ROSS COMMUNITY CENTER Project Location: Ross Community Center Muncie Indiana Team Member: Junliang Zhang, Shenyuan Chen, Rotina Tian Project Overview: On a regular afternoon, the Ross Center is bustling with students and volunteers, playing, doing homework, and practicing judo. Once each week, a group of older friends gathers for euchre like they have been for years. This modest building is the heart of a community that has faced several major stressors in recent history, including the closing of the adjacent Chevy plant that employed many people in the neighborhood. Despite these challenges, the community at the Ross Center has ambitious plans for its future, such as state-of-the-art athletic fields. In addition to these plans, the Ross Center would like to redesign its landscape for community recreation, restoration and revitalization. Landscape architecture students from Ball State interviewed members of the Ross Center’s community, including staff, students, volunteers, and seniors in order to develop a conceptual landscape design.
PROMOTE NEIGHBORHOOD IDENTITY WITH A BEAUTIFUL DESTINATION AT THE COMMUNITY CORE About half of the people who use the Ross Center come from the Avondale/Thomas Park neighborhood. Staff indicated that they wanted nearby residents to feel like the Ross Center belonged to them. A sign made from old Chevy car parts (above) might reflect the neighborhood’s history. FURTHER THE CENTER’S ROLE AS A “SAFE HAVEN” WHERE RESIDENTS FEEL SAFE, SECURE AND WELCOME One staff member said that community members no longer feel safe to sit on their porches. She desired to restore the community’s sense of safety by offering it a safe, accessible place to ‘hang out’ at the Ross Center.
FOSTER A SENSE OF COMMUNITY Many of the seniors who play euchre at the Ross Center said they would enjoy coming together for others reasons, such as cook outs. One staff member envisioned the Ross Center as a lively place for social events, such as birthday parties, weddings, and live music. PROMOTE COMMUNITY HEALTH WITH RECREATION AND MENTALRESTORATION
ACTIVE
The landscape at the Ross Center could help community members to“reconnect with the beauty of life,” according to Jacqueline Hanoman, Executive Director. In addition to areas for passive recreation, the center could offer opportunities for physical activity, such as chairexercises for seniors and the occasional outdoor Judo lesson.
MEDORA BRICK PLANT Project Location: Medora Brick Plant, Medora, Indiana Team Member: Junliang Zhang, Katie Klug, Jin Xing, Runlin Tian Project Overview: Medora is looking to enhance it’s existing small-town, historic tourist industry while creating a renewed identity for the community by restoring the oncethriving brick kiln plant. After interviewing community members and listening to the fantastic stories and ideas about the potential of the brick plant, students identified major themes and subsequently developed a set of goals for the project based on the collective information.
NANJING JINLING SHIPYARD REDESIGN
Compiled Diagram
Hot Zone
Figure Ground
Existing Green Space
Circulation Analysis
Project Location: Nanjing, Jiang Su Provice, China Project Overview: This project is a redesign of a former shipyard into a naturalized riverfront park. The whole design is based on a hypothetically finished remediation phase. The primary focus of the design is to maintain the sense of shipyard culture as well as blend the concept of water treatment system into the post-industrial site. The project site is a former industrial site—Jinling Shipyard, Nanjing, China. This shipyard sits at the riverfront of Yangtze River and covers an area of 81.5 acres. The design aims to turn the post-industrial site into a naturalized waterfront park. The newly designed riverfront serves as a public park for regular users from local community along with visitors from the larger region. On-site structures such as gantry crane, piers, and tracks will be preserved and involved in new programs. These redesigned structures tell visitors a story of the site history. Green space and wetland will replace the large area of concrete pavement to offer onsite water treatment. These wetlands reduced the negative impact of this post-industrial site as well as bring additional environmental benefit.
Site Pattern The mountains on south side of the site provide opportunities to overlook the riverfront (Figure 14.) On the ground level, the industrial site has some very dominant patterns (Figure 15.) The existing tracks extend out from the machinery rooms and reached out to the river. They created a very strong sense of guidance. Two buildings on the east side of site also have a very strong axes. Beyond that the main dock is still the dominant axes on the site. The wide pathway directly connects the river and the main gate The design of this project greatly respects these patterns. The machinery rooms, docks have been preserved and modified to adapt to the newly designed park
Program Element
Green Space
Circulation
Elevation
Different program have been planted with functional design elements to satisfited visitors' recreation need.
The site has a strong guidance towards the river, leading visitors into different experiences.
84% of the orignal concrete paving has been softened into green space/ water bodies.
Onsite landform uses reclaimed concrete as a base. These landforms enhace the onsite water treatment and spacial experience.
SHIPYARD MUSEUM The main machinery has been redesigned into a multifunctional museum to showcase the history and culture of Jinling Shipyard.
RECREATION DOCK The cafe and ferris wheel are built out of onsite cargos. The dock provides visitors a destination with multiple choices of recreation.
WETLAND AREA Wetland areas are the main body of the water treatment system. In additional, they offer a hydrophilic experience.
UNDERWATER SUBWAYSTATION The subway station provides visitors a chance to experience the underwater view. (even the Baiji Dolphin can be seen)