Appropriating Infrastructure

Appropriating Infrastructure RECONTEXTUALIZING PUBLIC SPACE AND INNOVATION IN A CONTEMPORARY URBAN PARK

CHRIS M A S S E Y MOLLY D A L S I N A N N A MAHNKE

Appropriating Infrastructure

RECONTEXTUALIZING PUB

The Delmar Mill complex is a site of historical and contemporary consequence. In its years of operation from 1910-1960, its performance was one that prominently fueled the economic growth of the Twin Cities. Now dormant in the service of grain, the colossal structures loom silently over the forgotten landscape, neither remote nor interwoven with the fabric of the city. This dissonance enables a new mode of architectural intervention and a shift in traditional programming. Thus, the proposal for a contemporary urban park reinterprets the historic SEMI mills complex as both provocative public space and dynamic innovation district.

By appropriating the historical infrastructure, the urban park enables exploration, activism, and interaction between people, structures, and nature. Fundamental to the complex is the public space, including procession, appropriation spaces, and spectacle as tools to recreate the mill’s cultural stakes. The complexity and precarious nature instilled in the existing structures translates experiences, understandings, and meanings of history, culture, and contemporary attitudes to the urban park. The layering of meaning, interpretation, and subsequent mental state makes the architecture difficult to resolve, but it is exactly this multiplicity that make the building and the program relevant today. In complement to the public park, an innovation infrastructure is proposed, focused around elasticity, evolution, and a density of disciplines and cultures. The goal is to synthesize the city, the community, and the innovation district to form a contemporary urban park that no form of digital technology, corporate office space, existing public plaza or classroom can match.

B L I C S PA C E A N D I N N O V A T I O N I N A C O N T E M P O R A R Y U R B A N PA R K

CHRIS MASSEY M O L LY DA L S I N ANNA MAHNKE

1870 Minneapolis | 13,000 people

1890 Minneapolis | 165,000 people

1925 - 1931

1913

ADM “Delmar � elevators built and become p

Prospect Park Water Tower built 1952

1860 - 1920 mass railroad growth (by 1920 - 29 railways)

Early industry supported lumber and flour milling Stored ex-

U of M

Glendale Housing Proje

1920 - 1950

Height of the industry Began to diversify products to account for further growth in

DT Minneapolis

6

8

1 92

2000’s

part of the largest grain elevator facility

ect – city’s first postwar public housing project

UMN expands east with TCF Bank Stadium and biotech buildings

2001

2014

City of Minneapolis SEMI master plan | Cunningham group

Surly Brewery completed

1960's

2012

2013

Mills and railroad transport declined

Solomon Atta: The Other Life of Silos Thesis

UMN MDC proposal for SEMI

GDIII Graduate Urban Design Studio Proposals

Population moved to suburbs, many businesses left the area

MN Train tracks and structures begin being demolished

Empty spaces used as parking lots

HGA : Surly Brewing

Solomon Atta: The Other Life of Silos Thesis

3 57 4

St. Paul

MDC : SEMI PROPOSAL

4

Public Park | Appropriation |

Experiential | Exploratory | Implicit

Negotiated | Appropriation | Temporal | Workspace |

Functional

Resources | Functional

| Efficient |

Spontaneous | Implicit

Multidisciplinary | Exploratory

| Efficient | Explicit

How much do you design to promote appropriation and innovation? What is the needed infrastructure?

N at u re + I n f ras t r u c tu re Existing structures are seen as a system or complex of infrastructure rather than as buildings within a landscape.

1

2

3

Designed Appropriation Spaces

6

7

8

9

Perceptual Moments

Human scale interventions of potent experimental moments-- most of which are remnants of a no longer relevant function: shear cylindrical silo walls rising with a spot of light at the top, the ninth level of the workhouse with two massive holes in the floor and no place of security, and the scalelessness silos themselves framing a view of the equally scaleless city.

Path

Path: connecting all the previous interventions, most significantly sequencing perceptual moments but as well as appropriation spaces and nature and infrastructure. This is a system and intervention scaled to that of an entire complex. The intervention creates topography and evokes exploration for a more provocative public space.

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M D M Te a m m e m b e r s Chris Massey : GD2 MArch candidate 2016. St. Olaf College 2013 graduate majoring in Studio Art.

Molly Dalsin : GD2 MArch candidate 2016. University of Wisconsin Madison 2010 graduate majoring in Chemistry and Biochemistry

Anna Mahnke : GD2 MArch candidate 2016. t. Olaf College 2012 graduate majoring in Studio Art.