Reframing the City: Part 2

DESIGN INTERVENTIONS

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WOODSWETHER DISTRICT utilizing infrastructure riverfront heritage trail

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HISTORIC CORE sequences and disjunctions deďŹ ned by history a network of systems

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MULTI-MODAL TRANSIT HUB providing a regional node interstate 670 multi-modal hub

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STOCKYARDS DISTRICT reconnecting to the land a regional destination kemper arena riverfront development

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JAMES STREET DEVELOPMENT multi-layer city phytoremediation riverfront community

WOODSWETHER DISTRICT

utilizing infrastructure

THE WOODSWETHER DISTRICT IS OCCUPIED BY DISTRIBUTION industries, light industries and heavy utilities. However, its most striking feature is the dominant structure of Interstate-70, which passes over the entire length of the district but does not connect down into it. I-70 serves only to link downtown KCMO and downtown KCK. On the ground below, it creates a long, continuous, and residual infrastructural space. This continuous space and the structure that deďŹ nes it have a scale and presence that overshadow and overpower the surrounding context.

This presence and continuity of space offers a unique potential for the creation of a designed civic space that parallels the interstate above as an East-West intercity connection on the ground, in the West Bottoms. It builds off of the existing Riverfront Heritage Trail, and repeats the automotive connection taking place on I-70 with a pedestrian/bike connection underneath it. This design woodswether district

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THIS URBAN DESIGN BUILDS OFF OF THE EXISTING Riverfront Heritage Trail, but expands upon it wherever possible—extending into existing adjacent open spaces and establishing critical connections to the wider West Bottoms and the adjacent downtown neighborhoods.

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THE INTERACTION WITH INDUSTRY IS PART OF THE nature of this site. The industries parallel to the trail impact and inhabit the space underneath I-70, creating an edge that deďŹ nes the expanded public space.

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expands upon the initial connecting path wherever possible— extending into existing adjacent open spaces or establishing critical connections from the trail to the wider West Bottoms and to adjacent downtown neighborhoods. This intervention could serve as a catalyst for the progressive transformation of the entire district.

The interaction with industry is part of the nature of this site.

The industries parallel to the trail impact and inhabit the space underneath I-70. Currently the space is used not only for pedestrian transit, but also for industrial storage, and for drainage of stormwater runoff from I-70. This design must consider utilitarian, industrial needs and integrate them into the newly created public space. The need for buffers against industry, and better stormwater management creates two parallel systems running along the trail that began to change and distort the initial path, pointing to areas where the most support would be needed. Trail support structures take the shape of barrier walls and sheltering pavilions, creating hospitable places along the trail, or marking intersections and connections with the local pedestrian corridors and pathways.

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riverfront heritage trail

THE TRAIL IS DIVIDED INTO THREE MAJOR SECTIONS DEFINED by their intersection and interaction with adjacent context: the trail underneath I-70, Mulberry Park, and Woodswether Viaduct.

Mulberry Street is a dividing line between the western (industrial) and eastern (recreational/commercial) halves of the trail.

WEST TRAIL The Western-most portions of the trail are extremely constrained and greatly impacted by adjacent industry and rail lines. The design in this area focuses on creating protective barriers that define and support the trail, but there is so little room to expand beyond the initial path. Thus three parallel systems (trail, swale, and barrier) are linear paths that overlap and intermingle.

Industrial areas and paths become permeable—infiltrating runoff.

Walls and barriers against industry become protective roof planes or seating for trail users. At points, the swales expand into rain gardens, growing to occupy most of the space underneath I-70.

At the western most point of the trail there is a new riverfront trailhead pavillion as well as an improved barrier to protect pedestrians from the railroad.

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The three systems (trail, swale, barrier) are linear paths that overlap and intermingle. The path becomes permeable, inďŹ ltrating runoff.

Walls and barriers against industry become protective roof planes, sheltering trail users.

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RA IL PA RK IN G IO N EN T RE T

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The design must consider existing utilitarian, industrial needs and integrate them into the newly created public space. The need for buffers against industry, and better stormwater management creates two parallel systems running along the trail that change and distort the initial path, pointing to areas where support and design intervention is needed.

RIVERFRON TERMINUS

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Hickory Pavilion calls out Hickory Street to the south. The street serves as a backbone for the West Bottoms and its historic core.

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Mulberry Park ties across the space underneath I-70 to a courtyard space north of the Viaduct. The systems of swales and trails expand into the full width of this reclaimed space. Regulating lines drawn from the structure of I-70 create a rhytmn and order for the interventions to follow.

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MULBERRY PARK Large parcels of land east of Mulberry Street were reclaimed for public use. Currently it is vast, vacant, residual space, that if better defined could become a critical hinge point in the intersection between the Historic Core of the West Bottoms, the trail underneath I-70, and the River Market. The three parallel systems (trail, swale, and barrier) expand from linear into spatial interventions (park, retention pond, and corridor/streetwall). Infill along Mulberry Street forms an effective wall against the industry to the west, and opens up to the east—dissolving and integrating into the newly defined green space. This park is utilitarian and recreational: coupling public space with infrastructural and water management needs. The design of Mulberry Park extends to the north –incorporating and bridging the trail/space underneath I-70.

This space will be activated by virtue of its location—on the intersection between two nodes, and between a major corridor and larger regional connector. By defining and designing these expanded spaces adjacent to the trail, providing for and fostering both utilitarian and recreational use and inhabitation.

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Large parcels of land east of Mulberry Street were reclaimed for public use. Currently it is vast, vacant, residual space, that if better defined could become a critical hinge point. The three parallel systems (trail, swale, and barrier) expand from linear into spatial interventions (park, retention pond, and corridor/streetwall).

The iInfill along Mulberry Street forms an effective wall against the industry to the West, and opens up to the east—dissolving and integrating into the newly defined green space.

THIS CONTINUOUS SPACE AND THE STRUCTURE that deďŹ nes it have a scale and presence that overshadow and overpower the surrounding context.

This presence and continuity of space offers a unique potential for the creation of a designed civic space that parallels the interstate above as an East-West intercity connection on the ground. It builds off of the existing Riverfront Heritage Trail and repeats the automotive connection taking place on I-70 with a pedestrian/bike connection underneath.

The Woodswether Viaduct establishes a direct pedestrian connection between the West Bottoms and the River Market.

View of Broadway Bridge via Woodswether Viaduct

WOODSWETHER VIADUCT The Woodswether Viaduct establishes a direct pedestrian connection between the River Market and the West Bottoms.

This viaduct is a result of engineering infrastructure for an unusual site condition; the constraints of topography, rail lines, and constricted space generate a form unlike any other. It seems ad-hoc and vernacular in nature, but is grounded in its site.

The form and experience of the viaduct create the impetus for a dynamic, experiential design. Interventions were then developed with an idea of parallax and its effect on the different modes, speeds of movement, and the resultant, shifting views. ‘Fins’ were designed as a necessary barrier to the rail underneath but sculpted to frame certain views and highlight the experience of the viaduct.

Each intervention builds off the geography and infrastructure, making this a unique entry into the West Bottoms.

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HISTORIC CORE

sequences and disjunctions Utilizing Existing Historic Buildings and Infrastructure to Create a Meaningful Network of Spaces throughout the West Bottoms

THE ONCE-DENSE HISTORIC CORE OF THE WEST BOTTOMS area stands now as a fragmented and spatially incongruous environment; it acts as its geographical center and an interface between the area’s extreme north and south points. Subject to the continuous change and latent deterioration paradoxically, its ineffable character of place opposes abandonment. The cumulative effect of deterioration—an agglomeration of a number of randomly distributed vacant lots—constitutes an intriguing counterpoint for rethinking a normative approach to urban design and its operative spatial typologies.

The intersection of physical infrastructure elements, imprinted street grids, and deteriorating urban blocks create an idiosyncratic and unprecedented spatial network. Such a latent network of spaces significantly defines the West Bottoms area. In order to explore and realize this potential network and make it a viable

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urban ordering system in the city, its constituting spatial elements drawn from the context need to be conceptually recast and organized into a coherent network of related and relating parts.

Hickory Street and Mulberry Street are the two main streets within the historic core that create this North-South axis. The streets are connected in the historic core by expanse, vacant spaces and fragmented urban blocks along the East-West axis, broken only by the active rail lines that cross diagonally at the intersection of two points.

Introducing the concept of movement allows the central components of impermanence and transformation to connect this spatial network. Time becomes a way of developing the city, utilizing temporary intrusions to activate the spaces with programming. This form of interpretation will integrate the existing buildings into an active network of space and program without re-densifying the city.

The use of time as a design element provides a sense of regularity and order. The program or ‘event’ in an accidental space will alter the time spent there, proving that time varies with the function of a space as well as the definition of the space itself. “They work with time and are open to change. By specifying what must be fixed and what is subject to change, they can be precise and indeterminate at the same time.”1 historic core

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The unfolding of what persists is a sequence of associated spaces, linked through the axis of the streets and intersecting transverse alleyways; this sets up a unique experience through tall, narrow paths as well as broad, open spaces. This sequence defines the parameters/extent of the design, utilizing building façades to generate the system of spaces.

“What seems crucial is the degree of play designed into the system, slots left unoccupied, space left free for unanticipated development.”2 The intention is to create a meaningful system of spaces that allows for movement through tactical interventions.

The contingency of these interventions will allow for change of use, the possibility for an event to occur without having to plan it. The provision of services to support these future functions will act as an interval within the sequence of spaces, allowing the duration of time along the axis to inform the designation of program. The intervention becomes the design, and using time as the distinguishing factor provides circuitous routes as well as the axial direction of the streets.

Archiving is the beginning process of designing the corridor.

Understanding the context of the streets gives notice to the surfaces and textural qualities of the façades. Relentless progression has changed and formed the area, giving a certain character to the historic core. To complete the city blocks would simply destroy the history of what remains.

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The identity of the West Bottoms remains in the existing structures and accidental space that surrounds them. Working with the nature of these materials expresses the historic quality of the structure.

The materials are suited for their building forms, but time causes a direct effect on their permanence and appearance.

