale of the city to the joint between materials. Critical discussions of the theme played out between all levels of students, distinguished guest critics, faculty, and guest speakers.

The Summer Institute for Architecture has always been and remains a unique experience. It offers the promise of an architectural academic experience, rich in intensity and unparalleled to conventional practice. The SIA presents students with the opportunity to expand their understanding of broader ethical, social, cultural, technological, and historical issues via focused study of an architectural situation. The 2012 SIA continued to build on the tradition and legacy of the Summer Institute for Architecture at CUA. We were honored to host studio guest critics of international renown, including Ben Gilmartin, Principal, Diller Scofidio + Renfro; Billie Tsien, Principal, Tod Williams and Billie Tsien Architects; and Scott Bishop, Associate Principal, Stoss LU. Their collective presence in the design studio raised the intensity and caliber of discussion, engaging students in the critical process of design thinking. We were able to extend this conversation with professionals with the SIA Lecture Series, opening conversations about the seams between the city and the suburb; between the academy and practice. Our summer program also saw the inaugural launch of the Summer Planning Lab, a vehicle enabling students to operate in the spaces between urban planning and urban design. Finally, the reclaim-remake workshop asked students to consider the edge between deconstruction and transformation as they dismantled a deteriorating structure in Ohio

to salvage the material for another use. As I reflect on the participants of the 2012 SIA, it is clear that this community of invited architects and scholars actively seek opportunities to operate outside the margins and to critically engage the tensions perceived between things. Their work challenges the very idea of an edge. Their collective efforts project intentions to find their places between theory and practice, between the spaces of the city and the suburb, and on the bridge between design and construction.

This journal brings together the work of the students, the guest critics, and the speakers to present a snapshot of an incredible experience. I am certain you will see the intensity, energy, and enthusiasm on the part of all the participants clearly evidenced in the range of work presented in this publication. As you share in the reflections on the complex landscapes of practice, theory and building, consider this: The boundaries are shifting. This is the point of departure.

Julie Ju - Youn Kim, RA AIA Director, Summer Institute for Architecture

5

TA B L E OF CONTENTS

PROGRAMS

Solar Decathlon P. 38

Planning Lab P. 132

All images in this journal Š2012 CUA School of Architecture and Planning, unless otherwise noted.

6

STUDIOS

Travel Studio P. 16

DSR Studio P. 60

Reclaim and Remake P. 46

Experiences in Architecture P. 116

LECTURES

Billie Tsien P. 08

Ben Gilmartin P. 58

June Williamson P. 108

Stephen Vogel P. 124

7

CV Starr East Asian Library, photo by Nic Lehoux

8

BILLIE TSIEN “Keeping Quiet�

The issue of making quiet buildings is a goal that we have integrated into our practice. We are interested in the strong and silent places. We are interested in buildings that reveal themselves slowly, where a building is more powerful in the interior than the exterior, like the Pantheon, were the exterior does not reveal the interior.

The Natatorium at Cranbrook Educational Community is one of our first buildings that relates to this concept and relates itself to nature.

The buildings around it are small in scale. We were asked to design a swimming pool that, by its nature, is big and blocky. We wanted to design a building that did not feel like a building.

The building is set at the end of a long

axis of the campus that is noted for its long green lawn in front. So rather than putting the building on axis, we put it to one side. We also placed a long bent wall that connects the pool to a Saarinen building. The idea is to make people feel like the wall was placed in the landscape.

The walls of the building contain tall wooden fins that operate hydraulically, which ventilate the pool naturally without the use of air conditioning to dehumidify the pool. There are two oculi in the ceiling that have rolling hatches used in the mining industry to help with the ventilation. When the fins and oculi are open, you can smell the pine trees from outside within the pool. The pool is set into the ground, thereby decreasing the height of the building in half.

9

The East Asian Library in Berkeley, California, is located in the main quadrangle on campus across from the neoclassical style, primary library at Berkeley. The building was required to have a pitched roof with a symmetrical facade. The building would contain books from Asian cultures, such as Japan, Korea and China, and the client wanted the building to assert the identity of the contents within the building, yet connect to the fabric of California-style neoclassicism on the campus. The building needed to be a big, solid box, which is the essence of a library. We designed a screen for the facade influenced by the Chinese “cracked ice” pattern. We were able to make the appearance of a symmetrical facade by running the screen in front of the assymetrical windows of the building. That is highlighted at night when the windows are lit. Although it is a box, it is one that is cracked open.

One of the main themes that continues to appear in our work is an obsession to connect the building with the sky.

The building is sunk into the ground and reaches for the sky at the same time. The building is cut into a steep hill. The ground is cut back to bring in light from the north side and skylights let light into the lowest level.

Clad in granite, the structure is cast concrete, which is revealed throughout the interior of the building. A large, glass skylight, hidden from direct view, illuminates the ceiling planes and makes the experience of being in the space one that is constantly alive with the shifting light of the day.

Bennington College in Vermont is a liberal college that wanted a building designed for a program called the Center of Public Action. Every winter, Bennington sends students to work outside the campus in areas they are

10

outside the campus in areas they are interested in. The purpose of the center is to inspire people to generate ideas for making the world a better place. The buildings are designed so that people from the outside can come in and hold seminars and have a place to stay.

We have broken the program into separate structures to create exterior space. We are interested in the space around and in between the buildings as well as the buildings themselves.

We always start to design our buildings from the inside, but we work toward the outside. We don’t want our buildings to be objects in the land, nor do we want buildings that are a resultant of what is simply going on inside. We also want to work the land so that the buildings and the land are integrated. This program has three integrated buildings.

Through the years, the forms of our buildings have become simplified, as this allows us to focus our attention in other directions, such as experiences for the participants in the interior and the materials used. Here, we used Vermont marble taken from abandoned marble quarries around the area. All the marble that was cut for us was not consistent or precise, because we used marble that was variable in tone and because the fabricator had antiquated equipment. The mason laid out the façade on the floor of the warehouse to ensure an even tone along the facade.

We also realized that the stone could not be cut dimensionally precise so, as a result, the facade would contain an uneven vertical texture. However, that brings additional character to the building. All the buildings are low and appear like simple white walls in the land. The seminar building contains a miniature assembly hall where the tables are lined with walnut. The roof is clean and slopes down, which allows

Fig. 1: Natatorium at the Cranbrook School photo by Michael Moran

11

all the water to flow and be contained for future use. For the residences, we attempted to make each room different.

We worked with a ceramic artist to create the tiles for the bathrooms.

decided to build full-scale mockups of the complicated areas. The mockups allowed us to communicate our expectations to them and allowed us to understand their skill set.

The last building works with our theme of reaching for the sky. The interior has walnut benches, and a blue cone reaches for the sky. People often sing inside for practices and performances.

The entry canopy is covered by china tile on the top and bottom that echo the tiling used by GaudĂ­. We made covered walkways to provide shelter from the heat and monsoons. There is a local craft of carved stone screens called jalis. When we started, they were all hand carved, which allowed for a multitude of patterns. As the years passed, the owners have purchased a water jet cutter and we have had to reduce our designs to twelve different patterns. We needed to be able to repeat patterns in order to be more efficient. All of the workspaces are air conditioned, whereas the circulation and social spaces are outside and ventilated by fans. We have also used repurposed teak from warehouses that were torn down to warm the appearance of the stone. We thought a lot about pushing the building into the ground and using different elevation changes. We also used sheltering berm plantings that rise up and create shade for buildings at lower levels. The pool is covered, but open to the air and, during monsoons, water pours in from the opening in the roof. The workspaces configure themselves around interior courtyards, where an oculus reaches to the sky and lights the areas within.

The Tata Consultancy Services, Mumbai, India, project started sevenand-a-half years ago, and we did not know why or how we were approached with this project: Tata is one of the most important family-run companies in India. The site is located outside the outskirts of Mumbai. We wanted to save the trees on the site, and we wanted the buildings to dig in, like fingers into the land. The buildings would only be three stories tall. The site houses the campus for a software company. We were interested in using the local stone of the area; we used Kashmir white that comes from the south of India and made as much use as possible of any local crafts.

Fig. 2: Section by Tod Williams of the Lens Building at the CAPA, Bennington College

Fig. 3: Section by Tod Williams of the interior courtyard at the CAPA

12

In India, at least for the present, work made by hand is often less expensive than work made by machine. India is full of contradictions. Here we are working for a sophisticated software writing company, however the stone is transported by a wooden wagon pulled by people. Concrete is poured using shovels and pans, with people moving the material in pans on their heads and pouring the concrete into place. However, this technique allowed the trees to stay in place, since there is little heavy equipment on site. The most difficult problem of building in a foreign country is our inability to communicate with the workers.

For us to communicate our ideas, we

The Barnes Foundation art collection was originally housed in the home and arboretum of Dr. Albert Barnes in Lower Merion, a suburb of Philadelphia. Dr. Barnes had developed an incredible collection with the art hung in an idiosyncratic manner that he had devised as a method of educating the eye. The paintings were hung symmetrically around a centerline.

Fig. 4: The Lens, Interior photo by Michael Moran

13

Along the wall and between each painting he installed antique hardware.

He was demonstrating the relationship between form, color, and line by juxtaposing artwork, hardware and furniture. He commissioned Matisse to paint the huge tripartite wall mural called “Le Danse”, one of Matisse’s most important pieces of art. The result was both exhilarating and exhausting. Later conservation requirements caused most of the connection to natural light and the views to the landscape to be closed down. The result felt confining and claustrophobic. Our response was to create a building that had a sense of garden within the building, and introduced new spaces for visitors to be quiet, contemplative, and to gather their thoughts on the images they had seen.

Fig. 5: Exposed structure of the Oculus clad in china tile at the office spaces at TATA Consultancy Services campus in Mumbai.

Fig. 6: Construction photo of the Swimming pool at TATA Consultancy Services in Mumbai

14

There were many legal entanglements based on the directions in Barnes’ will, but a judge decided that the gallery could be moved to downtown Philadelphia with the following qualifications: that the ensembles (how the paintings were hung) were kept intact and the sequences of the gallery were also kept intact. That left us with the plan that Paul Cret designed. After studying the plans we saw that we could split open the wall that separated the three small galleries at either end of the building to add a classroom and an outdoor garden. We kept everything intact, but cracked it slightly. The entrance to the building is through a series of gardens that is a part of a sequence of quietness, making the vistor feel as if he or she is leaving the city behind. After passing by a long pool, the entrance leads into a large and luminous room, called the light court, which is a spatial prelude to the actually gallery rooms. This light court keeps the gallery building separate from its supporting spaces. The facade

is developed by using a limestone similar to Jerusalem stone. This stone comes from Israel and its large panels are hand-chiseled. We looked at the patterns of African textiles ,particularly Kente cloth, as a basis to design a kind of fabric of stone to cover the building. Barnes was a serious collector of African art and it forms an important part of his collection. There are many motifs that were used by Cret in the design of the Merion building.

