Joshua Bauman | LA 3430 | Au 13 | Final Assignment | WHAT IS THIS PLACE? A SITE PORTRAIT
THE JEFFREY MANUFACTURING COMPANY SITE
SITE BRIEF
View facing northeast from the southern edge of the site
For nearly a century, the site of the Jeffrey Manufacturing Company was a densely developed, large-scale site for manufacturing and a thriving asset to the Columbus economy. Today, this site is predominantly barren, slated for residential redevelopment that has yet to come to full-scale fruition. This site has significant acreage, located just northeast of downtown Columbus, separated by the elevated I-670 highway. Present programmatic adjacency varies drastically across the site. North of 1st Avenue, many of the original buildings have been retained, a majority of which have been repurposed for mixed commercial and residential uses. West of 4th Street, the residential neighborhood of Italian Village spans from High Street, and has maintained much of its historic identity, including the old Wonder Bread factory. A semi-active railroad corridor defines the eastern edge. Otherwise, the post-industrial site is just that: it is an empty space that used to house active industry. Today, the place is defined by its landscape cover. The southwest corner of the site experiences the greatest activity, where a significant landscape of rubble piles have been dumped on old building footprints, creating a unique ecology of small birds and other animals and pioneer vegetative species that have reclaimed the land and thrived. Reclamation is a theme across the southern half of the site, as wetlands, forbs, sedges, and small trees have taken advantage of the undisturbed, barren space. The northern half of the site is the skeleton of an unfinished residential development project that is still in process. Paved streets define small residential blocks lined with street trees and two multi-family residential buildings have been constructed. Recent deforestation on the east edge of the site has further exposed the empty site. Ultimately, this site is the epitome of post-industrial: only minor natural processes or new development have started to truly redefine this once significant Columbus property.
Inactive Industrial
2nd Avenue
St. Joseph Montessori School
Multi-Use Commercial
Metal Works
Community Church Semi-Active Industrial
Office Space 1st Avenue
Power Sub Station
treet S. 6th S
treet S. 4th S
Steet Summit
MultiUse Retail & Residential
ITALIAN VILLAGE Warren Street
treet S. 3rd S
Old Wonder Bread Factory
The Jeffrey Manufacturing Company Site
70
I-6
S. Cleveland Avenue
70
I-6
Repurposed Historic Warehouses
Abbot Laboratories
State Auto Insurance
70 I-6
HISTORIC MAP The Jeffrey Manufacturing Company was a manufacturing powerhouse of Columbus during its prime, as shown by the densely developed industrial campus on the east side of 4th St in the above Sanborn map composite was from 1921. The expansive railroad corridor on the east edge of the site was the Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati & St, Louis Railroad, which greatly empowered the industrial production and shipment connections of the site, The company, as stated on the map, was a manufacturer of elevators, conveyers, generators, and coal handling and mining machinery. The site was heavily programmed with the variety of uses that the company required: there were machine shops, lumber yards, blacksmith shops, foundries, chain shops, sheet metal shops, lumber sheds, and finishing buildings. The industrial campus also boasted a cafeteria and hospital on-site. This site was a corner extent of the Sanborn evaluation during this time, sitting at the edge of yet undeveloped land just northeast of downtown. The adjacent eastern neighborhood is the extents of Italian Village, having grown outwards from High Street to the west.