The deteriorating condition that most buildings face in the West Bottoms is the result of their age and eventual disuse.

This typology develops an understanding of how the street is structured, producing a texture of the city through time. The façades start to fabricate their own identity and inform the space being projected.

A road can even expose the historical layers of a city, linking places of contrasting episodic quality. Light and sound, even the grit of place as established by the building façades enriches the apparent changes caused by movement. The negotiation between the breaks in the street grid and function of time will lay the framework for overt strategies to form.

“Speed not only allows us to get around more easily; it enables us above all to see, to hear, to perceive and thus to conceive the present world more intensely.”3 The speed of movement allows us to reclaim territory with architecture. Defining the accidental spaces with built form gives purpose. Loading the spaces with program allows for the activation of the space. historic core

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Applying simple rhythmic elements to the street aligns the corridor into a cohesive axis. Simple rhythmic progressions are designed to read in one direction under the controlled conditions.

The streets remain directional while the spaces become centered within the context. Local forms of occupation and distribution are unhindered by this organization, even capitalizing on the repeating occurrence of loading docks as different levels of the city. The movement extends up to allow the observer to interact more directly with the building. Each loading dock can become a separate entity that brings notice to an individual building while still acting as a repeating element within the corridor.

The spaces become the greatest component to make this corridor a viable network of circulation. Defining these now connected spaces with tactical interventions provides structure to define the limits, noticeably articulating the individual sites to read as a whole. The axial corridor ensures a continuous connection and circulation within the local framework.

“Since large environments change continually and do not have a finished form, it would be very apt if they were sensed in this way. We could then design long-range change as an art, planning delays, accelerations, and reversals with an eye to their sequential form as well as to their immediate appearance or their economic and social consequences.”4 The more formal axial definition of Hickory Street and Mulberry Street provide the structural

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framework from which the spatial network is derived in this largescale environment. Perpendicular to this axial movement is the aforementioned transverse alleyways as a similar interface that provides the physical connection between spaces. The spaces in this network are conducive to the function of time and obliged to conform to the layers of the city, making each space a unique experience within the city.

The division created by rail lines is crossed using a pedestrian rail bridge, organizing the space on either side into usable areas alongside a highly industrial site. Outdoor venues are established using repurposed buildings, existing functions within the area, or even uncovering old rail lines for seating. More elaborate interventions call for entirely new buildings to create urban rooms, allowing the space to exist alongside new structures.

The spaces are developed through the impact of movement, the capacity to withhold, and the ability to utilize a given location. The interventions are deďŹ ned through these limits and capabilities.

The zones of overlap between programmatic spaces synthesize the transitions. Embedded in the interventions are the circulatory pedestrian and vehicular surfaces which laterally conjoin all spaces within the network. This re-conceptualization of the urban landscape forms a viable, temporary use of accidental spaces left within the West Bottoms. historic core

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defined by history

THE HISTORIC URBAN CORE OF THE WEST BOTTOMS IS THE area characterized by a building stock, most notably warehouses, from the early 1900s. The buildings are loosely arranged around a North-South corridor, surviving in clusters and fragments, sliced through by rail and automotive viaducts, just out of the 100-year floodplain, giving rise to the now-forgotten infrastructural city that is our given condition.

We approached the site intending to form a hypothesis for and interpretation of what the West Bottoms and Kansas City could be. This hypothesis is grounded in three major layers of action reflecting our process both chronologically and theoretically.

These actions are assessing the current condition for opportunities, arranging infrastructures to reinforce these opportunities, and finally re-activating them with human programming.

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a network of systems

IN THE WEST BOTTOMS, IDENTIFYING AND UNDERSTANDING the given systems formed an essential base layer and armature for activity. These systems are the raw material we are attempting to re-activate, specifically: rail infrastructure, streets undistinguished from sidewalks or parking and storage lots, brick and steel building stock, topography, and a vast amount and variety of open space.

All of these have been defined and formed by history.

When we adjust, realign, and re-order the given infrastructure by uncovering and defining the infrastructures and open space, we are establishing the framework for activation. The realignment happens in the realm of street design, forming urban walls through infill, establishing boundaries and mitigating barriers; this step is defined by rational thought and strategic planning. Once the systems have been arranged, they are ready to be activated.

This happens through programming; the given systems gain

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activating the corridor DESIGN ELEMENTS

deďŹ ning the framework SPATIAL NETWORK

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significance from human use. The realm of design here is interactive systems of way-finding, secondary networks of potential movement, and human-scale interfaces. This process is defined by opportunism and human activity.

The programming is defined by spatial typology. The framework for these is the corridor, with a program defined by movement: moving through, connecting, driving, walking, biking. It is defined by entrances to buildings, rhythms, linearity, and transverse interruptions. The activating design of the corridor happens in the nature of the sidewalk and streetscape, the rhythm of lighting, loading docks, and on-street parking. historic core

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RECOGNIZING JUXTAPOSITIONS or incidents within the faรงades allows the expression of urban patterns to emerge. Depressions within the faรงade are subtractions from the space, acting as voids would in the matrix of a grid.

Attachments are not only additions to the faรงade, but present former functions on the surface.

The most interior and privatized of the typologies is the alley. It is a social urban space within the public right-of-way that functions as delivery, gathering, and pass-through space. Its activity is associative in nature, linked both to the street (in syntax) and the interiors of the buildings (in use). The features that deďŹ ne the alley are street condition and ground texture, its relative narrowness (proximity to facades), and that because the blocks are oriented east-west, the alleys run perpendicular to the northsouth corridors. Our design maintains width (service vehicles), plugs lighting into the facades, uses permeable pavement to both delineate transverse space and supplement the sewer system, and in some instances we have unearthed old rail lines to connect these alleys into adjacent courtyards through the use of rolling furniture elements.

The third spatial typology is the courtyard space. This is a smallscale space for gathering, outdoor seating, games, and smallerscale interactions. It is primarily private: more in direct dialogue with building function than with the corridor. It is associated with secondary north-south systems, and deďŹ ned by the surrounding buildings, corner leakages and its points of intersection with street and alley. Here, the design tactics are the same as those in the alley but stand-alone and space-deďŹ ning.

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The lower level of twelfth street is reclaimed as a pedestrian and bicycle throroughfare while the urban fabric is deďŹ ned by a new structure, creating an urban room.

Twelfth Street Urban Room: Section 03

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02

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THE SPACES ARE DEVELOPED THROUGH THE IMPACT OF movement and the ability to utilize a given location. Through these limits and capabilities, interventions are deďŹ ned. One of the deďŹ ned interventions includes a pedestrian rail bridge, which effectively crosses active rail lines while organizing the space on either side into usable areas.

The curb-less street is on-level with the square; the pavement overtakes that of the street.

Hickory Square: Section 02

The city square is the ďŹ nal typology and most public space. It is larger in scale, and serves as space for occasional

large

events,

street

widening,

public

gathering area, market, or social parking lot. It is primarily ad-hoc space that has developed over time and are deďŹ ned by breaks in the urban wall, its street presence, and location as potential activity hub at the intersection of rail and street infrastructure.

All of these programs, when overlayed, make up the public realm of the city that functions to allow both pedestrian inhabitation and light industrial use of public space to coincide in the core of the city.

Transverse links connect public space. Each spatial typology is integrated into the framework to create a viable network of spaces.

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USING BUILDINGS AND TOPOGRAPHY AS SUPPORT AND boundary, Hickory Square is transformed into a versatile space with little deďŹ nition between street and square.

MULTI-MODAL TRANSIT HUB

providing a regional node

The project site is characterized by the intersection of two different urban milieus, which converge at the base of six ramps: the 12th Street bridge, the James Street Viaduct, and the I-670 onand off-ramps. As explored in the elevated scans analysis, these conditions are delineated as one urban experience at ground level and another suspended on elevated viaducts bridging over and through the city.

These viaducts carry drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians over and through the West Bottoms’ historic building stock, privileging views of the stockyards district landmarks, revealing a rather romantic experience of the city from above. When ramp, bridge, and exit traffic lands at the site, no effort is made to connect back to the city that was just passed over. What exists on the site more resembles an interstate rest stop rather than an entrance to the city. Roughly four blocks of paved parking lots, gas stations, and

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REGIONAL LOCAL Existing Condition

Transportation Program and Public Space

Persistance of Interstate Views

convenience stores function mainly to allow cars to ee the city as quickly and efficiently as possible, favoring the impetus for uninterrupted traffic ow over the experience of place.

Such a disconnection with the city as a place is in opposition to the growing change in the mentality of an urban population which seeks to return it. Following the paradigm shift away from the unsustainable suburban living agenda, the West Bottoms can play a key role to promote living, working, and commuting practices that follow this conceptual shift. This speciďŹ c site, given its topographical and contextual circumstances, embodies a transformative potential to be a key element in instigating the shift.

By changing this site from a service station for automotive interstate traffic to a multi-modal transit hub, our aim is two fold. The site will not only mediate between the disconnected experiential conditions of the city, but also communicate two distinct identities. Our vision of a multi-modal transit system in Kansas City strengthens both a regional identity of Kansas City and a separate but complimentary identity of the downtown. By acting as an interchange between regional and local traffic, the site articulates the act of entering into downtown and consequently creates a missing gateway to Kansas City.

This new framework stimulates several vital developments in the transportational, infrastructural, and urban cultures in Kansas multi-modal transit hub

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NORTH OAK TFWY STATE AVE

RIVER MARKET DOWNTOWN LOOP

WEST BOTTOMS

INDEPENDENCE AVE

TOPEKA US 40

TROOST AVE

PLAZA

City. The site would allow future residents of the city to live without cars, accessing commuter rail, ride share or car sharing to reach the suburbs, airport, and neighboring cities. The transit hub would also stand as a reference point from which all future, sustainable and mass-transportation systems would grow, both as an idea and application. It would promote a change in urban culture towards adapting to the need for the alternative practices of commuting and inhabiting the city.

Site of Multi-Modal Transit: Automotive, Bus, Bicycle and Pedestrian, Rail

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View Looking South on Liberty Street.