The monumental building along the parkway is balanced by details and use of materials such as walnut, felt and silk hangings, and hammered bronze that speak to a sense of warmth and domesticity. The new gallery spaces allow for natural light to light the paintings. The changes we made to the gallery rooms were to simplify and intensify their nature, to capture the memory but not replicate aspects such as moldings, windows, and light fixtures. All the upper gallery rooms now have clerestories that bring in natural light. This introduction of light brings the paintings to life, and many people who visit believe the paintings have been cleaned because they have a vibrancy which had been lost over time.

What you touch is what is significant about the architecture. Architecture is an act of service to others and when that service is done really well, it has the possibility of transcendence.

Fig. 7: The Light Court at the Barnes Foundation photo by Michael Moran

15

Participants: Chris Motley Michael Bollino Walter Argando単a Sivar Asi

Critics: Billie Tsien, TWBTA Peter DePasquale, TWBTA Scott Bishop, STOSS LU Bethan Llewellyn-Yen, CUA Matthew Geiss, CUA

16

T R AV E L S T U D I O WORK

17

18

Chris Motley Michael Bollino Walter Argando単a Sivar Asi

The Charles River defines a distinct boundary between the cities of Boston and Cambridge. Institutions on either side of the river have formed different attitudes over time to the river. The river has helped to define their identities. These identities were allowed to form based on large-scale changes in the form and function of the river that occurred over the past three hundred years, including channelization, land reclamation, and the complete alteration of its hydromorphology.

STOSS LANDSCAPE URBANISM

A dramatic shift is occurring in global systems that is altering our understanding and infrastructural approach to riverine systems that have been put in place over the past centuries. We must now reformulate the river based on these new dynamics, but we must also understand that any shift in the formulation of the current river will inevitably alter the relationships that have been formed between Cambridge and Boston and their respective institutions.

19

An

interconnected

network

of

channels that divide and unite.

Braiding: An interconnected network of channels that divide and unite two different areas together.

connect river network to city network connect green network to river network

Vessels distribute program throughout the esplanade providing new channels, enhancing or additional braids at the edge.

20 Chris Motley

Micro:

Constructing a connection between Macro: Constructing a connection isolated parts of the city and the betweenofisolated parts ofelements the city addition new program with the addition of new program distributed throughout via a elements distributed throughout system of barges to create new via a system of barges creates new strands of movement and strands of movement and activity activity through existing channels. through existing channels braiding Braiding these edges and allows these edges while strengthening and the existing network to strengthen diversifying the existing network. and diversify.

Channels Micro: bend and elevate to slow and Channels and elevate to charge thebend individuals in preparation slow and change the individuals in to braid. The junction of the channels preparation to braid. The junction promotes pause and contact.pause The comof the channels promotes and mon plane is met by the program barge contact. The common plane is met by the program bargepiles withthat a system with a system of heavy draw of heavy piles that draw individuals individuals down as they mix. Forming down as they mix, forming an an interactive linkbetween betweenseparated separated interactive link channels. channels.

Chris Motley

THE TRAVEL STUDIO: STOSS LU

Macro:

21

Folding: Planes connected together at different angles, produces a change in altitude, determines boundaries and creates space through use.

22 Walter Argando単a

Walter Argando単a Macro:

Micro:

Folding enhances the edge of the river by allowing water into the land, creating green space and complementing the landmark types of structures and rhythm of the city.

Folding allows materials to create space that suggests movement, privacy, and orientation. It also provides opportunities to create objects at a human scale, i.e. ramps, walls, benches, etc.,

23

mass, road, and sidewalk.

Pleating: Merging two architectural elements or more by perspective, mass, road, and sidewalk.

24 Sivar Asi

Sivar Asi Macro:

Micro:

Building mass helps to define pleating, but the main layers are trees and sidewalks that go together and pinch in several points to create pleating that goes along the edge of the river.

The main material of the project is steel. The project is doubleskin and double-roof. The corner that provides the light is oriented toward the south for all of the individual bathrooms.

25

Layers: The edge logic of Boston takes apart different layers within the city that use program to create space.

26 Michael Bollino

Michael Bollino Micro:

Macro:

The river pushes into the city by using water as the material and the threshold that begins to form the space for activity.

The urban fabric of Boston and the recreational activity of the Charles River begin to engage to interconnect and blur the edge.

27

28

Chris Motley Michael Bollino Walter Argandoña Sivar Asi

L O U I S K A H N PA R K PAV I L I O N

The project site is located in Southpoint Park on Roosevelt Island, New York, just north of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park, a memorial to the former President designed by Louis I. Kahn nearly forty years ago and scheduled for completion in the fall of 2012. Kahn’s design is both intimate and grand, leading one over a triangular, tipped lawn between a double row of trees to a granite ‘room’ of 36-ton granite blocks framing views of the river and the Manhattan shoreline. The memorial’s abstract landscape and architecture creates a profound sense of place at the human scale, in relation to the city and to the legacy of Roosevelt.

The design problem, for a public restroom pavilion in Southpoint Park, respects Kahn’s desire for abstraction and contemplation in the Four Freedoms project and reflects the reality of this new visiting population. The studio responds to the larger social, psychological and, ultimately, formal issues of the site, but at a scale that more closely relates to human experience.

29

Braiding: An

interconnected

network

of

channels that divide and unite.

30 Chris Motley

and Air as individual strands that unite at resultant points of function Micro using: natural and mechanical means.

This design expresses light, water, The arrangement of each module is and air as individual strands that suchatthat interdependence exists unite resultant points of function using natural mechanical means. between theand units both functionally The andarrangement formally. of each module is such that interdependence exists between the units both functionally and formally.

together to drive experience and

Chris Motley

movement.Pulling the path and Macro pavilion: away from the city and

Heaviness and landscape come together reserving the skyline. This quiet to drive experience and movement, compression willand enhance theaway from pulling the path pavilion the city and reserving the skyline. This expansive nature of the four quiet compression will enhance the freedoms memorial. expansive nature of the Four Freedoms memorial.

Pavillion Approach

Paley Park

FDR Memorial

31

The edge logic of the bathroom takes apart different layers within the park uses program to create space.

32

Michael Bollino

Michael Bollino Macro:

Micro:

Different layers are used to create moments of pause before Kahn’s Memorial and a recreational meeting space for the park.

The pavilion uses light as a material to create different layers that lead you from the very social park to the intimate use of a bathroom.

33

The bathroom pavilion design is influenced by the initial concept of the sink, which folds from the wall to serve as a sink creating an opening on its surface. This idea of folding an element to create space and provide a new use is transferred to the bathroom pavilion design.

34 Walter Argando単a

Walter Argando単a Micro:

Macro:

Folding develops semi-public and private areas, creating space and establishing relationships to the human scale.

Folding creates a connection between the public spaces by folding the surface to allow water and people to get into the space, defining a public space among other ambiguous areas.

35

Pleating: Using a view in pleats as a gate to the edge of the river. Pleating has structure, and allows for activity and program (window, and balcony).

36 Sivar Asi

Architectural elements are pleated to Architectural elements are pleated functiontoasfunction structre, as and to allow and for to structure program.allow for this bathroom program.

THE TRAVEL STUDIO: TWBTA

Sivar Asi

37

S O L A R D E C AT H L O N

38

School of Engineering and Applied Sciences Interior Design Program

School of Architecture and Planning

Film and Media Arts Division Center for Environmental FilmMaking

Landscape Design Program

Background: The U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon is a biannual competition that challenges twenty collegiate teams from across the world to design, construct, and operate solar-powered homes that are both cost effective an energy-efficient.

Team Capitol DC, a partnership between the George Washington University, The Catholic University of America and American University, is the first Washington, D.C., team ever selected to compete in this prestigious competition. Our design, HARVEST, is a solar-powered home that uses innovative technology to harvest natural resources that will benefit both the client and the environment.

The Solar Decathlon will take pace in October 2013 at Orange County Great Park in Irvine, California. The homes will be judged and rated on site in ten different categories, including market appeal, architecture, energy balance, and affordalbility. However, the Solar Decathlon is much more than just a competition; it is a valuable experiential learning opportunity that challenges students to be innovators in sustainable energy and design. As a civic gesture after the competition, Team Capitol DC will donate HARVEST to a severely wounded veteran through a partnership with a national verteran’s organization.

39

WHAT IS HARVEST HOME? To harvest is not only to take, but to produce; an ongoing cycle interlacing all natural systems. HARVEST is an ecologically responsible home that harvests and replenishes nature’s gifts to create a deeply rooted connection to the natural environment, the human spirit, and the well-being of future generations. Our home produces energy, sustaining itself as well as its user. Throughdifferent systems, it gains energy from the environment and replenishes what it uses: HARVEST. INNOVATION HARVEST home is designed to use innovative technologies that integrate the mechanical systems of the house into one simple and easy-to-use interface.

The end client will be able to interact with and understand how their home is HARVESTING nature’s elements and how they can further improve the home’s performance. Team Capitol dc’s goal is to prove that living a healthy and green lifestyle is easy and available to all.

HEALING THROUGH HARVEST Team Capitol dc will use innovative technology and engineering to help heal the environment and the client by creating a net-zero home that HARVESTS as much energy as it produces. The client will be able to engage in a visual understanding of how they are “HARVESTING” and contributing to healing the environment and saving energy through displays provided by our centralized control system.

Additionally, the architectural design of the home hopes to create a healing environment for our end client, a war veteran. By creating sensory moments throughout the home, HARVEST will encourage the client to utilize their fi ve senses, connecting them to the natural world and establishing a healthy and healing lifestyle.

40

EAST ELEVATION

SOUTH ELEVATION

41

HARVESTING

SOLAR The home HARVESTS the suns energy through its photovoltaic array and solar thermal system to both produce energy and heat our water.

WIND Our home has a rain screen to prohibit the infiltration of moisture and a rainwater collection system to HARVEST water in an effort to replenish the landscape as well as utilize gray water within the home.

42

ENERGY Through heat and energy recovery, our home is able to HARVEST excess heat from our solar panels and appliances, re-using it instead of wasting it.

VEGETATION Through the landscaping, the home owner can grow and HARVEST fruits and vegetables to encourage a healthy and self-sustaining life style.

MATERIALS Materials throughout our home are re-used and reclaimed, HARVESTED, thus lowering our embodied energy content.