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Greater Columbus Convention Center
Vegetative Massing Residential
TO DOWNTOWN COLUMBUS
400始
PRESENT DAY CONTEXT MAP The site today is a far cry from the property in its heyday. While the site remains bordered by a now significantly reduced railroad corridor to the east, a retained Italian Village neighborhood to the west, and the historic warehouses to the north (many of which have been repurposed into new residential, commercial, and office spaces), the southern edge has encountered the greatest change, with the addition of the elevated I-670 highway into Columbus, which severs the site from downtown. The site itself has undergone a transition from a large industrial establishment that provided jobs and manufacturing product to a presently barren, post-industrial wasteland. Developers have started to re-brand the site periphery with modern lofts and office space in historic buildings, but the development of the site itself has seen very little progress in its development past some model residential units that stand in solitude amongst an otherwise barren landscape. A Site Portrait | 3
N
TRANSECTS: THE MATERIALITY OF DENSITY
Hardscape defines the urban fabric of the site
Jeffrey Mfg. Company main building repurposed as condos
Modern walls of glass windows juxtaposes the regular, masonrydominated fenestration
Many building materials have been repurposed instead of replaced
Old warehouses repurposed as a multi-use complex
Some warehouses have the distinct apprearance of abandonment without redevelopment
Modern signage brings historic buildings into a modern context
Boltworks building on the historic registry
Very artistic graffiti brings to life the past experience of the site in a modern way
Modern powerplant substation
Railroad corridor has shifted and decreased over time
Old marketing signs juxtaposed with random graffiti
50’
DENSITY RETAINED | This transect is taken from the historic neighborhood between 4th St and High St, through the remaining historic warehouse buildings to the North of 1st Ave, and ending at the existing railroad corridor.
New multi-use development with neutral colors
New condominium development
Modern materials introduced in new development is unkempt
Undeveloped land left to fallow
Street trees define periphery of fields
Modern style apartment complex
Lawn for dogs
Sidewalks end without further development
Deforested area used to seperate the building from the railroad
50’
DENSITY REVISITED | This transect is taken from the historic neighborhood between 4th St and High St, through the new development on either side of 4th St, through the modern apartment building, ending at the railroad corridor.
The Wonder Bread Factory has been reclaimed as retail and residential space
The 4th St facade of the Wonderbread factory has been cleaned up while retaining its historical look
4th St has fastmoving, single-direction traffic, with travellers traversing the periphery quickly
Bursts of color come from the most temporary materials
Demolished building materials strewn across the old Wonderbread Factrory parking in piles
General rubbish joins the piles of possibly reusable building materials
Modern construction techniques are found amongst the rubble
Area has been surveyed
Wetland grasses have reclaimed the low, wet point on the site
Homeless population cleared upon clearing of forested area
Construction equipment dispersed across the site
Only 2 raillines remain on the site today. They join others going underneath I-670
50’
ADJACENT DENSITY | This transect is taken from the historic Wonder Bread factory, through the dumping yard for demolised materials, through the wetland grasses, and ending at the railroad corridor where it passes underneath 670. 4 | Bauman | LA 3430 | Au 13
A Site Portrait | 5
SITE DETAILS E. 1ST AVE.
AUDEN AVE.
ST.
ST.
CIVITAS
N. 6TH
N. 4TH
HAMLET ST.
ST.
NERUDA AVE.
CORNELIUS ST. WARREN ST. WONDER BREAD
E LINCOLN ST.
I-670
Vegetated Border
Both First Avenue to the north and 4th Street on the western edge of the site act as major interruptions in the urban fabric of the area. These circulatory corridors easily define the borders of the Jeffrey Manufacturing Company site. On one side is the barren landscape of the postindustrial site, juxtaposed with the retained and reformed density of the adjacent neighborhoods to the west and mixed-use redevelopment to the north.
As seen in the vegetative cover composite map detail, the edges of the site is defined by circulation, and the border along these streets are in various stages of definition. Along the southwest edge, across from the old Wonder Bread factory, old chain link fence, presumably erected when the site was initially desecrated, has since been taken over by nature, effectively providing more effective privacy than the bare chain link, and also softening the hard edges of the post-industrial site.