I-670 THROUGH OUR DESIGN, WE HOPE TO COMMUNICATE both a strong identity for the transit hub as a place of entry into the city and a vibrant generator of economic activity and cultural growth. Towers at every transit facility beckon cars off of the interstate before they pass through and out of downtown. These towers emulate the billboards currently in the area and can be lit and animated like the Marriott and H&R Bloch buildings of the Central Business District.

multi-modal hub

The intersection of 12th and Liberty is just west of the base of the 12th Street bridge, giving little time for traffic coming into the West Bottoms to turn onto Liberty Street and continue into the Historic Corridor. By changing the angle of Liberty Street to be in line with the shifted grid on Wyoming, the intersection is displaced far enough to give drivers more reaction time before the turn. Using the space gained by the street displacement as public space emphasizes the point of entry into the West Bottoms. This also highlights Liberty Street itself as a reector of local traffic back into the Historic Core, which is currently experience only though a privileged view from the 12th Street bridge without true encounter of its ground-bound material reality.

The highway off-ramps have been consolidated at Genessee Street, allowing Genessee and Wyoming to both become twoway traffic in the Stockyards District. This creates more room

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Gennessee St

Wyoming St. W

Liberty St. Li

Hickory St. Hic

foreword

A. Park and Ride Garage with Fueling Station

C. Local and Rapid-Transit Bus Terminal

B. Kansas City Welcome Center and Fueling Station

E. Commuter Rail Station

for the other transit programs to slide underneath the highway, creating an axis of transit stops in the underutilized ground space underneath of the interstate viaduct. This transit axis begins at the West with automotive amenities: the off-ramp traffic circle with gas stations, park and ride garages, a “Welcome to Kansas City Center� (the current one being located at an illogical geographical location far removed from the western entry point into Missouri), and a hotel. With an entrance at 12th and Wyoming, the bus terminal is next in the axis, with as many as 18 bus stops that can service both the MAX and local bus routes and possibly include an extension of a downtown streetcar system. The commuter rail is at the Eastern end of the axis, with platforms on the eastern portion of the subdivided Liberty lot and a northern entry under I-670.

In between the commuter rail and the bus station, the transit axis intersects with the historic corridor (Hickory Street and Liberty Street). A plaza occupying the block carved out by this intersection will be a major entry or transfer point into the transit system and corridor, acting as a major public space that celebrates the dynamics of movement, human exchange and encounter.

The use of this site would provide the continuity of the urban fabric that weaves under the interstate, reversing the role of the residual infrastructural space from one that divides the city to one that provides a key joint at this internal point of entry.

A self-supporting canopy will provide environmental controls

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D. Entry Plaza underneath I-670

(water management, lighting, signage) that promote a sense of shared public domain and makes the space feel integral to the architectural fabric of the city.

STREETSCAPE This densiďŹ cation of the transit programs is more reective of the urban density of the historic corridor. It predicts that the transitoriented development that comes with the construction of such a hub will bring continuity to the streetscape and overall urban atmosphere of the West Bottoms.

The dedicated bicycle and pedestrian access on the second level of the 12th Street bridge allow the top deck to handle increased bus and car traffic toward the transit hub while providing for more bold moves in favor of public transit, such as dedicated lanes for busses and possible pin-point congestion that encourages public transportation use. There is also the possibility of expanding of the streetcar system that moves north-south through downtown Kansas City, Missouri across 12th street, integrating into or taking the place of the dedicated bus lanes.

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RECAPTURE URBAN FABRIC & RECLAIM RIVERFRONT

urban interventions + recreational river connection

STOCKYARDS DISTRICT RECONNECT WITH KANSAS CITY kemper arena + river as regional amenities

inhabiting the figure void

current condition

reconnecting to the land Utilizing Natural Resources and Vacant Land in the West Bottoms to Indtroduce the Idea of Nature as Infrastructure among the Urban Fabric

“Cities have often been likened to symphonies and poems, and the comparison seems to me a perfectly natural one. They are in fact objects of the same kind.

The city may even be rated higher since it stands at the point where nature and artifice meet. A city is a congestion of animals whose biological history is enclosed within its boundaries, and yet every conscious and rational act on the part of these creatures helps to shape the city’s eventual character. By its form as by the manner of its birth, the city has elements at once of biological procreation, organic evolution, and esthetic creation. It is both a natural object and a thing to be cultivated; individual and group; something lived and something dreamed. It is the human invention par excellence.”

--Claude Lévi-Strauss, Tristes Tropiques

THE IDENTITY OF THE AMERICAN CITY HAS CHANGED throughout time, perhaps with its most drastic reconfigurations over the past 50 years. The traditional idea of an American city found in New York and Chicago was made of a compact fabric much like the European city, and was thought to be the prototype of how American cities would grow and develop. However, at the close of World War II, cities such as Los Angeles and Kansas City were characterized by a high percentage of scattered buildings

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challenging the former idea of this traditional city. The change in the urban configuration of cities, together with the process of suburbanization established the scattered pattern as the rule and not the exception to the model of how American cities would characteristically be developed in the future.1 This re-configuration has caused us to not only rethink the traditional idea of the city, but the traditional idea of nature; the open space which is being impacted by the decisions and density of new development in relation to the city.

“The belief that the city is an entity apart from nature and even antithetical to it has dominated the way in which the city is perceived and continues to affect how it is built.”2 The urban identity of the American city is characterized by the incomplete and open character of the grid. The grid structures and assumes development and change on account that the American city has been and is always in transition. One of the forces behind this is the process of sprawl which threatens and questions the development and vitality of the city,3 and affects the traditional idea of nature once perceived as an entity separate from the idea of urbanity delegated to the peripheral realm that marks the city’s boundaries.

The traditional idea of nature, the universe, with all its phenomena together with the physical laws that govern it exists outside of civilization and beyond human control. In this same context, stockyards district

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nature is often characterized as a “softly undulating pastoral scene, generally considered virtuous, benevolent, and soothing, a moral as well as practical antidote to the corrosive environmental and social qualities of the modern city.”4 These qualities are often found on the outskirts of the city in the idyllic spirit of the countryside where this landscape is found to be the city’s “other,” its “essential complement drawn from a nature outside of and excluding building, technology, and infrastructure.”5

On the outskirts of the city, human intervention and development is inevitably taking the place of these pastoral scenes and transforming its idyllic spirit from once excluding building and development to more or less encouraging it. Thus, suburbanization, perhaps gaining influence from Frank Lloyd Wright’s Broadacre City, is the consequence of the idea of land privatization. In his utopian plans, decentralization of the city is taken to the individual in the single family home where he believed citizens should have the right to as much land as they want. With sprawling development, whether by way of single family home or big-box architecture, “the large and totalizing American city plans get projected onto “virgin” land…”6 and the way we see nature is transformed from being a shared public amenity to that of a private ownership. These ideas are proposing that the open space be individualized, when nature in its purest form should be a collective resource.

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A’

B’

A

B

The idea of suburbanization and encroachment on nature in its original setting threatens the vitality of the city, but simultaneously there is a converse exchange. Understanding that “the city is neither wholly natural nor wholly contrived”7 reinforces the consideration that underutilization of space in the city allows the opportunity and possibility of organic growth. It also gives landscape a newfound relevance, “offering a multivalent and manifold medium for the making of urban form, and in particular in the context of complex natural environments, post industrial sites, and public infrastructure.”8 In vacant lots where once development has been reassigned to the periphery of the city, nature can reclaim these spaces and exist in perhaps a more meaningful and productive way than ever before. Thus the traditional idea that the city is an entity apart from nature no longer holds.

In order to reverse the idea that the city is an entity apart from nature, we must truly understand nature in urbanity’s context.

Nearly everything in our life is urbanized, and over time has become disconnected to the phenomena of the natural world. In order to recapture and reclaim this connection, we must enable and celebrate the opportunity for a hybrid of urbanity and nature to coexist. This condition can be articulated as a unity that “holds together difference – difference in terms of the ideological, programmatic, and cultural content.”9 However, the differences they possess encourage a re-examination of how nature is defined

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in urbanity’s context. When this unity occurs, nature among urbanity will no longer possess a pastoral quality, but more, the idea of nature must shift from being a place to becoming a resource. The natural world upon cultivation and construction, in relation to the built world, can be understood as this resource; “a standing reserve, patiently waiting to be taken up in the great adventure of practical problem solving and artistic expression.”10

The grid, a key ordering component of the American city endures through time but the spaces which exist within the grid are subject to change. Allowing nature to exist in these spaces as a resource opens up a certain dimension of the city because it allows temporality to exist. It is in this transitory condition that the hybrid of nature and urbanity can be realized. Therefore, nature in the context of urbanity will be understood as something temporal, instead of something eternal in a context apart from the city. Embedded with this temporary character, nature in the city can become a land reserve which will allow for remediation of the soil, filtration of air and water that comes in contact with the site, until future development takes place. Through these actions nature no longer will only be understood as a “limitless force which, through floods, natural disasters, and contamination of air, land, and water has potential to magnify problems that have plagued cities for centuries but instead, acknowledged and harnessed, nature will represent a powerful resource which can shape a beneficial urban habitat.”11 stockyards district

225

In Kansas City, nature has been understood as such a limitless force, specifically through flooding and contamination of air, land, and water. These implications of nature along with the societal shift to the suburban living preference have caused a steady abandonment of the city. As a consequence we have become blind to the impact suburban sprawl would bring upon the city.

Instead of creating urban density we created impermanent, ad hoc arrangements of temporary utility and steadily decreasing density.12 Both of these conditions are most poignantly embodied in the West Bottoms area where the Kansas River, which marks its boundary to the west, has been a source of perpetual flooding and destruction, and where the indelible footprint of the historic stockyards is marked by the contaminated soil. Along with this there has been significant deindustrialization in the area which has left behind extensive amounts of contaminated land.

These systems which spread across much of the West Bottoms providing Kansas City with economic vitality in the early to mid 1900s would by the early 2000s create sprawling areas of vacant land left in the wake and aftermath of the catastrophic floods and disappearance of industry.