43

PLANS

FLOOR PLAN

44

LANDSCAPE PLAN

AFTER THE COMPETITION After the competition in Irvine, California, Team Capitol DC, will donate the HARVEST home to a veterans’ organization that provides much-needed resources to homeless and disabled veterans.

45

RECLAIM & REMAKE A primary design-build agenda in the Reclaim & Remake program was to facilitate students’ understanding of the possibilities of closed-loop material use, and teaching responsible design ethic through deconstruction of the existing structure for students to recover their own materials for design-building. The students were also responsible for developing a replacement church at the same site to serve the congregation and community in a new way. Another agenda of the program was the immersive engagement with a rural community and of a historic site through living in the community for the duration of the course. The students developed a program in consultation with the congregation, designed based on a synthesis of programmatic elements, site factors, and a direct relationship to the recovered resources at hand and built to make best use of the reclaimed materials.

46

Critics: Bradley Guy/ Christine Lee Participants: Samuel Mrozinski. Marcus Mendoza. Anthony Gibbs. Sahar Mohammad

47

This course was held entirely on-site in Rayland, Ohio, in Jefferson County, Ohio. This location is in the heart of the Ohio River Valley approximately fifteen miles from Wheeling, West Virginia. The site of the project was the historic Hopewell Cemetery, which was established in the 1780s.

The project was the Hopewell United Methodist Church, which was constructed in 1844, renovated extensively in 1918, and abandoned by the congregation in 1991. The congregation of the Hopewell Church had been unable to maintain the structure or have a use for a building that did not allow for water and septic service due to the cemetery surroundin it on three sides. The ultimate goal of the course was to create a place of visitation, services, and contemplation at this site that could, in effect, be zero maintenance and stand over time similar to the inherent weathering of a traditional barn structure.

48

49

DESIGN PROCESS

The design learning outcomes are illustrated in the extraordinary accomplishment of the fourth year architecture students in carrying out a large-scale deconstruction and recovery of materials and then to construct a public space to serve 25-30 visitors for worship and contemplation. Students had to accommodate traditional design processes of client interactions, program development and concept design, and public presentation.

They also had to understand building code requirements and structural concepts based on the location of the site as well as climatic and soil conditions (literally, in hand-digging the footings).

50

51

DESIGN OUTCOME

Perhaps the most important lessons were the translation of sometimes unrealistic visions (in terms of scale or complexity) into a constructable vision. These modifications were faced by the students throughout the project. One example of this context involved the differences in utilization of materials in exterior or exposed conditions versus an interior or protected condition. Giving first materials preference to reused, and then new materials, allowed for creative solutions such as a series of gabions made from the recovered brick as infill to the foundation openings, and use of different wood components for openings and solids for wall cladding design.

52

53

DECONSTRUCTION

Pre-Deconstruction

54

Reclaimed Wood from Deconstruction

55

CONSTRUCTION

56

57

Ben 58 Gilmartin lecture, July 18 2012, CUA, image courtesy of Diller Scofidio + Renfro

BEN GILMAR TIN “Performance “ Anxiety in Public Life: 5 Experimental Treatments”

On July 18, 2012, Ben Gilmartin, Principal, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, delivered a lecture to an audience of students, practitioners and academics at The Catholic University of America.

Abstract: A recent Huffington Post article entitled “The Ten Most Common Phobias” identified the fears of being in a crowd, public places, and social situations or public speaking as anchoring the list.

These anxieties evoke a historic unease in the American sensibility around urban public places and our active life within them. Through this lens, Lincoln Center, the Highline, and other other

works of Diller Scofidio + Renfro may be viewed as interdisciplinary experiments, examining the potential for the architecture of public spaces to attract and divert people, to stimulate social life, to catalyze opportunities for spontaneous public engagement, and to put on the display the performance of everyday life.

DSR STUDIO WORK Participants: Daniel Bertuso Stacey Carbone Christian Chute Liz Fibleuil Jessica Hamilton Toni Lem Tyler Thurston Adam Williams Jaime Ycaza

Critics: Ben Gilmartin, DILLER SCOFIDIO + RENFRO Julie Ju-Youn Kim, CUA Jonathan Grinham, CUA

60

Critics: Ben Gilmartin/Julie Kim/Jonathan Grinham Participants: Daniel Bertuso.Stacey Carbone.Christian Chute.Liz Fibleuil.

Jessica Hamilton.Toni Lem.Tyler Thurston.Adam Williams.Jaime Ycaza

61

The Democratic Platform asks students to develop an experimental design proposal for a prototypical horizontal surface, a public space encoded with potentials for both the day-to-day social life and for staging democratic gathering and deliberation for two hundred people.

62

D E M O C R AT I C P L AT F O R M

Daniel Bertuso The design of the space evolved from two ideas: one the space provides for a multitude of uses and two, the venue supports passage during the varied uses. The ability to create intimate spaces that both meld and separate from larger space enables democratic responses to evolve from intimate close conversations to grand democratic gestures. The changing levels or layers and the apparent stage appeal to the differing amounts of power or influence people may have. Although democracy is viewed as fair, there is still a hierarchal order to it. There will always be leaders, followers, and bystanders.

63

Stacey Carbone The 50’x50’ platform nurtures public interaction by providing a space where people will be drawn even when no one is speaking in the space. The area grows by morphing topographically to form a free flowing site that will draw people to The 50′x50′ platform nurtures public the variety of resting options. The The 50′x50′byplatform nurtures public interaction providing a space where platform also provides drinking water The 50′x50′ platform nurtures public interaction by providing a space where and lifts to form a shelter. people will be drawn even when no interaction a space where people willby beproviding drawn even when no one is speaking in the space.

The area people will be in drawn even when no one is speaking the space.

The area grows by morphing topographically to one is speaking in the space.

The area grows morphing to form aby free flowing topographically site that will draw growsaby morphing topographically to form free that will draw people to theflowing varietysite of resting options. form a to free site that will draw people theflowing variety of resting options.

The platform also provides drinking people to the variety of resting drinking options.

The alsoto provides waterplatform and lifts form a shelter.

The alsoto provides waterplatform and lifts form a drinking shelter. water and lifts to form a shelter.

Diagonal site section for small gatherings Diagonal site section for small gatherings Diagonal site section for small gatherings

Diagonal site section for Large gatherings Diagonal site section for Large gatherings Diagonal site section for Large gatherings

64

Original Democratic Platform

Revised Democratic Platform

Original Democratic Platform

Revised Democratic Platform

Shelter Area

Water Area

Shelter Area

Water Area

Shelter Area

Water Area

Christian Chute

The democratic platform is a nonhierarchical space that promotes interaction and communication between individuals and groups.

A central sine curve bifurcates the site, creating a sloped grass surface on one side and a terraced lawn on the other. The curve comprises the central platform that weaves in and out of these two landscapes, creating interstitial areas and subtly stepped surfaces that can function as formal stage as well as more intimate gathering areas.

65

Liz Fibleuil

Resembling a geological formation, this democratic platform seeks to evoke a sense of topographic carving that creates a space for public gathering. The mounts slope to serve different kinds of activities like sitting, lying down, and climbing.

66

Jessica Hamilton This design is a series of morphed ribbons ranging in width, creating an array of gathering zones. There are various places from which to speak, with seating zones around the speaker allowing reciprocation. There is a curved ramp that connects both sides of the platform, creating unity within the space.

67

Toni Lem

Democracy inspired thoughts in the design of unity and discussion.

This site utilizes the shape of concave curves to encourage discussion.

The site encourages circulation to pass through the center, where the intergrated forms encourage areas of dialogue and speaking platforms.

ired by thoughts of

on this utilizes the ired bysite thoughts of Democracy inspired by thoughts of eon curves to utilizes encourage this site the

unity and discussion this site utilizes the

The site toencourages eshape curves encourage of concave curves to encourage ss through the center The site encourages discussion.

The site encourages

here the intergrated sscirculation through thepass center to through the center areas ofsite dialogue andthe intergrated of the where here the intergrated

ms. forms of encourage areas dialogueareas andof dialogue and

speaking platforms. ms.

Group Conversation Group Conversation

68

Group Conversation

Debating Moments Debating Moments

Personal Conversation Personal Conversation

Debating Moments

Personal Conversation

Tyler Thurston

Intimate Public Space

The democratic platform is designed to

Gallery/ Exhibition Space

Public Space

connect to preexisting pathways, in orThe democratic platform is designed derconnect to adaptto various different site condito preexisting pathways, to adapt site conditions.

The tions.

Thevarious design includes an adaptable design includes an adaptable wooden wooden wall that shifts to fit around wall that shifts to fit around trees on trees on fringe of various pathways. The the fringe of various pathways. The wall creates creates intimate intimate space space to to display display wall artwork book.The artwork, or or to to sit and read aa book.

The central mound creates a more central mound creates a more public public space where people can lie out space, where people can lay out and view and view performers on the adjacent performer on the adjacent platform. platform.

69

Adam Williams

To build a siteless platform to support democratic use, it became important to allow for flexibility and spontaneity in how the design is executed. This is achieved through maintaining a formally defined podium and perimeter, but allowing organic permutations of the landscape by these elements in response to a variety of site conditions.

What results is a mesh of playful, casual landscape informality with a clearly defined volume useful for traditional debate and demonstration.

70

Jaime Ycaza The idea for the platform came from the quote “the use of public space depends on the meaning attached to it.� Because there is not one particular point of arrival or focus, the platform is instead divided into major and minor spaces. Additionally, there are two kinds of platforms– the stage and the theater serve as opposites to each other. The minor space is intended for more intimate conversations, while the major space offers a place for a larger gathering.

71

P E R F O R M AT I V E I N T E R FA C E

The Performative Interface asks students to propose a prototypical vertical surface– a canopy, shell, or enclosure encoded with potentials for place-making and shelter. The surface contains the informal social life occuring in a public space adjoining a private space.

This surface will also incorporate performance characteristics supporting democratic gathering and exchange.

72

Daniel Bertuso The identity of this vertical interface is derived from a four-pointed star.

The developed form creates an opportunity to place this interface on almost any type of site. Another adaptable element of this project is the ability to use two, three, or all four of the wings to create differentsized spaces for different needs.

The ribbed elements in each of the wings not only perform structurally but also act as a guide for the fabric that stretches and weaves across each wing. The woven nature of the structural elements of this design provides the ability to hide any needed acoustic elements and the fabric provides a buffer to help battle the problem of reverberation. The orientation, number of members, types of fabric, and the fabric itself are all adaptable. Because this form can be placed into any site and still work, it truly does become siteless.