VEGETATIVE COVER THE JEFFREY MFG. CO. SITE
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COMPOSITE MAP DETAIL: Vegetative Cover
Circulation as Separation
1”:100ʼ
100’
As there is very little program presently on the site, the vegetation that defines the predominantly barren landscape is most characteristic of the site’s overall condition. Much of the site is open and covered in a variety of grasses: larger sedges and pioneer species grow in the protected environment amongst the rubble piles on the western edge; wetland grasses grow in the low point of the site (where the natural grade and artificial slope to the elevated highway meet); forbs and shorter grasses define the most open field spaces. Neatly trimmed turf is only found around the two constructed residential complexes. Tall vegetation is only evident along site borders, with street trees lining the paved residential streets, framing the empty residential blocks that await construction. The densest trees are found along I-670 to the south, climbing the slope to meet the raised highway elevation. While a similar forested condition is found east of the railroad corridor, on the site side or the corridor recent deforestation has left the area adjacent to the railroad literally in ashes. 6 | Bauman | LA 3430 | Au 13
A Site Portrait | 7
Urban Pocket
Underneath Overpasses
Lowland Wetlands
End-of-the-Line
At the southwest corner of the site, there is a prime example of an urban void. Fenced off from the rest of the site, presumably due to the phasing of deconstruction of the industrial infrastructure, this urban pocket retains a semi-solid ground plane, and its only entry is through the overpass of the 4th Street exit from I-670. Every edge is overtaken by vegetation, making this area a protected urban oasis, whose use as such is made evident by the piles of discarded libation containers, blankets, and graffiti.
The thresholds into the site from the south are both underneath I-670. This pseudo-gateway also starts to define the area as sub-urban, away from the primary core of the city further inward. The highway acting as a separator; by moving beneath I-670, there is a hierarchical feeling that the highway is more important than the space being entered.
Wetland grasses identify the lowest point of the site as evidence of the flow and collection of water that define the site’s hydrology. The otherwise subtle topographic change of the site is most severe here, with the artificial elevation increase that steeply meets the highway. This additional runoff has evidently made this area of transitory inundation a very significant expanse at the south end of the site.
The site is more or less defined by two conditions. One is the northern half, which has been prepared for development, as evidenced by the constructed roads and infrastructure. The other half of the site seems to lack a similar future, dominantly defined by piles of rubble, unkempt vegetation, and gravel circulatory paths. These two conditions meet where a neatly paved residential street ends and gravel for construction circulation begins. It is not a tidy meeting, as the two bleed into one another.
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A Site Portrait | 9
Railroad Corridor
Industrialized Streetscape
Vegetated Mound
Elevated Highway
The railroad corridor on the eastern edge of the site was once much more of a dominant force for the site, with a greater number of railways that ran alongside one another. However, only two tracks remain. The tracks reside on a small ridge inside a sunken trough, lower than the grade on either side of the corridor. Once, either side also had a significant forested edge, but recent deforestation has all but exposed the corridor to the Jeffrey Manufacturing Company site.
In an urban setting, industrial warehouses often sit as closely to the edge of street as possible to maximize their property. The old industrial buildings on the west edge of 4th Street site right on the sidewalk edge. In re-developing the eastern side of the street, the residential construction took on this very urban approach with its townhomes. They sit only four feet beyond the sidewalk, which is strange considering the units are entered at street level (unlike the raised entries in surrounding neighborhoods) and how quickly the one-way traffic flows.
The new residential development on the side is, in some ways, trying to meet the street in a very urban manner. However, on the edge of the blocks on either side of the street-hugging townhomes, constructed mounds have planted with trees, a move to reduce noise and pollution from the streets from travelling into the site.
I-670 was finally completed in 2003 after many years of budget cuts delaying its construction. It is elevated alongside the south end of the Jeffrey Manufacturing Company site to pass over 4th Street. The road edges along the site are met by the grade that steeply increases from the site’s much lower elevation. This elevation change is densely vegetated to act as a buffer between the roadway and the inhabited site.
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A Site Portrait | 11
re 4th St et as o ne-wa d OH 33
te rou en r y by ust ass ind g sp od istin ilra ex Ra still to
hboun
y n or t
Access to adjacent mixed-u
se redevelopment
Res. Bldg.
Roads for entr y/exit of resi
dential units
Res. Bldg.
Dog Lawn
Once a homeless refuge, now deforested for “development”
Construction Vehicle Access
Rubble Piles
n
I-670 as a bypass into downtow
ANNOTATED AERIAL
200’
N
This annotated aerial diagram demonstrates the human flow within and along the site. The purpose is to contrast how this site, which once efficiently used such a majority of the site in order to maximize the productivity for manufacturing, is now only minorly defined by the interior uses and more so understood by the flows that pass it by in its present state. 12 | Bauman | LA 3430 | Au 13