Such vast amounts of vacant land cannot be simply repurposed through traditional city infill developments. Instead, it can be reclaimed as a land reserve, or preserved open space given back to the city for non-building purposes making the southern area

226 DESIGN INTERVENTIONS

a regional destination and a potential civic amenity that can reconnect Kansas City to its place and geography. The opportunity for this reconnection to the land in the West Bottoms arises from the discontinuous and urban fabric where numerous vacant lots appear--adjacent to the site’s natural resource, the Kansas River.

By accepting such a changing physical character of the city, a more viable solution for planning and development in dealing with vacant lots, no matter what the cause, can become one of reversal of traditional architectural approaches of colonization and building refocused on the possibility of “un-building, removal, and erasure”13 or the reservation and preservation. This empty space must be thought of as “not simply the left-over results of desertion…but intentionally ‘set up’ spaces staged as open grounds for wholly indeterminate futures.”14 Where this open space exists, the land can become an ordered, performative landscape which works with and serves the city. Functioning this way, nature can be understood as infrastructure and begin to be interpolated into the city. Nature no longer has to exist outside of the city; we can come to the city to find nature. stockyards district

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Perhaps in the concept of categorizing vacant land as a land reserve, Detroit, Michigan has a close tie to an idea that could interpolate nature into the fabric of Kansas City. Much more so than Kansas City’s desire to sprawl, Detroit shows an extreme example of decentralization of a city. Its decentralization process and urban abandonment started soon after the peak of the industrial age and was pursued more completely than any other city in the modern world. In addition to this, Detroit has been the only city to publicly articulate a plan for its own abandonment.15 In Detroit where parts of the city are being decamped and decommissioned, simultaneously immense vacant spaces are being constructed.

Here the idea that “landscape is the only medium capable of dealing with decreasing densities and indeterminate futures”16

Deserted Housing; Detroit, Michigan

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is becoming an urban planning strategy. This strategy demands that landscape must be thought of as urbanism in the case of not only greenfields but brownfields as well.17 The decommissioning of Detroit’s vacant lands recommends strategies that will reserve land for “indeterminate statuses”18 which will necessitate infrastructural strategies for social and ecological arrangement.

These spaces will be identified with the temporality of nature within the city because instead of being legislated with specific activities, “their future viability as true void spaces depends upon the imaginary and mythic conditions of their founding.”19

The reason for the vacant space in the West Bottoms may be created and constructed differently than that of Detroit, but nevertheless, the two cities have the similarity of having open space in the heart of the city. It is reasonable to think that Kansas City can look to the innovative techniques being used in Detroit as inspiration. Using the example of Detroit’s land reserves, space within the West Bottoms can be held as a productive landscape to remediate soil and prepare the site for future development.

The lack of development in the West Bottoms allows for different investigations of nature as a resource as it is interpolated into the city. The variety of size and scales of open space in this area allows for a working landscape which holds the ability to shift scales and conceive relationships between dynamic environmental processes and urban form.20 In abandoned or otherwise vacant stockyards district

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lots created in the wake of floods, de-industrialization, and general neglect in the West Bottoms, we can, through design, recapture a dimension of nature which gives purpose to the vacancy. Now, these interstitial spaces will no longer be abandoned because in the absence of a building the land has an opportunity to serve a purpose and speak to the idea that the design of the spaces is as critical to the design of the buildings in order to enhance the quality of the urban environment.21 Nature represents a fundamental dimension of urbanization,22 and in this sense can be functional and an aesthetic backdrop to the urban life surrounding it.

“The more significant traditional urban landscapes possess the capacity to function as important ecological vessels and pathways, as hydrological and stormwater systems, or greenway corridors that infiltrate (air and water). These kinds of infrastructural landscapes will surely continue to be important to the overall health and well-being of urban populations.”23 As stated here in these examples of infrastructural landscapes, nature as a resource can be resolved through a variety of design strategies.

Some of these same strategies have been resolved in a project

by Turenscape. This firm has many design projects which explore these same questions and problems and eventually determine ecological and aesthetic solutions. In their Tianjin Bridged Gardens project located in China, the site and issues closely

232 DESIGN INTERVENTIONS

parallel that of the West Bottoms and Turenscape’s solutions provide inspiration for the future of the vacant land in the West Bottoms. In the Hedong District of Tianjin City, China the regional landscapes had been in large part destroyed from pollution, litter, and desertion, as well as decades of urban development and infrastructure construction. In order to heal their landscapes and allow the city to connect to nature Turenscape provides multiple ecological, recreational, and aesthetic services.

These landscapes were designed to not only improve local water and soil conditions, but to create an environment that celebrated the local culture and landscapes, and provided recreational amenities to the residents of the city in this type of urban public open space.24

Much like in the example above, the vacant lots in the West Bottoms can be recaptured as bioswales which become an aesthetic among the urban fabric and serve the city by collecting and ďŹ ltering runoff wastewater. These spaces can also be designed stockyards district

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as rainwater management facilities with permeable paving which can also serve as parking in the area for the demand of space when seasonal events flood the area with humanity. The open space also holds the opportunity to become a productive landscape where agriculture is cultivated and together with nature is integrated into the urban fabric to serve the local community. New ideas of landscape could emerge where past ideas of urbanism based on density and boundedness are reconsidered.25

Yet another city striving to implement these strategies is Philadelphia. Philadelphia has been working on projects with the idea of converting brown space to green space through the use of urban agriculture in a 2005 international design competition called Urban Voids. According to a successful entry by Front Studio, “Farmadelphia proposes a new vision for Philadelphia’s vacant lots in the juxtaposition of farm and city, inspiring the community to think of their environment not as a neighborhood in decline, but one with the potential to transform lives.”26 Farmadelphia challenges us to consider the end of the dichotomy

234 DESIGN INTERVENTIONS

between rural and urban,27 where the idea of farming can be interpolated into the city instead of existing on the outskirts.

In this scheme, first the vacant land can be treated through land reclamation and soil remediation in order to prepare the land for agriculture. In these transitory stages, residents can actively participate in the changes occurring to their land and be socially and environmentally aware of their surroundings. Farmadelphia not only deals with the vacant land within a city, but also the vacant buildings and structures where in their scheme, “an abandoned townhouse could easily be converted into a greenhouse for orchids, or an unoccupied warehouse becomes a barn for new born calves.”28 This project views abandoned sites and structures in a completely different way, which has the power to “transform Philadelphia’s forsaken neighborhoods into new centers of activity and life through the magical alliance of city living and rural culture.”29

Depending on the location of and scale of the sites in the West Bottoms, much like the variety of environments described in Detroit, China, and Philadelphia, these performative landscapes can be one of two things. They can temporarily fill the vacant lots to filter and clean the land until another use becomes important or more prominent, or they can remain permanent, creating an identity and aesthetic for an example of what can be done to blend the two worlds of urbanity and nature into the city. stockyards district

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This idea of nature in the West Bottoms can be essentially connected to the life of the city where the structure between nature and urbanity can inform life meaningfully. There is no longer a need to escape the city to ďŹ nd nature, but more, it can be a way of life.

Through analysis, study, and design of the West Bottoms, it has become quite clear that Kansas City has a unique development pattern. Regardless of whether it will re-densify as a complete and compact city fabric, we have the opportunity to utilize the vacancy in the city for something meaningful. This knowledge frees us from being nostalgic for the past or hopeful to achieve the density of other cities in the future. For the design of the stockyards district, this was the goal. Where vacant lots exist within the loosely developed urban fabric, the space has been designed in such a way that will reserve the land and through remediation, clean it. During this process, the space can become temporary urban event space for annual festivals such as the American Royal Bar-be-Que, where these events can inhabit the city in a natural setting while the city acts as a backdrop.

As additional development occurs in the West Bottoms, these spaces that have been reserved can, at an appropriate time, be converted into built development and the city can reinterpret the need for open space. If development does not come to this part of the West Bottoms, the open space will not only act as

236 DESIGN INTERVENTIONS

infrastructure through the use of bioswales, rain gardens, retention ponds, and open green space but will become a recreational amenity. It will encourage pedestrian traffic and enable the city to gain a newfound relevance and appreciation for landscape as a “medium through which the contemporary city might be apprehended and intervened upon.”30

Through our design, we have learned and understood the importance and validity in the use and design of nature as infrastructure where “landscape [can] become a lens through which the contemporary city is represented and a medium through which it is constructed.”31 The ideas presented in this essay arose from studying a specific site and a part of the West Bottoms. Their root and address are hopefully more substantial and provocative and relate to a more endemic question of the possibility of urban design. In our design, we have primarily focused on brownfield remediation and did not fully utilize the potential in designing productive agricultural landscapes. Nevertheless, we took the first step in the West Bottoms by reclaiming abandoned land through remediation processes so it is available for future use. As for the future direction of this site, our examples serve as a path and give insight into the benefits of bringing nature back to the city. We have laid the foundation for the West Bottoms so that these ideas may be utilized and brought to fruition.

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AA

AA

BB

BB

STOCKYARDS DISTRICT Existing Buildings Proposed Infill Natural Remediative Plantings Recreation Complex Bioswales/Landscaping

1”=100’

a regional destination

THE STOCKYARDS DISTRICT IS A UNIQUE SITE DEFINED BY the Kansas River on the west, the bluff on the east, and Interstate 670 to the north. However, perhaps more than these boundaries, the history is what deďŹ nes the space. The stock and rail yards dominated the site for nearly a century providing Kansas City with economic vitality. As these structures began to disappear over time, the scale and historical use remains understood by the sprawling areas of vacant land left in their wake. The site is also characterized by a loosely developed urban fabric where Kemper Arena sits as a terminus, not only for the stockyards district, but for the entire West Bottoms.

The ďŹ rst element of design was built around reclaiming the Kansas riverfront as a regional amenity through recreation and the return of ex-urban program. Reclaiming residual infrastructure space and devoting it to new infrastructural purposes such as water stockyards district

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240 DESIGN INTERVENTIONS

management and energy harvesting became important, realizing the potential in this type of urban environment.