73

Stacey Carbone The Performative Interface is a canopy structure that provides a backdrop for a speaker on the democratic platform and assists them in projecting their voice. It has a reflective bottom surface that lets people in the space view themselves and the people around them from a different perspective.

The Performative Interface is a canopy structure that provides a backdrop for a speaker on the democratic platform and assists the project their voice.

It has a reflective bottom surface that lets people in the space view themselves and the people around them

74

from a different perspective.

Christian Chute

The performative interface establishes a highly visible, singular structure that is easily recognizable and accessible to the public. One material, concrete, is introduced into the landscape as an architecturally mutable surface, transitioning from platform/floor to seating to enclosure and roof, twisting and transforming itself into these critical architectural elements that promote human interaction and discourse.

75

Liz Fibleuil The Performative Interface is a place where there is an ambiguity of private and public. It is inviting and open at the same time as being concealed and intimate. With a series of curved structural ribs, a space is created that exemplifies two curves in dialogue.

76

Jessica Hamilton This Performative Interface is a ramp that acts as a bridge connecting the two parts of the site, while also acting as a stage that then slopes up to become the canopy for the seating and the gathering area on top of the site.

77

Toni Lem

This design strategy uses the original democratic platform as the basis, but removes the island to encourage larger group gatherings. The curvature of the structure suggests areas where multiple private and public gatherings can occur.

Strategically placed light punctures amplify specific areas of inhabitation beneath the canopy.

78

THE DILLER SCOFIDIO + R

canopy which integrated slopesas frommound, the elements, and functions for seating and gathering, while an informal canopy on the dividing backside. the square in to multiple open spaces in order to foster the opportunity for debate, conversation, and intimacy.

This wave like structure functions as a formal enclosure that protects people from the elements, and functions as an informal canopy on the backside.

The main strategy deployed is the canopy mound, which integrates slopes for seating and gathering, while dividing the square into multiple open spaces to foster the opportunity for debate, conversation, and intimacy. This wave-like structure functions as a formal enclosure that protects people from the elements, and functions as an informal canopy on the backside.

THE DILLER SCOFIDIO + RENFRO STUDIO

The main strategy deployed the Tyler was Thurston

Intimate Public Space Public Space

Circulation Preexisting Path

79

Adam Williams

Like the Democratic Platform, the aim of this project provides a democratic space, based upon vertical surface and a more directly performative function. To encourage directed performance, a strong axis and material change between surfaces directs action and attention. A porous fabric ties these elements together while mitigating their relationship to Surface and opportunities for smaller, intimate gatherings. the ground and one another, providing changesHard of scale Transparent Surface

80

Jaime Ycaza The structure represents the fragile equilibrium of democracy and the tension between conflict and resolution that is present within it. It polarizes by weight, dividing the path of arrival, and the separation and obvious hierarchy of the spaces.

81

SITE 1: SENATE PARK

SITE 2: KENNEDY CENTER

The main work of this studio examines the model of the theater as a vehicle for contemporary democratic practices, and the ability of this model to be typologically adapted or mutated into a broad range of spaces of public gathering or passage to inflect these spaces with new potentials for democratic staging.

Toni Lem Adam Williams Jaime Ycaza

The following assertions offer the framework for the studio that were discussed, challenged and advanced throughout the term:

SITE 3: LAFAYETTE PARK

1. There can be no democracy without public space.

Daniel Bertuso Liz Fibleuil Jessica Hamilton

Tyler Thurston Christian Chute Stacey Carbone

2. Democracy is performative, requiring theaters where its actors may publicly stage, dramatize, and deliberate narratives of collective good.

3. While the democratic effect may be massively amplified by broadcast and social media, its vital content requires the body language and emotional atmosphere of real performers in physical spaces.

4. The space of democratic performance is under constant challenge and must be expanded. The definition of public space should be broadened beyond spaces owned and maintained by the state. To the repertoire of spaces currently thought of as public, such as parks, plazas and other publicly held spaces, there must be added spaces accessible to or appropriable by the public for democratic performance.

5. The new theaters of democracy should not be restricted to monumental or symbolic sites. They will encompass offices, libraries, schools, and other buildings, typologically adapted through design to be encoded with potentials for public appropriation and physically imprinted with the characteristics of performance spaces.

82

D E M O C R AT I C T H E AT E R

83

SENATE PARK Senate Park sits at the south end of Union Station just a few feet away of the iconic Capitol Building. This site is surrounded by heavy pedestrian tourist activity between Union Station and the Capitol Building as well as those working in the area.

84

Sitting in between the symbol of democracy of the city and that of transportation, the site is a place where both democracy and movement merge to spread the importance of democratic performance.

85

THE DILLER SCOFIDIO + RENFRO STUDIO

Daniel Bertuso

The interstitial space between Union The interstitial space between Union Station and the United Station and the United States Capitol States Capitol ais currently sparsely developed area that is currently sparsely adeveloped harbors only green spaces and government offices. It becomes area that harbors only green aspaces space that only used asoffices. a path between two attractions. and isgovernment It The design proposal creates a space that appears to function becomes a space that is only used differently the changing of day and night. During the day as a path with between two attractions. continues be a space that acts as a path between the two The designtoproposal creates a space iconic places. During the evenings, that appears to function differentlyit becomes the iconic space. withlonger the changing of dayspaces, and night.

No the interstitial it is ‘The’ space. Illuminating During the day is continues to be a and location for the the fly loft creates a sense of gathering space that acts as a path between the evening’s activities. The transparency of the active interior two iconic places. evenings spaces allows the During vibrantthe inside to flood out into the exterior it becomes the iconic space.

No longer spaces. the interstitional spaces it is ‘The’ space.

Illuminating the fly loft creates a sense of gathering and location for the evenings activities. The transparency of the active interior spaces allows the vibrant inside to flood into the exterior spaces.

ORIGINAL

86

SITE

ACCESS

PARTI

DIVISION

Daniel Bertuso 87

THE DILLER SCOFIDIO + RENFRO STUDIO

Liz Fibleuil

This project enhances the views of the surrounding monuments to make pedestrians feel more in tune with democratic performances. The site peels away from its base and underneath it sits the New Theater of Democracy. Landscape seeks to unite the interior and exterior spaces.

88

Liz Fibleuil 89

Jessica Hamilton

UNION STATION WOODEN CANOPIES WITH SEATING OUTDOOR AMPHITHEATER CHERRY CANOPY CAFE ACTIVITY LAWN

OUTDOOR GREEN ROOFTOP

OUTDOOR SEATING STEPS

The New Theater of Democracy is a

continuous The

constructed urbanof Democracy is New Theater

landscape created for everyone to

a

continuous

constructed

urban

gather. The theater is tucked into The New Theater of Democracy topography providing landscape created is athe continuous constructed urbanpublicfor everyone to access onto the for green roof creating a landscape created everyone to gather.

The into theater is tucked into gather.

The theater is tucked the playground for all. The amphitheater is topography, providing public access the during topography providing public a key element the day and night. onto the green roof and creating a playgroundaccess for all. The amphitheatre onto the green roof creating a is a key element during day and night.

playground for all. The amphitheater is a key element during the day and night.

90

UNITED STATES CAPITOL

Jessica Hamilton 91

THE DILLER SCOFIDIO + RENFRO STUDIO

node

landmark

200x200 SF

edges

The site of our project sits at the southern base of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, bounded by Rock Creek and Potomac Parkways and the Potomac River to the west.

The history of the site extends back to L’Enfant’s original plan for of our project sits at the Washington, D.C.

NNEDY CENTER SOUTH

NNEDY CENTER SOUTH site

283x283 SF 200x200 SF 283x283 SF 346x346 SF

NEDY CENTER site of our sits SOUTH at theCenter hern base ofproject the Kennedy

thern base of the Kennedy Center he Performing Arts, bounded by the Performing Arts, bounded by Creek and Potomac Parkway and of and ourPotomac project sits at the kite Creek Parkway and Potomac River the The Potomac to to the west.west.

The ern baseRiver of the Kennedy Center back back to byto ory of the thesite siteextends extends eoryPerforming Arts, bounded nfant’s for for Washington ant’s original originalplan plan Washington

Creek and Potomac Parkway and otomac River to the west. The y of the site extends back to nt’s original plan for Washington

node

landmark

346x346 SF 206,945 SF

200x200 SF 283x283 SF

346x346 SF

THE DILLER SCOFIDIO + RENFRO STUDI

KENNEDY CENTER SOUTH

206,945 SF Original Road Planning (25-35mph)

206,945 SF

work and residential pedestrian

Existing Highway (45-65mph)

Existing Highway (45-65mph)

leisure activities

Existing Highway (45-65mph)

Public/ Private node

Public

landmark

Private

edges 2.91 6.01

Semi-Private

6.01

2.91

Public/ Private

Public

node

Public/ Private

landmark

Private

Original Road Planning (25-35mph)

Semi-Private

Public

edges

Private Semi-Private Public/ Private

Original Road Planning (25-35mph)

Public Private

node

Semi-Private

landmark edges

Original Road Planning (25-35mph)

work and residential

node landmark

92

pedestrian leisure activities

THE DILLER SCOFIDIO + RENFRO STUDIO

The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts was opened to the public in September 1971. John F. Kennedy was a lifelong supporter and advocate of the arts, lobbying for what he called “our contribution to the human spirit.” After his assassination, the theater became The current site contains a parking a public memorial to Kennedy as garage, bus and shuttle parking and well as national theater.the The southern current greenspace between site contains a parking garage, busthe Kennedy Center platform and and shuttle parking, andpoint greenspace freeway.

While the main of access between the southern Kennedy comes from the eastern entry to the Center platform the exist freeway.

Kennedy center,and there smaller, While the main point of access informal entries from both Rock Creek comes from eastern to the Park and thethe inner loop entry freeway.

The Kennedy Center, there exist smaller, Kennedy Center for the Performing informal from Arts wasentries opened toboth the Rock public in Creek Parkway and theF.freeway.

September 1971.

John Kennedy was a lifelong supporter and advocate of the arts, lobbying for what he called “our contribution to the human spirit.” After his assatination, the theater became a public memorial to Kennedy as well as national theater.

93

itself in transparency and lightness

This spirit of this design proposal finds Toni Lem of new of proposal democracy in Thisthe spirit of theatre this design finds

itself in transparency and lightness The spirittransparency of this design proposal juxtaposition to the heaviness of the itself lightness of theinnew theatre of and democracy in is in the transparency and lightness Kennedy Center.

The main theatre of the new theatre of democracy in juxtaposition to theofheaviness of the of the new theatre democracy functions both as an indoor and outdoor juxtaposition to the heaviness of in contrastCenter. to the heaviness thethe Kennedy The mainof theatre site to blend the The two main functions.

The Kennedy theatre Kennedy Center. main theatre functions both as an The indoor and outdoor functions bothasas an indoor and exterior landscape forms an reciprocal functions both antwo indoor and outdoor site to blend functions.

The outdoor site tothe blend the two relationship with the interior one The via site to blend the two functions. exterior landscape formslandscape an reciprocal functions.

The exterior edges can open or The exterior forms anclose. reciprocal forms which a landscape reciprocal relationship with relationship with the interior one via the interiorgently one via edges thatone can landscape steps down from relationship with the interior via edges which can open or close. The open or close.Center The landscape gently the Kennedy to allow multiple edges whichgently can open ordown close.

The landscape steps from steps down from the Kennedy Center conversation and discussion gatherings. landscape gently steps down from the Kennedy Center to allow multiple to allow multiple conversation and Two circulation routes: one, along the the Kennedy Center to Two allow multiple discussion gatherings. circulation conversation and discussion gatherings. routes: one, along the path and, bike path that hugs thebike highway conversation and discussion Two circulation routes: one,gatherings. along the that hugs the highway and, two, the two, the pedestrian pathway through Two circulation routes: one, along the bike path that hugs the highway and, pedestrian pathway through the front the front ofthat the theatre, allow the public bike path hugs highway of the theatre, allowthe the public toand, two, the pedestrian pathway through to peer into the “private” functions peer into the functions ofof two, the pedestrian pathway through the front of the“private” theatre, allow the public thefront performance. the performance. of the theatre, allow the public to peer into the “private” functions of to peer into the “private” functions of the performance. the performance.

One Sided Theatre

94

Outdoor Theatre

Theatre in the Round

One Sided Theatre

Outdoor Theatre

Theatre in the Round

One Sided Theatre

Outdoor Theatre

Theatre in the Round

THE DILLER SCOFIDIO + RENFRO STUDIO

Public and Private

Public Circulation

Toni Lem 95

B

A

The democratic theater, as it exists in its island condition between the Kennedy Center andas surrounding The democratic theater, it exists highways, cannot hope to become in its island condition between the a desirable or visitable space without Kennedy Center and surrounding rising above its identity as “residual highways, cannot hope to become space”. Thus, the identity of the a desirable or inhabitable space project is one of reconciliation, by without rising above its identity simultaneously bringing in, and pushing as out “residual space.” towards, the Thus, site’s the exterior. By identity of the project is oneconnection of reestablishing a meaningful reconciliation, simultaneously to the public by while providing a unique bringing in, and pushing out toward, performance space, this project aims to thedemocratize site’s exterior. the By sitereestablishing by rehabilitating dead space connection for the public a meaningful to thebenefit. public while providing a unique performance space, this project aims to democratize the site by rehabilitating dead space for the public benefit.

Section A

96

Section B

THE DILLER SCOFIDIO + RENFRO STUDIO

Adam Williams

Adam Williams 97

Jaime Ycaza

A mole that turns into a freckle.

The design strategy seeks to mediate informal and formal activities and users via careful articulation of landscape and elements. The cafe, at a critical point of intersection, affords the opportunity for the bike shorts to meet the tuxedos. This proposal extends across the Rock Creek Parkway to connect the river’s edge to the New Theater for Democracy.

98

Jaime Ycaza 99

LAFAYETTE PARK

100

101

Tyler Thurston The initial design concept creates a structure that filters the view of the White House, through a pure glass form that occupies the center of historic Lafayette Square. The cube alters the view of the White House down its main siteline on 16th Street.

The color of the cube simultaneously reacts with unravelling political events.

Another design intention changes the common visual perception people have of the White House, while also maintaining a sense of transparency.

The idea of transparency carries from the exterior into the interior

102

Tyler Thurston 103

Christian Chute This design strategy seeks to extend existing lines and axes. By adding new lines from the corners of the site, a web of events emerges, anchored by a glass volume that leans back from the White House. The ampitheater and cafe push up from the landscape to allow one to inhabit the topography. The whole space is created by a dialogue between user, context, and landscape to produce a flexible and publicly accessible space that encourages gathering on multiple scales.

104

Christian Chute 105

Rooftop Publicly Accessible Space

CENSORED Upper Mezzanine Performance Balconies Control Rooms

The goals of the Theater of Democracy of the White The goals of in thefront Theater of Democracy House were to use the architecture in front of the White House were to of the theater to negate the regulations use the architecture of the theater to on the site while taking advantage PLAN: negate 1/4�= 1’ the regulations on the site while of media spots on the park. The taking advantage of the media spots on only built pieces of design that

Ground Floor Entry Pavilions Cafes Amphitheater Theater

the park. the Thegreenspace only built pieces of the puncture are the theater in the round and two entry design that puncture the greenspace pavilions that include cafes.and two are the theater in the round entry pavillions that include cafes.

-1 Floor Foundation Suites Support Staff Area Guest Wash Rooms Kitchen Lobby Bar ont Verm

15th Street

16th Street

.

Ave

17th Street

cut

ecti

n Con

Ave .

K Street

Pen n

sylv ania

Ave .

New

York

.

Ave

-2 Floor Dressing Rooms Performer Wash Rooms Rehearsal Space Chorus Rooms Green Room Storage

North-South Section

106

THE DILLER SCOFIDIO + RENFRO STUDIO

Stacey Carbone

LIVE White House

Signage

John Oliver Senior White House Correspondent

View from the Roof of the Hay-Adams Hotel

View down 16th Street approaching White House

Perform SHELTER

View of Theater From Pennsylvania Avenue

View During Night time Performance

Perform

View of Amphitheater Performance and White House

Stacey Carbone 107

108

JUNE WILLIAMSON “Designing Suburban Futures, Now!”

The North American urban landscape is dominated by the products of late 20th century suburbanization, resulting in an unsustainable built environment littered with dead malls, failing strip centers, foreclosed houses, vacant big boxes, and acre upon acre of asphalt parking lots.

What to do? I’m going to show you some case study examples from my book Retrofitting Suburbia, which I co-wrote with Ellen Dunham-Jones of Georgia Tech, along with winning proposals from the urban design ideas competition Build a Better Burb, which I organized a couple of years ago and which I’m writing a new book about, called Designing Suburban Futures.

It is my contention that we must all help to marshal the power of design to help shape a more resilient future for our metropolitan edges, the suburbs.

More than fifty percent of Americans lived in suburbs at the turn of the millennium, as US Census data shows, and even more in neighborhoods characterized by suburban form (that is, low density, use-separated, and car dependent places). The U.S. became predominately urban sometime in the 1940s, with about 33% of the population living in center cities at that time, and 17% in suburbs. Each individual metropolitan area has experienced a particular trajectory of

109

those folks. Then, there’s increasing diversity in the first post-World War II suburbs, with people moving for opportunity and with the increasing prevalence of gateway suburbs for immigrants coming directly to suburban areas. Then, there are leapfrogging patterns that have led to relative centrality for these newly urban areas. In the D.C. area, a lot of these suburban retrofits are occurring around Metrorail stations where there are transit -oriented development opportunities. growth, with some cities hollowing out, the middle class decanting into surrounding suburbs for a troubling, complex set of reasons, like Detroit and Cleveland, with others, like New York and Chicago, holding relatively stable in the center while the overall metro area grew in population. And with yet others, like Phoenix and Houston, growing rapidly in a sort of “flat” manner such that the urbanism of the center is hardly distinguishable from that of the suburbs.

Data indicate that the share of the overall U.S. population in center cities has remained steady, at around onethird for at least seventy years. Will this proportion change significantly in coming decades? It probably will not, especially with increasing longevity.

There are various dynamics driving the retrofitting of suburbs.

Greenhouse gas emissions and climate change provide one example.

Poverty is on the rise in suburbs.

There are public health concerns with obesity and diabetes, correlated with sedentary suburban lifestyles. The child rearing years represent a small portion of a person’s overall lifespan.

We need different housing types for

110

The big challenge is to improve the resiliency of the vast suburban landscape, where the majority of our population currently lives, representing all income levels, all ages, all races, all countries of origin.

We have urbanized more than enough land already. We now need to steward it more sustainably. What can we do with all those surface parking lots? Ellen and I introduced the term “incremental metropolitanism” to advocate for a polycentric vision that could be advanced by the retrofitting of appropriate sites. In densifying and diversifying nodes along transitserved corridors and de-densifying other sites for ecological repair, we identify three main strategies or approaches: 1) reinhabitation (or various forms of adaptive reuse), 2) redevelopment (or urbanization by increasing density, walkability, use mix), and 3) regreening (from small parks and plazas to restoring wetlands ecologies). These may work alone or in combination.

Numerous “ghost boxes,” the term for a dead big box store, have been converted to more community-serving uses, as in a dead grocery store in Denton, Texas, retrofitted into a branch library. We see the addition of

sidewalks and pervious public green space but, most importantly, we see the addition of a public, communal use into an area dominated by private uses. Another center was gradually repositioned, from strip to hip, starting with a boutique grocery and a coat of bright paint. La Grande Orange Groceria has become a “Third Place” for the neighborhood, addressing the need identified by sociologist Ray Oldenberg as not home, not work, but a third place to hang out.

There have been approximately forty retrofits of regional shopping malls.

And finally, under the strategy of “re-inhabitation” we must consider options for densifying existing residential neighborhoods, not by redevelopment but by the gradual accretion of new homes through the legalization of accessory dwelling units (ADUs) and rezoning. What this can do is increase dwelling unit capacity in a neighborhood up to the minimum threshold required to support transit without demolition or putting in multi-unit apartment complexes. ADUs provide more affordable rental units, allowing seniors on fixed incomes to stay in their houses with supplemental rental income while providing apartments for young people. There is, however, NIMBY resistance.

The second strategy I want to talk about is redevelopment, which is the systematic transformation of a large, single-use, car-dependent suburban type that has failed. Even before the Great Recession of 2007-08 there was a cascade of failures due to overbuilding, and there are many reasons why more malls were built when there really was not capacity for more stores.

In these cases, I contend that it is changing the urban structure, not the

current building uses and densities, that constitutes a primary task of suburban retrofitting. There is a small scale example in iconic Levittown, New York, for diversifying housing stock where townhouses for seniors were built as infill on a commercial lot. While Levittown was once miles of identical saltbox units, almost every original house in Levittown has been remodeled such that you can’t find one still in its original condition.

Here is Mashpee Commons in Massachusetts.

It illustrates a somewhat incremental process, due to many regulatory barriers. It is built on the parking lots of a strip center. It is making the downtown that Mashpee never had as a kind of “attachable fragment of urbanism.” These planned neighborhoods are still basically illegal according to Cape Cod’s large lot zoning, but they are allowed through fairshare affordable housing law provisions in Massachusetts that allow more compact dwelling.