Kemper Arena becomes the gateway acting on a regional and local level by becoming a link to the riverfront development.

It becomes a regional desitination with close proximity to the proposed transit hub to the north encouraging future development and deďŹ ning the street edges and adjacent urban space.

Kemper Arena is largely underutilized both as a building and a site. The trusses are an iconic form to Kansas City and need to be celebrated, but Kemper Arena’s connection and purpose within this urban environment needs to be strengthened.

In order to achieve this, Kemper Arena is being repurposed as an outdoor amphitheater, to become unlike any other venue in Kansas CIty. Removing the walls and opening up the building allows for a pass-through connection from the riverfront to the urban fabric. In order to enhance Kemper Arena as a terminus to the site it is tied into an agricultural event space acting as an urban wall and consolidating parking.

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kemper arena

Kemper Arena is a regional amenity for the city. However, its connection and purpose within the urban environment needs to be strengthened. To achieve this, Kemper Arena is being repurposed as an outdoor amphitheater to become a unique venue in Kansas City.

To the West, a bridge and drop-off area link Kemper Arena to the riverfront.

To the East, a public plaza is framed by Kemper, the American Royal, and garages, using urban edges to form a terminus to the N-S street grid.

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IN THE CENTER SITS A TRANSFORMATIVE PLAZA SPACE marked by the grid of tent dimensions for the annual American Royal BBQ which allows the event to inhabit the city unlike before. The structures can be used for air ďŹ ltration, energy harvesting, and media displays. Green spaces and bioswales line the streets in order to help facilitate water management in an East-West movement.

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Inside Kemper Arena looking east.

Lit Plaza Structures.

BROWNFIELDS REMEDIATION

Remediative Plantings

WATER MANAGEMENT STRATAGEY

Infiltration through Plantings

1”=100’

Remediative Lawn

1”=100’

Infiltration through Perveous Paving Water Movement

Where the urban fabric is discontinuous, nature as infrastructure can begin to be interpolated into the city, reserving the land for future development. Here the space becomes a temporary remediation site. This space is connected to the riverfront through a series of east to west pedestrian connections where one can inhabit these infrastructural landscapes and experience them as an aesthetic of the city.

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A

A

B

B

C

C

D

D

RIVERFRONT RIVERFRONT DESTINATION RECREATION SPACE TRAIL SYSTEM PEDESTRIAN BRIDGE

riverfront development

IN ORDER TO GIVE PURPOSE TO THE VACANT LAND, IT IS NOT completed with traditional city inďŹ ll. It can instead be reclaimed as a land reserve, or space given back to the city making the southern area a regional destination and amenity to Kansas City.

The open space will be activated by seasonal uses common to this area, as well as ex-urban amenities that we are returning to the city center. The riverfront is absent of development for the community of the greater Kansas City area. Therefore, the creation of a soccer complex takes advantage of the open, vacant land directly adjacent to the river. It is designed to complement the changing topography of the riverfront, levee, and the connection to the urban fabric with inuence from the grid and design of the stockyards. Reaching to both sides of the river, it will activate space on the river. A series of pedestrian bridges, which connect the soccer complex across the river, will have access down to a dock on the river. stockyards district

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The riverfront is currently absent of development. Through the creation of a soccer complex the vacant land directly adjacent to the river becomes a functioning part of the city, and provides opportunity for the river itself to become activated.

THIS DESIGN IS MEANT TO TAKE a light-handed approach to access the river without severly altering the integrity of the levee structure.

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UNDERSTANDING THE NATURE of Kansas City is not to redensify; opportunity stands for a reconnection to the land where the urban fabric is broken and discontinuous. Inhabiting these deďŹ ned spaces through recreation, temporary, and seasonal uses creates a destination.

JAMES STREET DEVELOPMENT

existing condition

PHASE 01

earth inямБll

remediation

multi-layer city Proposal for a Vertical Urban Plan in the West Bottoms

THE SITE OF THE JAMES STREET DEVELOPMENT WAS THE first residential community in Kansas City, but frequent flooding caused residents to move from this location. The floods sparked a need for the levee system, which now protects industry in the area.

This design intends to reclaim the original residential function of this area by making the riverfront into a public amenity.

The lowland area is surrounded by bluffs in both Kansas City, Kansas and Kansas City, Missouri. The difference in elevation caused by a series of levees around James Street produces a disconnect with the river; the floodplain renders the first twenty feet uninhabitable. Additionally, the brownfields make the site unsuitable for human habitation.

The design of this area forms an essential connection back to the abandoned riverfront by bridging over the levee. Instead of

266 DESIGN INTERVENTIONS

simply bridging the levee, reconstruction of the topography itself reestablishes the connection to the river. To accomplish this, fill from the municipalities of Kansas City, Kansas and Kansas City, Missouri (which produce approximately 100,000 cubic yards worth of fill per year) will be used to help raise the design and development, as well as redefine the topographical connections between the city and riverfront.

These fills help bring parts of the development out of the floodplain and allow for vertical movement from the ground level to the height of the levee. Because so much has been added to the site, the power of subtraction or absence becomes essential to help reinforce the three-dimensional design.

Michel Heizer explored this method of subtraction through his earthworks. His excavated subtractive landscapes revealed a new condition of the site that would have otherwise remained hidden.

In Double Negative (1967 – 1970), two straight channels scraped in the surface of the mesa align across an irregular eroded cliff.

This carving of the land exposes the strata of history; as one descends down the ramp, the sides of the cut rock rise into the subconscious. Using this same concept of negative space in the James Street Development, certain sections of the new earthen mounds remain below the new grade. On the north, a sharp cut in the landscape exposes the difference in height and preserves the original ground level, highlighting a three-dimensional aspect james street development

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of the site that would otherwise be unused or taken for granted.

As Heizer’s incision called the surface of the site to our attention, these negative spaces act to expose the original ground condition where the phytoremediation of the site takes place.

Phytoremediaton as defined by the EPA is the process of using plants to remove, dissipate, or neutralize certain chemicals, and is most effective in cleaning up metals, pesticides, solvents, explosives, crude oil, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and landfill leachates.1

This phytoremediation first occurs where the mounds do not: at original grade below the levee height. These areas are planted with Poplar trees to remediate the various toxins at the ground level. Because phytoremediation is effective when roots of the plants are deep enough to reach the toxins, planting these trees in the areas with the least amount of fill produces the greatest results in brownfield clean-up. After the Poplar trees have begun remediating the brownfields, a new series of trees are planted on top of the earthen mounds to prevent soil erosion of the clean fill.

This change in topography and sequence of phytoremediation provides the first benchmark in the phasing for the James Street Development. This phase creates a temporary condition (from years 5-20) that acts as the catalyst for the development that compliments the riverfront and provides a future context that new buildings can respond to. james street development

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BROWNFIELDS

phytoremediation

BROWNFIELDS ARE “VACANT, POTENTIALLY CONTAMINATED [areas] within urban centers that are difficult to develop because of suspected financial and environmental risk.” Developing parcels with suspected contamination means that the land is cleaned, has an increase in property value, and the need for sprawling greenfield development is reduced.2 Past uses designating land as a brownfield include automotive repair, industrial metal work, slaughterhouses, and older homes which have been known to use highly toxic chemicals. Rigorous brownfield clean-up through phytoremediation will rehabilitate the area, making it safe for residents and improving the overall environmental health.

The Greenwich Peninsula by Desvigne & Dalnoky is a powerful example of brownfield remediation used as transformative urbanism. In this project, landscape architect Michel Desvigne rejected the traditional idea of a large urban park with thematic james street development

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BROWNFIELDS ARE THE MOST urgent deterrents of human use and development in the West Bottoms. Here, the remediation process transforms an industrial park into an urban forest.

gardens and ponds. Instead, he created an ‘intermediate landscape’ providing a new texture and context to build upon. Inspired by the aerial views of Poplar plantations, he planted the area with over twelve thousand native Hornbeam trees, placeholders for recreational space. The plan was only partially released but aimed to restore the derelict piece of land as a catalyst to a new development.3

Urban landscape design defines the city in terms of degeneration, permanence, and transformation.4 For the James Street area, about fifteen to twenty years of Poplar tree phytoremediation are needed to remediate the ground.

The Poplar was chosen because it has a fast growth rate, it is a plant native to the area and the EPA’s findings on arsenic treatment show that the tree is ideal for phytoextraction of heavy metals.5 The area, now redefined as a natural infrastructure, reconnects to the Kansas River, filters dust, and captures carbon through terrestrial sequestration. As the trees mature, a buildable landscape evolves.

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JAMES STREET DEVELOPMENT

james st. urban block

PHASE 02

riverfront urban block

residential community

THE WEST BOTTOMS IS IN DANGER OF FLOODING FROM the Kansas River, Missouri River, and Turkey Creek. Flood control and water management are paramount to the creation of an inhabitable area.

284 DESIGN INTERVENTIONS

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The Dutch Firm Waterstudio recognizes the danger of flooding and designs with water. Their project, “Stilthouse” explored the possibility of flood-resistant architecture in the Netherlands.

This housing project is built on stilts rising above the levee. The elevated living and circulation components allow water to freely fluctuate below.6

The ground plane of the West Bottoms, like that of the Netherlands, lies below the height of the levee. Although the levee protects the area from the most catastrophic flooding, there is still the risk of flooding from Turkey Creek and the fear that the levee could fail.

The James Street Development is a cautious proposal aiming to minimize damage to the area in the event of a flood. The design manipulates topography, creates a series of smaller levees and raises areas out of the floodplain as safe havens for residents.

As the construction of buildings begins, the relationship to the original ground level and floodplain becomes critical. All buildings are either raised fifteen feet on stilts or have minimal contact with the original ground level. This vertical change in building design reduces the risk of flooding to residents.

PREVIOUS LEFT: 100-YR Floodplain RIGHT: Stormwater Management OPPOSITE Pedestrian Walkways

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riverfront community

If phytoremediation and topographic change are the starting point for urban design, then new relationships between architecture, landscape, and vertical planes can begin to form, responding to the new context. A new urban topography and typology (similar to the motions of free-running and the vertical spaces of Bjarke Ingel’s work) emerges in the James Street Development.