Mashpee Commons was begun in 1986, so it is the oldest case study that we have in Retrofitting Suburbia, and it has now outlasted the shopping center that it replaced. Built in a traditional architectural idiom, it is a New Urbanist poster child, for sure, but also barrier-breaking in terms of challenging postwar suburban zoning.

It deserves credit for pioneering many of the challenges to conventional suburban development and zoning, such as eliminating required setbacks for commercial buildings, skinnier streets, and providing apartments over shops, the first built in decades anywhere in Cape Cod.

three Edward Durell Stone office buildings leased to government tenants. It was going to be a 1960s town center that would be adjacent to I-95, the Metrorail, etc. All that was built were these three office towers surrounded by service parking. University Town Center is located in Prince George’s County, a predominantly African-American suburban county northeast of D.C .

The main driver of transformation was the arrival of the Metrorail. The redevelopment strategy was to infill the parking lots around the existing mid-rise office buildings, consolidate surface parking into decks built into the slope, and create new layers of street retail and residential building.

However, these “streets” remain privately owned. The high-end condominium building has not sold well. But this apartment building, with 4-bed, 4-bath units, has proved very popular with area college students, who can take the bus or Metro to

their various campuses and walk to part-time jobs. Many developers are stuck in a rut with rule of thumb housing formulas that won’t serve the imperative to respond to changing demographics. There is need for more affordable, flexible options for sharing by unrelated adults, like this building, and for baby boomers who wish to downsize but remain in their suburban communities. There is great opportunity for rigorous new research at the intersection of architecture, urban design, and real estate.

Much of the pioneering work done at Mashpee Commons paid off in projects such as Belmar in Lakewood, Colorado. This was the result of a private developer working with the municipality. It is a 106-acre site broken up into 22 separate urban blocks, the land of the streets deeded into public ownership. The streets are all now publicly owned, yet are still maintained by the developer,

Fig. 1: Mashpee, MA, strip mall, before retrofitting into Mashpee Commons

Next is an example of an office park retrofit, University Town Center in Hyattsville, Maryland. This site’s “before” condition is comprised of

111

representing a more resilient urban pattern. By 2020, the proposed buildout will triple the built density on the site. It is a hybrid condition, with wrapped office over retail boxes and public spaces. For instance, the cinema is wrapped with single-loaded apartments over retail. To ease the transition, the so-named Block 7 subsidized artist’s spaces serve as a street-level liner on the parking garage. The retrofit also obtained a federal grant for green energy features, wind turbines and PV arrays.

It is important to note that all this retrofitting is not displacing people who want to live in conventional suburban neighborhoods. It is taking underperforming sites and creating pockets of transit-served walkability to offer urban choices for the new demographic groups that are increasingly seeking more interaction.

Fig. 2-5: “Belvedere Crossing” proposal for a commercial strip in West Palm Beach, FL

2

courtesy of June Williamson and Anne Vaterlaus

But, densification and adaptive reuse are not going to work everywhere.

Sometimes regreening is the more appropriate strategy. It’s been used with land banks in cities and suburbs facing shrinking populations such as Flint and Detroit, Michigan. Their strategies for converting foreclosed properties into gardens and parks to stabilize home values and protect long-term natural resources may become more widespread to deal with foreclosures and unsold exurban developments. Another form of regreening is the suburban farming movement, converting suburban lawns into vegetable gardens. More and more places are turning to organic farming to revive health and property values. There is a growing suburban farming movement where people are intensively farming their front and backyards and coordinating farmer’s market participation over the Internet.

A dying, but not dead mall in Cleveland

112

3 3

started growing organic veggies under its skylights, reinventing the food court!

And here, in north Seattle, Thornton Place is an example that brings all three retrofitting strategies together.

The lower quadrant of parking at the historic Northgate Mall, where architect John Graham innovated the classic dumbbell mall type, has been redeveloped in a project that represents the negotiated resolution of a longstanding conflict with environmentalists. This is the headwaters of Thornton Creek, serving a 680-acre watershed.

Now, it has been reengineered as soft infrastructure. Numerous other investments are combining to gradually transform and reorient this auto-dependent area into a transitserved, age-diverse, walkable node.

Parks and well designed, ecologically contributing open space can serve as a catalyst reviving and stabilizing the value of adjacent properties.

This next project, however, is a cautionary tale about regreening and potential conflicts with the need for affordable housing in suburbs: Dunwoody, Georgia, devised a plan to demolish an aging, but affordable, garden apartment complex to build sports fields. The parks project, which was defeated in a referendum, would have displaced 785 residents, including 560 school children.

Retrofits are hybrid places! Challenges remain! Better architecture, better metro coordination and planning, and more public involvement may be implemented. There was a public protest in Silver Spring, Maryland, for “the right to the suburb� to adapt a term from Henri Lefebvre.

Residents, led by Chip Py, organized a July 4th protest on the temporary Astroturf town green to demand

4 4

5

5

113

civil liberties—the right to take photographs, assemble and leaflet— on a mall retrofit developed with significant public subsidy. The protest took place on a street that, while resembling a public street, is actually privately owned. Here is evidence of civic protest in the social media age, taking place in a hybrid of physical space and digital media realms.

Now, many of these retrofits, especially the “redevelopment” types, are examples of Instant Urbanism. I freely admit they are hybrid places, but we believe this is the overall direction we need to go to accommodate growth without urbanizing more land at the unsustainable rates of the past. Some criticize these projects for low quality architecture and a theme-park Disney look, an ersatz sense of place. That is why we need more architects involved.

I suggest to you that these case studies represent a First Generation of this type of retrofit: lots of room for future innovation. Can we engage more young creative minds in the “Big Project” to retrofit suburbia for a more sustainable, resilient urban future? As an urban designer, what have I learned from all this case study research?

Here is a hypothetical project, “Rivera Crossing,” I’ve proposed with landscape architect Anne Vaterlaus, for reinhabiting, redeveloping and regreening a very large warehousing facility and big box power center site in Pico Rivera, California. From the 1950s to 2000 the site was industrial, and supported many well paying jobs. Can the consumption-oriented uses of places like this, which we’ve overbuilt and which provide mostly low-paying service jobs, be retrofitted with more economically, socially and ecologically productive uses?

And here’s another proposal, “Belvedere Crossing,” that we recently completed and submitted to a competition for a dying strip center site in West Palm Beach, Florida, adjacent to a planned light rail stop. Not much physical change has happened in this neighborhood since the late 1960s, besides a gradual decline in the commercial properties. The area demographics have shifted decisively, however, towards Hispanic residents.

Our scheme proposes a gradual series of changes, to transform decisively from a landscape of consumption to one of local production.

First, a jog/walk loop is introduced,

with a permeable recycled rubberpaving surface in the row of the sidewalk. Additionally, a day-labor station is added in the parking lot of the dead big box, which becomes a site for culinary training. By 2020, when the light rail has opened, other vacant buildings and lots are reinhabited with productive uses: vocational training with outdoor classrooms, community gardens, a canning and food processing facility, a health center. This productive public and private investment will, by 2030, spur new private development in a variety of multi-unit housing types.

The Build a Better Burb competition stemmed from the Long Island Index 2010 report. The Index is a nonprofit foundation taking on regional planning role, with indicator studies (on economy, population, housing, etc.) taking on regional planning work that was previously neglected.

Frustrated with the lack of traction on their findings, they decided to sponsor a competition and engaged me as the primary consultant. We came up with the idea that there had been a “crisis of imagination,” searching for a vision where there had previously been none.

Fig. 6-7: Build a Better Burb competition entries “Long Division” and “Upcycling 2.0,” courtesy of the Long Island Index

114

The Index, working with the Regional Plan Association and the Mapping Service at the City University of New York, conducted a “greyfield audit” mapping over 8000 acres of available space, of vacant land and parking lots, in Long Island’s downtown areas and within a 1/2mile radius of the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR). After we selected 24 finalists there was a public voting round to engage residents. Posters were put on buses and voting stations in public libraries to engage the public.

One of the winning projects was “SUBHUB Transit System” by DUB Studios, which considers the potential of a “last mile” network from elementary schools to LIRR stations, using the latent capacity of school buses as a suburban “microinfrastructure.” Another winning proposal, “AgIsland” by Parsons Brinckerhoff, proposes to puts the “farm back in Farmingdale” by suggesting an imaginative new paradigm for relocating lowdensity, car-dependent commercial development from office parks to transit-served downtowns, freeing up the old parks for agriculture.

Somewhat more modestly, but also more realistically, the proposal “Sited in the Setback” by Meri Tepper illustrates an incremental build up over time of accessory dwelling units, built with prefabrication technology.

“Building C-Burbia” is another winning proposal, by a landscape architect team led by Denise Hoffman Brandt, suggesting a multi-layered design policy to enhance landscapes that sequester carbon in robust carbon sinks throughout the region on vacant lots and highway verges.

Also operating at a regional scale, “Long Division,” a joint project of

Fig. 8: Build a Better Burb entry “LIRR: Long Island Radically Rezoned,” courtesy of the Long Island Index

the Network Architecture Lab and PARC Office, proposes a strategy for more sustainable development that would protect a threatened aquifer.

Some areas, over the aquifer, would be slated to de-densify and regreen over time, while others would become dense centers, sprouting an ambitious set of new, hybrid building types. In “Upcycling 2.0” the student winners Ryan Lovett, Patricia Cobb and John Simons pursue bottom up financing strategies such as the use of pooled income streams to fund smallscale community amenities, like a basketball court or community Wi-Fi.

highlighting problems of fractured governance. There were many more interesting proposals in the over 200 schemes submitted, many of which will be highlighted in the book, along with the 7 winners.

As I said at the outset of this talk, we must all help to marshal the power of design to help shape a more resilient future for suburbs. What will you do?

“LIRR: Long Island Radically Rezoned,” a proposal led by Tobias Holler and Ana Serra, was the “People’s Choice” winning project, and in many ways the most radical set of ideas. It proposes geopolitical restructuring of the two counties,

115

EXPERIENCES IN ARCHITECTURE The Experiences in Architecture program at The Catholic University of America is an intense three-week workshop for students interested in architecture or other design related fields. Students are exposed to both the academic and the professional sides of the architecture arena, as the city of Washington, D.C., becomes their classroom.