Starting with the northern part of the block, a building form ďŹ lls where the site was unďŹ lled and remediated. On the south side of this building form, a twenty foot setback directly relates to the earthen mound. This setback creates a direct pedestrian connection meeting the street level and ascending to the riverfront.

From this setback, a series of cross-connected pathways are cut into the building form. Allowing for movement between blocks.

The southern building in each block is built into the slope of the earthen mound. To minimize change to the earthen mound and james street development

295

lift the building out of the floodplain, the majority of the first floor will be constructed out of piers or will have strategically placed foundations. This incision at the ground level allows for movement from street level on the southern side, up to the earthen mound and the riverfront. This series of vertical pedestrian streets expands the public life from the street to the riverfront.

As these blocks start to define the life that occurs vertically in the city, it becomes critical to consider the parallax of view and spatial qualities. As the vertical and oblique views are generated in the design there is a need to consider strategic positioning of buildings to define space in an urban context.

In the James Street Development, parallax is a universal technique to help provide and accentuate the spatial configurations made by the various forces of the design. The subtractive method used to create the various pathways established the first layer of parallax views. These pathways build upon the earlier concept of presence of the absence by generating a multitude of views that visually connect the various urban forms from block to block. With the maximum height of all buildings first being defined by the flyover zone, a secondary height restriction will be implemented to allow for increased views toward the river. On the northern building form, a descending height restriction starting from the street towards the river will maximize the amount of views that can be experienced throughout the block. On the southern

296 DESIGN INTERVENTIONS

building form only a certain percentage of the building will be allowed to reach the maximum height, allowing for a creation of an elevated building plaza. Pedestrian movement on this plaza will allow for parallax to play a role by carefully positioning buildings to create dynamic views toward the river and the rest of the development.

This type of development plays a strategic game with vertical heights of the various buildings to deďŹ ning the space and views generated. The strategies of cut-through pathways, elevated living, and parallax are a baseline parameter, guiding the rest of the urban design of James Street to maximize the vertical potential of this new riverfront community.

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THE CONSTANT INTERACTION with truck traffic is part of the nature and pleasure of inhabiting the city. Incorporating mixeduse development would create a unique juxtaposition of city life against the fabric of roadways, rail, and industry.

existing condition

site preparation

kansas river levee

phytoremediation

topography inďŹ ll

retaining the landform

riverfront connection 1-5 YRS

james st. remediation 5-20 YRS

james st. urban block

riverfront urban block

creating movement

transverse movement

establishing setbacks

riverfront views

elevating the forms 20-50 YRS

residential community 50+ YRS

APPENDIX: urban solutions

STREETSCAPE

Downtown streets should accommodate pedestrians, cyclists, and automobiles.

The level of design for all streets should be raised by providing streetscape and public space. Priority should be given to Corridor Streets for improvements.

1. Corridor Streets (see map on page 27 of the GDAP) form connections between neighborhoods. Their larger capacities often support denser development and greater, more diverse, transportation loads. Streetscape improvements on these Corridor Streets are among the highest priorities, beginning with streets that connect major activity centers.

2. Implement Downtown Streetscape Plan standards. Focus on corridor streets.

3. Support Transit Corridors. Focus initial streetscape improvements on streets identiďŹ ed as corridors that support transit oriented development.

4. Reinforce walking as the primary mode of transportation.

5. Implement road diets and improve bikeability (see Transportation Chapter).

6. Implement minimum streetscape enhancements on all streets. Encourage the use of native plantings that do not require much moisture or maintenance. Use consistent lighting & signage and provide street furniture near activity centers and transit corridors.

INFORMATION SOURCE: The above information is taken directly from the Greater Downtwon Area Plan 2009 Draft of Kansas City, Missouri prepared by the COR Team consisting of the following organizations: City Planning and Development Department, BNIM, El Dorado Inc., Taliaferro & Browne Inc., HDR, KC Consulting, ETC Institute, and Architectural & Historical Research.

306 APPENDIX: URBAN SOLUTIONS

LAND USE

In order to understand the city, we need to look beyond only spatial and architectural analysis. We sought to understand the motive and structure behind the governmental positions, plans, and precedents for the development of this area. The GDAP pairs rhetoric, land use maps, and specific phasing goals. We sought to meet these goals and provide additional standards for development.

BROWNFIELD SITES Locate the project on a site, part or all of which is documented as contaminated (by means of an ASTM E1903-97 Phase II Environmental Site Assessment or a local Voluntary Cleanup Program), or on a site defined as a brownfield by a local, state, or federal government agency; and remediate site contamination such that the controlling public authority approves the protective measures and/or cleanup as effective, safe, and appropriate for the future use of the site.

HIGH-PRIORITY REDEVELOPMENT AREAS Achieve the requirements in in Brownfield Sites and locate the project in one of the following high-priority redevelopment areas: EPA National Priorities List, Federal Empowerment Zone, Federal Enterprise Community, Federal Renewal Community, Department of Justice Weed and Seed Strategy Community, Department of the Treasury Community Development Financial Institutions Fund Qualified Low-Income Community (a subset of the New Markets Tax Credit Program), or the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Qualified Census Tract (QCT) or Difficult Development Area (DDA).

INFORMATION SOURCE: The following information is taken directly from LEED 2009 for Neighborhood Developments. SLL Credit 2 discusses brownfield redevelopment. More information may be found at <http://www.usgbc.org>.

308 APPENDIX: URBAN SOLUTIONS

LAND USE The map on the right displays our studio’s position for land use in the West Bottoms in regards to our urban design proposals.

RESIDENTIAL RES./COM. MIXED USE COMMERCIAL INDUSTRIAL SOCIAL/INSTITUTIONAL

TRANSPORTATION/PARKI MASS ASSEMBLY RECREATION AGRICULTURE

WATER MANAGEMENT

IMPORTANCE OF STORMWATER MANAGEMENT1 Stormwater management is the process of changing land use practices in the built landscape in order to maintain the quality, quantity, and rate of runoff as close to the predevelopment condition as possible.

In areas that do not have man-made impermeable surfaces, precipitation normally takes a long time to reach a stream. A small amount of water falls on the stream surface, but most of the water reaches the stream only after it has soaked into the ground and moved through the soils. When impermeable surfaces are added to a watershed, the water reaches the stream very quickly and in much larger quantities than the stream is used to handling. In addition, urban areas (more developed areas) are normally serviced by a system of pipes and catch basins which are designed to get water off the land as quickly as possible and convey it to the stream. This excessive volume of water is more than the channel can handle and erosion of the channel results. When the channel erosion occurs, it causes cloudy (turbid) water that negatively affects the organisms in the stream and the downstream users of the water, in addition to destroying habitat.

INFORMATION SOURCES: 1 This water management information is taken directly from the Planning Office of Walker County, Georgia. More information may be found at <http://www. walkerga.us/Services/Planning-Office/Storm-Water-Management.aspx>.

2 The following information is taken directly from LEED 2009 for Neighborhood Developments. GIB Credit 8 discusses stormwater management requirements and best management practices. More information may be found at <http://

www.usgbc.org>.

310 APPENDIX: URBAN SOLUTIONS

INTENT2 To reduce pollution and hydrologic instability from stormwater, reduce flooding, promote aquifer recharge, and improve water quality by emulating natural hydrologic conditions.

REQUIREMENTS Implement a comprehensive stormwater management plan for the project that retains on-site, through infiltration, evapotranspiration, and/or reuse, the rainfall volumes listed in Table 1. Rainfall volume is based on the project’s development footprint, any other areas that have been graded so as to be effectively impervious, and any pollution-generating pervious surfaces, such as landscaping, that will receive treatments of fertilizers or pesticides.

The percentile rainfall event (Table 1) is the total rainfall on a given day in the record that is greater than or equal to X percent of all rainfall events over a 20to 40+-year period. For example, a 95th percentile event in a particular region might be 1.5 inches, which would then be the volume to retain. To determine the volume to be retained, projects may use NOAA’s published national rainfall data, run an approved stormwater model, or independently gather local rain gauge data and rank rainfall events. One hundred percent of the water volume from rainfall events up to the X percentile event must not be discharged to surface waters unless the harvested and reused runoff is authorized for discharge or allowed to be discharged into sanitary treatment systems.

Percentile rainfall event (determines total volume from development footprint to be retained)

Points

80th percentile

1

85th percentile

2

90th percentile

3

95th percentile

4

BEST MANAGEMENT PRACTICES Choose BMPs that are most appropriate to the project site and region. BMPs must also comply with all federal, state, and local regulations.

For stormwater reuse systems not on a combined stormwater and sewer system, the total water reused for indoor use must not exceed 90% of the average annual rainfall.

Stormwater BMPs (except cisterns) must be designed to drain down within 72 hrs.

water management

311

INDUSTRY

The following industry information is an excerpt from an executive summary prepared for the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation. The summary, ‘An Industrial Land & Market Strategy for the City of Philadelphia,’ was written in September of 2010 to ensure the city’s industrial future and provide recommendations for the planning of modern industry.

PROJECT SOURCE: <http://www.philaplanning.org/plans/pimlusExSum.pdf>

Three brand areas of recommendations were developed aimed at accomodating clean, modern industrial growth in Philadelphia: 1. Zoning for Modern Industry 2. Positioning Industrial Land for Investment 3. Additional Strategies for Retaining & Expanding Industry

ZONING FOR MODERN INDUSTRY Philadelphia’s current zoning code is based on 1960’s land use patterns, which themselves were a legacy of an antiquated industrial economy. The land uses permitted by the City’s current industrial zoning do not account for a modern range of low-impact, high-performance, or mixed-use industrial development.

The ongoing work of the Zoning Code Commission and the comprehensive planning process provides Philadelphia with a unique opportunity to formally rationalize its supply of industrial land while updating its classifications to represent twenty-first century patterns of urban industry.

The ten industrial zoning classifications of Philadelphia’s curent codes should be consolidated into four classifications. The four classifications include a utilities and transportation infrastructure category that would separate critical long-term public infrastructure from the private market industrial activity. The remaining three industrial zones classifications include heavy industrial, general industrial, and light industrial.

In addition, two new mixed-use classifications are proposed, reflecting Philadelphia’s fine-grained texture and cognizant that, in many places, lowimpact industrial uses may intermingle with commercial and residential uses.

314 APPENDIX: URBAN SOLUTIONS

LAND AND REAL ESTATE REQUIREMENTS OF MODERN INDUSTRIAL BUSINESSES The private real estate market categorizes modern tradable industrial structures into three product types: FLEX The most common speculative industrial development, adaptable to the needs of a variety of industrial users, including ancillary office space.

FLEX

PURPOSE BUILT MANUFACTURING Structures designed to serve a specific manufacturing process.

WAREHOUSE/DISTRIBUTION Used for the storage and distribution of goods.

In addition to modern buildings, industrial businesses typically seek the following requirements:

PURPOSE BUILT MANUFACTURING

LARGER PARCELS WITH DESIRABLE TOPOGRAPHY Given truck staging, employee parking needs, and stormwater drainage requirements, new industrial development on sites smaller than five acres is rare. Flat sites with good drainage and soil characteristics are necessary for industrial development.

INFRASTRUCTURE ACCESS Proximity to major interstate highway systems is fundamental, since nearly all industrial uses rely on trucking to receive shipments and to distribute goods. Access to freight rail service remains desirable, though most industrial users depend on it far less than trucking.

Many industrial businesses also rely on proximity to ports and airports, depending on need.

DISTANCE FROM RESIDENTIAL AREAS Many industrial businesses seek sites where operations will be minimally intrusive to neighboring communities.

WAREHOUSE/DISTRIBUTION

WORKFORCE ACCESS Labor-intensive users such as those that occupy flex buildings and manufacturing buildings seek locations that are convenient to an employment base.

industry

315

CREDITS

notes

IDENTIFYING POTENTIAL by Alyssa Parsons 1

Busquets, “Barcelona—Re-thinking Urbanistic Projects,” an essay from Shaping the City: Studies in History, Theory and Urban Design, 14-5.

2 Weller, “An Art of Instrumentality: Thinking through Landscape Urbanism,” an essay from The Landscape Urbanism Reader, 83.

3 Berger, “Drosscape,” an essay from The Landscape Urbanism Reader, 203.

4 Ibid, 209.

5 Ibid, 202.

6 Ibid, 201.

7 The vacancy of the West Bottoms becomes a vacancy in the heart of the metro—see programming study, Figure 01 and 02, 86.

8 Girot, “Vision in Motion: Representing Landscape in Time,” an essay from The Landscape Urbanism Reader, 95.

9 This is the Central Industrial District (CID) in more than name alone. Though the former Kansas City Stockyards, and associated livestock support industries are no longer present, the industrial heritage continues today. Distribution industries, truck routes, and railroads sustain the West Bottoms. Planned Industrial Expansion Authorities (PIEA) and other economic development incentives point to continued industrial development and a thoroughly industrial future for many parts of the CID. Long, Lecture.

10 Industrial areas have experienced the common phenomena related to urban sprawl: as the industries move to the outskirts, there is a deindustrialization and abandonment of the heart of the city. Leading to a perceived obsolescence and vast, vacant spaces left in formerly industrial centers.

Berger, Drosscape, 236-241.

11 Philadelphia City Planning Commission, “An Industrial Land & Market Strategy for the City of Philadelphia, Executive Summary,” 17.

12 Berger, Drosscape, 241.

318 CREDITS

13

Ibid, 237.

The ideas of site remediation and water management will be used intensely in some areas, but should be incorporated throughout the entirety of the West Bottoms. These “new” ideas are critical to prepare sites for future development (brownfield remediation) and to manage and maintain a standard of care and civic practice (stormwater management). Berger, “Drosscape,” an essay from The Landscape Urbanism Reader, 203.

15 Definition: The basic physical and organizational structures and facilities (e.g., buildings, roads, rail, and power supplies) needed for the operation of a society or enterprise. Physical structures that allow society to function.

16 La Dallman, Fabricated Landscapes.

17 Mossop, “Landscapes of Infrastructure,” an essay from The Landscape Urbanism Reader, 171.

18 Allen, Points + Lines: Diagrams and Projects for the City, 281.

19 Finnerty, “Reconnecting to the Land” an essay from Reframing the City, 239.

20 Busquets, “Barcelona—Re-Thinking Urbanistic Projects,” an essay from Shaping the City: Studies in History, Theory and Urban Design, 21.

14

SEQUENCES AND DISJUNCTIONS by Jesse Husmann 1

Structuring the city through infrastructure. Allen, Points + Lines: Diagrams and Projects for the City, 54.

2 Ibid.

3 Speed as a relationship between phenomena. Virilio, Open Sky, 12.

4 Designing environments long-term. Lynch, What Time is this Place?, 186.

RECONNECTING TO THE LAND by Amy Finnerty 1

Gandelsonas, “The Identity of the American City,” 45.

Sprin, The Granite Garden: Urban Nature and Human Design, 5.

3 Sprin, The Granite Garden: Urban Nature and Human Design, 49.

4 Throughout this thesis the reference is used to explain and understand the concept of infrastructural landscapes and how the term landscape urbanism which promises “the development of a space-time ecology that treats all forces and agents working in the urban field and considers them as continuous networks of inter-relationships” applies to the hybrid condition of nature and urbanity. Corner, “Terra Fluxus,” an essay from The Landscape Urbanism Reader, 25.

5 Ibid.

6 Gandelsonas, “The Identity of the American City,” 47.

7 Sprin, The Granite Garden: Urban Nature and Human Design, 4.

8 Waldheim, “A Reference Manifesto,” an essay from The Landscape Urbanism Reader, 15.

9 Describing the difference yet similarity between the words “landscape” and “urbanism.” Corner, “Terra Fluxus,” an essay from The Landscape Urbanism Reader, 23.

10 This reference is used in understanding the relationship of landscape to architecture, and how landscapes can be cultivated and constructed.

2

notes

319

Leatherbarrow, Topographical Stories: Studies in Landscape and Architecture, 84.

11 Sprin, The Granite Garden: Urban Nature and Human Design, xi.

12 Waldheim and Santos-Munné, “Decamping Detroit,” 106.

13 Corner, Landscraping, 122.

14 Ibid.

15 Throughout this thesis, this reference is used in understanding the potential in vacant land in the city, and the concept of land reserve – that land without building development can be set apart and reserved for a different purpose.

Waldheim and Santos-Munné, “Decamping Detroit.”

16 Waldheim and Santos-Munné, “Decamping Detroit,” 110.

17 Ibid.

18 Waldheim and Santos-Munné, “Decamping Detroit,” 111.

19 Ibid.

20 Corner, “Terra Fluxus,” an essay from The Landscape Urbanism Reader, 24.

21 This reference is used in understanding the relationship of performative landscapes to the built environment, how these things can visually coexist and interact, and how the design of spaces between buildings is as critical to the quality of our urban environment as the buildings themselves. Lowry, Groundswell, 11.

22 Throughout this thesis, essays from Ecological Urbanism are used in understanding how design can connect ecology with an urbanism that is not in contradiction with its environment. Picon, “Natures, Infrastructure, and the Urban Condition,” an essay from Ecological Urbanism, 520.

23 Corner, “Terra Fluxus,” an essay from The Landscape Urbanism Reader, 24.

24 All information on Turenscape Landscape Architecture was found on their website: http://www.turenscape.com/english/. The cited information and images are of the Tianjin Bridged Gardens project located in the Hedong District of Tianjin City, China. It is owned by Tianjin Environmental Construction Investment Co., Ltd and was completed in 2008. Turenscape – Landscape Architecture.

25 Crawford, “Productive Urban Environments,” an essay from Ecological Urbanism, 142.

26 Farmadelphia Presentation Board, Front Studio.

27 Filling Urban Voids…with Farms? Looking at Ways to Integrate Agriculture into the Urban Landscape. Valdez, Sightline Daily News.

28 Farmadelphia Presentation Board, Front Studio.

29 Ibid.

30 Waldheim, “A Reference Manifesto,” an essay from The Landscape Urbanism Reader, 16.

31 Waldheim, “A Reference Manifesto,” an essay from The Landscape Urbanism Reader, 15.

MULTI-LAYER CITY by Kyle Rogler 1

“Phytoremediation Resource Guide,” <http://www.epa.gov/tio/download/ remed/phytoresgude.pdf>.

320 CREDITS

2

Randolph, Environmental Land Use Planning and Management, 40-41.

Lowry, Groundswell, 148-151.

4 Girot, Vision in Motion: Representing Landscape in Time.

5 â&#x20AC;&#x153;Arsenic Treatment Technologies for Soil, Waste, and Water,â&#x20AC;? 15-1. <http:// www.clu-in.org/download/remed/542r02004/arsenic_report.pdf>.

6 Waterstudio. <http://www.waterstudio.nl/index.php?option=com_projects&ta sk=view&id=64&short=pa>.

3

notes

321

references

AT THE CONFLUENCE Burnes, Brian. High & Rising: The 1951 Kansas City Flood. Kansas City, Mo.: Kansas City Star Books, 2001. Print.

AUTOMOTIVE CITY Waldheim, Charles. The Landscape Urbanism Reader. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2006. Print.

IDENTIFYING POTENTIAL by Alyssa Parsons Allen, Stan. Points + Lines: Diagrams and Projects for the City. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1999. Web. Berger, Alan. Drosscape: Wasting Land in Urban America. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2006. Print.

Dallman, J. and La, G. ed., essays by: Ryan, R. and Tejchman, F., foreword by: Greenstreet R., Fabricated Landscapes, UWM School of Architecture & Urban Planning, Milwaukee, WI, 2009. Print.

Haydn, Florian and Robert Temel. Temporary Urban Spaces: Concepts for the Use of City Spaces. Boston: Birkh채user, 2006. Print.