116

Critic: David Shove-Brown

Adam Williams 1117 117

SKETCHING

Participating students begin their design journey in the studio with lessons in drawing and model making fundamentals as well as vocabulary of the student and professional. Over the next several days, students are taught to look and draw at the world as architects; field sketching and documentation take on lives of their own. As the students get used to their new tools and skills, they are brought out into the city for multiple field trips to buildings, monuments, offices, construction sites and landscapes in which their work their craft. Over the next several weeks, the students spend half a day out exploring the world of design.

Newseum balcony at the edge of the National Mall

118

Newseum interior

Historic Georgetown

Finnish Embassy

119

IN STUDIO DESIGN

As the students venture further into the city and design discipline, they are also introduced to the studio environment. In this world, the students begin by designing simple collage boards exploring the dialogue between the man-made and the natural. This collage assignment spans two days following which the students design a “landscape” with a basic kit of parts and design concept, but no client. A week is spent crafting and recrafting models and drawings of this designed landscape. Following a formal review, the students are presented with a client. With this new element, the students must not only redesign their landscape, but introduce elements specific to each client need.

The Archaeologist requires a Gallery Space for found artifacts while the Astronomer needs and Interior / Exterior observation space. The Secret Agent desires an Enclosed “hide-out” and the Rock Star demands a Practice Area / Performance Stage. The last week of the program is used to perfect the design for each particular client concluding with a formal review by professors, practitioners, students and parents.

120

Production techniques ranged from computer modeling, to hand drawing, to physical modeling

Students had access to both CUArch’s digital media lab as well as personal desk space for physical studio production

121

EXCURSIONS

Evenings are also spent out in the city with adventures to monuments, movies, local restaurants and sporting events taking place. Weekends maintain the same energy level having journeys to the National Zoo, Eastern Market and other local favorite locations.

At the home of former CUArch dean Stanely Hallet

122

Conference room at Washington DC architecture firm RTKL

123

Homeless Encampment against the backdrop of the Motor City Casino photo by Jose Camilo Vergara

124

STEPHEN VOGEL “Architectural Education in a Shrinking City”

There are no textbooks that deal with the conditions that exist in Detroit.

The architecture assignments at University of Detroit Michigan deal with what to do with a city that has more buildings and land than uses. I should also mention that we are a private Catholic university that provides a Jesuit education.

Many of our designs take place outside of Detroit, in New Orleans, Miami, and Los Angeles because of the Jesuits. The mission of the University is to “assist marginalized communities make a quality of life.”

That relates directly to architecture and attracts students who feel strongly about helping marginalized

and disenfranchised communities.

In the context of the city of Detroit, the population grew in the early 1900s, then peaked in the early 1950s.

The automobile industry sparked this growth, as we are known as “Motor City,” which is odd today as there are more automobiles built in Ontario than in Michigan. Also, World War II sparked growth, as Detroit supplied about 80% of all allied war material.

The population peaked in 1952 at slightly below two million people, from 1.9 million. In the 2009 census it was assumed the area would have 800,000 people, however it was actually 713,000 people. There was

125

a decline at around 17,000 people per year that has increased into a decline now of 25,000 people per year. Detroit has decreased from the 4th largest city in the U.S. to 28 th. This has created significant changes in the city. Detroit is part of an international study of shrinking cities, where we were the only American city as part of study run by Germans. It is interesting to note that there are 374 shrinking cities in the world, where 59 of them are in the U.S. and 33 are in China. This study was completed eight years ago, and there have been changes to this information since then. American cities are shrinking due to deindustrialization and China is shrinking due to movement away from rural centers to larger cities.

German cities are also shrinking due to the movement of individuals from the east to the west after the fall of the Berlin Wall. As a result, many of the eastern cites are significantly empty. This process is similar to what has occurred in America. In America, St. Louis is the worst in proportionate population loss, where Detroit loses more people per year than St Louis.

The issues that occur in Detroit are the same everywhere else.

One of the main issues in Detroit is that the city covers about 140 square miles. That area can fit the cities of San Francisco, Boston and Manhattan, with twenty square miles left over. There are about fifty square miles of vacant land in Detroit, which translates to being able to build San Francisco simply on the vacant land in Detroit. The issue is that the 30’x100’ lots are held by separate owners scattered all across Detroit. The size of Detroit spread

126

due to the auto industry. Around 1914, Henry Ford decided to pay his workers $5 a day, which was twice above the average of $2.50 per day.

This was paid to everyone: women, African-Americans, non-English speakers from Eastern Europe. With $5 per day pay, you could afford a single-family home and a car. Ford’s first customers were his workers, amounting to 300,000 individuals who owned Ford automobiles.

As a result, the city became a city of single-family homes, which translates today as having the highest percentage of single-family home ownership in the country. When a vacancy occurs, the effect is obvious. The wood home would quickly start to deteriorate and the devastation is clearer than in any other city. The immigrants from the American South and Eastern Europe moved into the city, so that by 1928 the population would grow by about 2,000 people every seven days. This is in comparison to how the job market barely grows by 2,000 new jobs per year. The city rapidly expanded, with 95% of all existing 1920s style skyscrapers built between 1923 and 1928. Due to the Depression, the growth of the city stopped.

Demographers before the 1930s predicted that by 1935 the growth of Detroit would supersede the size of Chicago. This did not occur. During WWII, Detroit was known as the “arsenal of democracy,” where the government commissioned to build ten thousand bombers in Detroit.

Ford surpassed this tenfold, when one bomber would be assembled every 63 minutes from repurposed automakers.

Fig. 1: Wild pheasant in downtown Detroit photo by Paul Matelic

127

There are many reasons for the decrease in population in Detroit.

One reason that is not often discussed is the dispersing of the production of war materials in America that was once concentrated in Detroit. This decision was due to the advent of the atomic bomb and the Cold War. The Eisenhower government realized the danger of concentrating all knowledge and equipment in one are, and gave tax incentives to the automakers to move out of Detroit. This started the gradual process of moving the plants to the suburbs, and later to Ohio, Ontario, Brazil, and China. The interstate defense highway was built during this time to allow people to quickly migrate all over the country.

The FHA suburban housing program did not allow individuals of color to move their housing; white GIs could leave these homes, whereas AfricanAmericans were trapped in Detroit where they still remain today. By 1967, the population had reduced significantly due to lack of jobs and racism, which led to civil unrest due to heightened frustrations. After the civil unrest, people assumed that corporations would come and resolve many of the outstanding issues.

However, many of the issues in 1967 still exist today. Early 1970s court cases demanded the desegregation of schools. This was when white flight significantly increased. The white and black middle class started to leave the city, as they no longer had control over their neighborhood schools. Detroit has a concentration of poverty and race in the city.

In the 1970s Ford built the Renaissance Center in the city, which was a financial failure that GM

128

has since purchased and renovated for two billion dollars. However, that also stopped when GM went bankrupt.

In the 1980s, Detroit hired experts in demolitions due to the increase in vacancies, such as the J.L. Hudson Building, that was demolished and remains vacant today.

In the 1990s, the economy had improved with $14 million in development during the ten-year period. There were new stadiums built and theaters were renovated.

Detroit is a major theater city with almost as many theater seats as New York. There are many venues downtown. However, the job situation did not improve and, as a result, the city decided to permit casinos to be built. This attracted low-skill and low-paying jobs. It was a reaction to the casinos in Windsor, Ontario, where $100 million moved north to Canada. The casinos are quite successful, despite an unknown social cost. There are now three casinos in Detroit. This is often contrasted with the increase in homeless individuals in the area. The casinos never delivered in the number of job creations as promised. Cleveland, Ohio, recently announced they are building casinos, as people are now moving their money to Detroit. This is simply a sign of a desperate city trying to do anything to attract jobs.

Regarding education, fourty percent of people in Detroit are illiterate The school system has been closing schools; the Catholic Church has closed thirty five schools in the last five years.

Even within five minutes from Detroit the streets look like rural areas.

Fig. 2: Peacemaker Garden, Detroit, MI

Two out of every five homes in Detroit are now vacant, which provides a unique landscape. Nature has quickly taken over the landscape. The core of the city has been taken over by nature and animals, such as pheasants, deer, coyotes, trees, and bushes. It can be a mystical environment. Young adults are coming into the city in large numbers, as housing is cheap.

However, how much tenacity do they have? Will they stay through thick or thin? Urban farming is a growing industry in the city, as it is hard to get fresh produce within the city.

The Detroit Agricultural Network has grown now to three hundred members. Growing your own food

has become a big trend. The city has raised taxes and reduced services due to the decrease in population, though there are fewer services available, such as streetlights and garbage pick-up.

What exists in the city is the growth of neighborhood organizations, where the neighborhood pays for everything themselves and private schooling for their children. Strong-minded and opinionated people often thrive and vigilante justice often occurs; people do everything themselves.

New urbanism is a unique concept in Detroit, as it is hard to justify certain types of planning theory. The Suburbs consist of small urban villages

that are relatively dense according to Detroit standards, surrounded by productive landscapes. How can a city provide services? The city would provide services to 75,000 to 125,000 individuals at these urban villages based on population size alone.

The most efficient cities have about 100,000 individuals. These villages will have an inverse growth limit.

If you live within the growth limit, then you will receive services. Most areas outside are vacant and will not receive services. Many of the projects dealt with in the studios at U.D.M. are regarding these urban villages.

They are surrounded by productive landscape to link vacancies back

together. The proposal area next to Woodward Corridor and the Village seeks to elevate Bloody Run Creek and link the vacant spaces together to generate energy and productive farming. This is an opportunity to create a green village, as all energy production and services are to be contained within each of these urban villages. Within the urban area, Catherine Ferguson Academy teaches farming to the students in a practical manner with an actual farm and animals in the area. Artists have been moving into the city and are one of the most visible groups city. Building reuse is often explored to adapt to surrounding active uses.

129

Fig. 3: Bloody Run Creek Redevelopment Project

Recycled materials are often used where the materials are repurposed from vacant homes to other structures such as greenhouses. Soil pods for plants may be elevated over toxic soil so the land can be used. The idea is to encourage private development and, within urban development to increase green infill projects.

Immigration has not been encouraged within the city. Detroit is losing 25,000 people per year, offset by 15,000 people immigrating to the city per year, resulting in 10,000 net individuals leaving the city. The immigrating community includes Mexicans, Muslims and Christian

130

Iraqis. The city cannot survive primarily on agrarian societies, as free markets need population growth to survive. The city should open up to foreign countries and advertise the benefits of coming to Detroit, such as cheap land and opportunities for growth. There have been some positive signs within the city, such as the small growth in the young adult community. Also, the city is located next to a large freshwater body, a resource that is in scarce supply.