Khoury, Rodolphe, and Edward Robbins. Shaping the City: Studies in History, Theory and Urban Design. New York: Routledge, 2004. Print.

Long, Robert. Lecture. Architectural Design Studio VII. Kansas City Design Center. 12 October 2010.

322 CREDITS

Waldheim, Charles. The Landscape Urbanism Reader. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2006. Print.

SEQUENCES AND DISJUNCTIONS by Jesse Husmann Allen, Stan. “Infrastructural Urbanism.” Points + Lines: Diagrams and Projects for the City. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1999. Web. Gandelsonas, Mario. The Urban Text. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1991. Print.

Gargiani, Roberto. Rem Koolhaas | OMA: The Construction of Merveilles. New York: EPFL Press, 2008. Print.

Haydn, Florian and Robert Temel. Temporary Urban Spaces: Concepts for the Use of City Spaces. Boston: Birkhäuser, 2006. Print.

Holl, Steven. Urbanisms: Working with Doubt. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2009. Print.

Ito, Toyo. “Architecture in a Simulated City.” Architectural Monographs No 41.

London: Academy Editions, 1995. Print.

Kahn, Louis. Essential Texts. Ed. Robert Twombly. New York: W. W. Norton, 2003. Print.

Koolhaas, Rem. Delirious New York. New York: The Monacelli Press, 1994. Print.

Kwinter, Sanford. Architectures of Time: Toward a Theory of the Event in Modernist Culture. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2001. Print.

Lynch, Kevin. What Time is this Place?. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1972. Print.

Tschumi, Robert. Architecture and Disjunction. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1994. Print.

Virilio, Paul. Open Sky. London: Verso, 1997. Print.

Waldheim, Charles. The Landscape Urbanism Reader. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2006. Print.

RECONNECTING TO THE LAND by Amy Finnerty Corner, James. “Landscraping.” Stalking Detroit. 122-125. Print.

Front Studio. “Farmadelphia.” Presentation Board for Project. N.p., 2005.

Web. 16 May 2011. <http://www.vanalen.org/urbanvoids/gallery/ selected/Finalists/0367_b.pdf>. Web.

references

323

Gandelsonas, Mario. “The Identity of The American City.” X-Urbanism: Architecture and the American City. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1999. Print.

Leatherbarrow, David. Topographical Stories: Studies in Landscape and Architecture. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004. Print.

Mostafavi, Mohsen, and Gareth Doherty. Ecological Urbanism. Harvard University: Lars Muller, 2010. Print.

Reed, Peter, and James Corner. Groundswell. New York, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2005. Print.

Spirn, Anne Whiston. The Granite Garden: Urban Nature and Human Design.

New York: Basic Books, Inc., Publishers, 1984. Print.

Turenscape. “Turenscape.” Nature, Man, and Spirits as One. Turenscape, 2007.

Web. 16 May 2011. <http://www.turenscape.com/english/>. Web. Valdez, Roger. “Filling Urban Voids…With Farms?.” Sightline Daily (2009): n. pag. Web. 16 May 2011. <http://rss.sightline.org/daily_score/ archive/2009/07/17/filling-urban-voids-with-farms>. Web. Waldheim, Charles. The Landscape Urbanism Reader. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2006. Print.

Waldheim, Charles, and Marili Santos-Munné. “Decamping Detroit.” 105-111.

Print.

MULTI-LAYER CITY by Kyle Rogler Abalos, Inaki. Ecological Urbanism. “Verticalism (The Future of the Skyscraper).” Print.

Gandelsonas, Mario. X-Urbanism: Architecture and the American City. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1999. Print.

Girot, Christophe. “Vision in Motion: Representing Landscape in Time.” Print.

Hara, Hiroshi. Yet. Tokyo: TOTO Publishing, 2009. Print.

Holl, Steven. Urbanisms: Working with Doubt. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2009. Print.

Holl, Steven. “Within the City Design Quarterly.” Print.

324 CREDITS

Ingels, Bjarke. Yes is More: An Archicomic on Architectural Evolution.

Evergreen, 2009. Print.

Koolhaas, Rem. Delirious New York. New York: The Monacelli Press, 1994. Print.

MY PLAYGROUND. Dir. Kaspar Astrup Schroder. Perf. Team JiYo, Bjarke Ingels.

KasparWorks, 2009. Web. Randolph, John. Environmental Land Use Planning and Management. NW, Washington, DC: Island Press, 2004. Print.

Reed, Peter, and James Corner. Groundswell. New York, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2005. Print.

Treib, Marc. “Presence of Absence: Places by Extraction.” Print.

United States. Environmental Protection Agency. Arsenic Treatment Technologies for Soil, Water, and Water. September 2002. 1 December 2010. <http://www.clu-in.org/download/remed/542r02004/arsenic_ report.pdf>. Web. United States. Environmental Protection Agency. Phytoremediation Resource Guide. June 1999. 1 December 2010. <http://www.epa.gov/tio/ download/remed/phytoresgude.pdf>. Web. Waterstudio. NL. Projects: Stilthouses. 1 March 2011. <http://www.waterstudio. nl/index.php?option=com_projects&task=view&id=64&short=pa>.

Web.

references

325

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The Kansas City Design Center would like to thank all individuals and institutions who made our studio project and publication possible. We owe each of them a debt of gratitude for their trust and support.

Firstly, the studio would like to extend our gratitude to the William T. Kemper Foundation and Hall Family Foundation. Our success in building public interest in and understanding of urban design issues would be impossible without their generous support.

Our deepest gratitude is extended to the stakeholders and sponsoring institutions; without their generosity and interest in this venture, this project would not have been possible. The following individuals and institutions must be recognized for their support and endorsement: The Central Industrial District Association of Kansas City; Kansas City Industrial Council; Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas and their Director of Planning Rob Richardson; the City of Kansas City, Missouri’s Office of the City Manager, including City Manager Troy Schulte, Assistant to the City Manager Rick Usher, Assistant City Manager Bob Langenkamp, and John DeBauche and Bo Williams in City Planning & Development; Virginia Watson of Watco Resources; Christy Chester of Boyle Meat Company; Tom Roberts of CFM Distributors; David Beaham, Scott Brown, and H. Darby Trotter of Faultless Starch/Bon Ami Company; Monty Summers and Amber Arnett-Bequeaith of Group Real Estate Development and Full Moon Productions; Bill Haw and Bill Haw Jr. of Livestock Exchange; Christopher M. Boland of the Quality Roofing Company; and Dan Reardon of Reardon Pallet Company.

A great debt is owed to the Downtown Council, AIA Kansas City, Mid-America Regional Council, University of Missouri-Kansas City, Kansas City Public Library, Kansas City Port Authority, and the Army Corps of Engineers for their academic and professional support throughout this project.

KCDC is governed by a board of directors who represent our collaborating academic institutions and programs, as well as the local civic and professional communities. A special thanks to Tim de Noble, John Gaunt, Cynthia Frewen-Wuellner, Jonathan M. Kemper, David A. Warm, and Vladimir Krstic.

We would like to thank Tim de Noble, Professor and Dean of the College of Architecture, Planning & Design at Kansas State University and John Gaunt, Professor and Dean of the School of Architecture, Design & Planning at the University of Kansas for their active participation and for having been closely attuned to the development of our project.

The collection of research, analysis, and design proposals expressed in this publication are the collective thinking between faculty and students, various critics and professionals, and stakeholders of the West Bottoms. The critical advice and views of our reviewers provided in-depth knowledge and interpretations that guided our ideas. Special thanks to Blake Belanger, Jason Brody, Bruce Johnson, Doug Stockman, John O’Brien, Charles E. Mader, John DeBauche, Rob Richardson, Rick Usher, Jacob Wagner, Michael Frisch, Torgeir Norheim, Peter Magyar, Michael McGlynn, Nils Gore, Chad Krauss, Shannon Criss, Dominique Davison, David Dowell, Mark Shapiro, Reinhard Kropf, Mauricio Rocha, and Elvis Achelpohl for their interest and participation as reviewers.

In addition, Jeremy Drouin, Christian Cooley, Zach Flanders, Cydney E. Millstein, Murray L. Rhodes, James Wang, Robert Long, Stephen Hardy, and Beena Ramaswami were essential in providing us with a wealth of information and material. Their contribution was vital to the completion of this project.

A final thank you goes to Vladimir Krstic, whose passion and devotion to design and this studio are unyielding. Without his dedication and involvement, this book would not have been possible.

KANSAS CITY DESIGN CENTER

STUDIO MEMBERS

TIM DE NOBLE, AIA | PRESIDENT

SAMANTHA ANDERSON

Professor and Dean, APDesign Kansas State University

Architecture, Kansas State University

JOHN GAUNT, FAIA | VICE PRESIDENT

Architecture, University of Kansas

Professor and Dean, Architecture, Design & Planning University of Kansas

LEANDRA BURNETT

CYNTHIA FREWEN-WUELLNER, FAIA

MEGAN CARROLL

President, Frewen Architects

Architecture, Kansas State University

JONATHAN M. KEMPER

AMY FINNERTY

Vice Chairman, Commerce Bancshares, Inc. Chairman, Commerce Bank, Kansas City Region

Architecture, Kansas State University

DAVID A. WARM

Architecture, University of Kansas

Executive Director Mid-America Regional Council

JESSE HUSMANN

VLADIMIR KRSTIC Interim Director, Kansas City Design Center Professor, APDesign Kansas State University

EMILY BAIZE

Architecture, University of Kansas

CHRISTIAN HINTON

Architecture, Kansas State University

CHRISTOPHER KOCH Architecture, University of Kansas

ALEXANDRA MILLER Interior Architecture, Kansas State University

SARAH MURPHY Architecture, University of Kansas

DANIEL NIXON Architecture, University of Kansas

JARED NOOK Architecture, University of Kansas

ALYSSA PARSONS Architecture, Kansas State University

SARAH PINK Architecture, Kansas State University

JESSICA RICE Architecture, Kansas State University

KYLE ROGLER Architecture, Kansas State University

STEPHANIE SCHULZ Architecture, University of Kansas

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