The hope is for Detroit to grow “out of the ashes and rise again.�

Fig. 4: July 4th Fireworks, Detroit, MI

131

SUMMER PLANNING LAB “No matter where we live or where we wander, cities touch everything we do. They define us, excite us, captivate us, and challenge us.�

Keith Bellows (National Geographic Traveler, March 2009, page 48)

We have been teaching design for over 100 years and, frankly, sometimes we take for granted that all of our students come to the School of Architecture and Planning with a superior understanding of the built environment and a firm grasp of the mechanisms necessary to critically analyze how it functions. As we have diversified the program offerings at the School into the disciplines of sustainability and planning, which accept students from both design and non-design backgrounds, we have found this to be less true— some of our students do not have the design vocabulary or process firmly under their belt let alone an eye for evaluating how to transform places.

It is important to note that while the practice of city planning has a distinct physical/design dimension that it

132

Critic: Hazel Edwards

133

also accepts that other aspects of the human environment, particularly those that are social, cultural, economic, and political are inherently important. The Master of City and Regional Planning (M.C.R.P.) program at The Catholic University of America takes the stance that all of these aspects are integral to improving quality of life and to planning for the future of our communities. To that end, our students should be trained with a keen sense of design while understanding the parameters of the policies that address broader issues of sustainability and stewardship—our core mission. As the program has grown and evolved we have sought ways to strengthen these linkages in part to provide students coming from non-design backgrounds with opportunities to take design-oriented classes. Insert the idea of the Summer Planning Lab here.

Well before we introduced the Summer Planning Lab (SPL) as a component of the Summer Institute in Architecture, I met with Vyt Gureckas and Eric Jenkins to explore this fundamental gap between our two student groups.

They were both very helpful in articulating the aspects of design that planning students should be familiar with and providing their opinions on how such a class could be taught. It was an imperative—we had to figure out how to engage the planning students in a very basic design discussion. I must admit that the planning student’s eyes often glass over when I would talk about “materiality” or “building skin” or anything beyond their regular vocabulary or ending with “-ality”.

Our architecture students get this—it is almost second nature for them but

134

certainly the very basic terminology within the architecture design studios. It is less so outside of the studio or within more policy focused discussions. I really want to build on the idea that planning is inherent in the design process, after all, don’t architects look at Zoning Ordinances, Comprehensive Plans, and other similar documents to determine what can and cannot be built? Similarly, planners develop those things that impact design, therefore they should understand design implications of their work. They needed a foundation and the SPL was the vehicle to provide it.

Exploration of the built environment is a vital part of training for architects, designers, and planners. During the summer of 2012, we began the Summer Planning Lab (SPL) as a way to expand opportunities for students primarily in the MCRP program to better understand architecture, the urban design process and typology within a planning context. SPL functions within our existing Summer Institute for Architecture (SIA). The lab will better prepare students from nondesign backgrounds to work within the context of our school. These courses, however, are open to all students although it is primarily intended for students in the planning program.

Like the SIA, each summer the theme of the courses changes to reflect current and emerging practices in planning and design. Similarly, SPL presents students with opportunities to expand their understanding of broader social, cultural, technological, and aesthetic issues into an integrated,

comprehensive understanding of architecture, urban design, and planning.

Two classes comprised the SPL in 2012: Urban Morphology and Plan Making.

Both classes were taught as Topics in Planning (ARPL 589).

We pulled together local practitioners who had the educational and professional backgrounds in architecture, urban design, planning, and landscape architecture so that they fully understood the multidimensional perspective needed.

The Urban Morphology was cotaught by Leland Edgecombe and Sonja Ewing. Leland Edgecomb of the The Edgecombe Group, is an architect-planner who had the good fortune to work with Edmund Bacon and Ian McHarg while working on his master’s degrees at the University of Pennsylvania. His co-instructor, Sonja Ewing, is an urban designer/planner coordinator with the MarylandNational Capital Park and Planning Commission, Prince George’s County Planning Department. The Plan Making course was taught by Radhika Mohan, architect-plannerlandscape architect, who works for the Mayors’ Institute on City Design.

Urban Morphology. [by Sonja Ewing and Leland Edgecombe] This fast paced, intensive summer course on Urban Morphology introduced the principles of urban design including density, issues of materiality, as well as the relationships between people and environments.

The goal was for students to gain a better understanding of how urban form evolved as well as the process

-Most people located near intersection of Wisconsin Ave. and Western Ave. -Other people located near restaurants and open spaces -Few people on side streets -Not diverse area

Fig. 1: Subjective analysis

135

and language of design. Students were introduced to the design vocabulary and to the social, visual, functional, temporal, morphological and perceptual dimensions of urban design and architecture. This was done within the context of planning (the larger framework) and allowed students to investigate the various scales of cities and regions. The course took multiple approaches: one focused on review of literature to understand urban design theory and the second enabled the students to apply those theories or see them in action through field study.

Urban design is city-building. It brings together the many different parts of an environment to create a place (physiologically) and/or a sense-of-place (psychologically, environmentally and sociologically).

At its core is design – an inventive process that draws upon the techniques of many different disciplines to create beautiful and enduring environments.

One exercise to get at this role of urban designers gave the students an opportunity to express their values by reflecting and describing their vision for an improved community. They had to respond to a hypothetical question which asked: “Imagine that you have been away for 20 years and you just came back. With the best hope for your community, what does this site look like in 20 years after the vision has been fulfilled? What is there? What is the housing like? How are people getting around? What amenities are there?”

Another exercise to help students understand the nuances of urban scale followed the viewing of William

136

Whyte’s classic video, The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces. The students then selected an active open space and observed various factors or behavioral determinants as depicted in Whyte’s analysis. They had to illustrate their findings.

This class served as an introduction to methods of analyzing, evaluating and recording the urban environment based on field observation. To supplement this investigation, students explored the graphic techniques necessary to demonstrate their understanding of the urban pattern. Representation tools (drawing, photography, computer modeling and graphics) were used to communicate their observations as well as their impressions and ideas. Students became familiar with the latest version of Google Earth for “on-the-fly” assessments of urban form and spaces. Through visual observation, field analysis, measurements, interviews, and other means, students learned to draw on their senses and develop their ability to deduce, question, and test conclusions about how the environment is used and valued.

The Washington, D.C. region was used as an urban laboratory to supplement the classroom discussions, individual assignments, and scholarly readings.

Weekly, instructor-led field trips gave students an opportunity to develop an urban design vocabulary, make on-the-ground comparisons, develop their abilities to graphically represent urban design concepts, and analyze the impact of various urban design interventions. The class visited Old Town Alexandria and Rosslyn, VA; Georgetown and Columbia Heights

in Washington, D.C.; Bethesda and National Harbor in Maryland.

At the end of the four-week session, the students came away with a greater appreciation of the built environment and an understanding of the techniques needed to evaluate its past, present, and future forms.

Plan Making. [By Radhika Mohan] The Plan Making had very simple and straightforward objectives: to introduce students to the principles of physical planning through an understanding of representative tools and analysis techniques.

Each class began with a student-led discussion of an article based on a project, development, or concept related to planning. Through a series of questions and comments, we began to analyze how that particular article’s subject related back to a plan of some kind, whether it is a plan for a neighborhood, an entire city, or even a region.

The first week of the course covered topics on basic elements of a plan, different types of plans, and the importance of civic engagement in the planning and visioning process.

The lectures were supported by a field trip to NoMa (i.e., the area North of Massachusetts) and Dupont Circle to analyze how new and historic development have fit into Washington, D.C.’s L’Enfant Plan. Students also received a tutorial on basic site analysis including measuring and drawing architectural sections within the built environment.

The second week of the course delved

Fig. 2: Students visit ECO City Farms in Edmonston, Maryland to learn about urban agriculture.

137

into implementation techniques of plans, like form-based codes, and also offered a discussion on the popularity of sustainability plans in cities across the nation. The week ended with a field trip to a Sustainable DC working group meeting and offered the students a chance to participate in the plan-making process at a local level.

The third week of the class further explored topics of sustainability and health in the plan making process and featured a viewing of the film “Urbanized� by Gary Hustwit.

Class discussions focused on how featured projects within the film were influenced by plans at various scales. The week concluded with a site visit to the architecture and planning firm of Torti Gallas, where associate Atul Sharma described how the firm fits into the planning process in communities across the country.

Students were able to see how the private sector in planning interacts with local governments to contribute to the built environment.

The fourth and final week of the course started with a discussion of how other sectors like non-profits, advocacy groups, and community development corporations participate in the plan making process. Students also presented their final projects for the course, which involved selecting a recent project within the city and analyzing it using tools developed throughout the course like section drawings, relating the project back to a neighborhood and city plan, and evaluating how it carried out the goals within each relevant plan.

138

Overall, this summer component proved to be a dynamic part of the learning experience of the students.

First, they now have a greater understanding and appreciation of the design process and how to see the built environment through the lens that architects and designers use.

Next summer, a third class will be added to round out the SPL. The City-Region Lab will focus on methodology used in the investigation of urban areas/spaces. The course will introduce skills for analyzing every day, visible evidence of the city and region. Topics include selfidentity with place, city, and region; image and perception; visual design analysis and place as representation of culture. Assignments will consist of extensive writing, collaborative work in groups, and field work. Learning about cities and regions via fieldwork is an integral part of the course. The Washington, D.C. metropolitan area makes for an excellent proving ground for this course.

The original intent of the Summer Planning Lab was to increase the tools and skills to analyze the built environment of those students who lacked the techniques used by the majority of the students in the Crough Center. This was the first step towards that. Fundamentally, all of our students come to the School of Architecture and Planning because they want to change the world we live in. The designers want to do this through buildings and places.

The non-designers (particularly the planning students) seek to do this through the people that inhabit those

places. The latter group now has a mechanism in place to increase their design competency.

Fig. 3: Exploration of built projects with community leaders (shown, field trip to Columbia Heights)

139

Summer Institute for Architecture Journal School of Architecture and Planning The Catholic University of America Dean: Randall Ott, AIA Director: Julie Ju-Youn Kim, RA AIA

VOLUME 8 Editors: Toni Lem and Adam Williams

John Garvey President James F. Brennan, Ph.D. Provost Cathy R. Wood, M.F.A. V.P. for Finance and Administration, Treasurer Michael S. Allen, Ph.D. V.P. for Student Life Frank G. Persico, M.A. V.P. for University Relations and Chief of Staff John L. Hannan V.P. for Institutional Advancement W. Michael Hendricks, Ed.D V.P. for Enrollment Management Lawrence J. Morris Associate V.P. and General Counsel Victor Nakas, M. Phil Associate V.P. for Public Affairs Christine A. Sportes, SPHR Associate V.P. and Chief Human Resources Officer

140

141

SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE AND PLANNING

AT THE

VOL. 8

142