Privatopolis Urban Design Strategies for Sauget-East St. Louis, IL by MIT DUSP

PRIVATOPOLIS

Urban Design Strategies for Sauget-East St. Louis, IL Professor Brent D. Ryan, Shrinking Cities Studio School of Architecture + Planning Spring 2012

We would like to recognize ExxonMobil Environmental Services for their support of this project.

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con text ind us try

wa ste

en er gy 36 eco lo gy

40 38 46 proj

42 48 bios

ect ions

49 res

our ces

context

auget, IL, is both an extreme urban phenomenon and a prototypical American city. Located across the Mississippi River from St. Louis, MO, it was incorporated in 1926 by the agricultural giant Monsanto. For decades, it supported St. Louis’ industrial economy, serving as its manufacturing center, recycling station, and dump. Its plentiful industrial and railroad jobs helped populate residential cities to the north, such as East St. Louis, IL. At the turn of the century, St. Louis was the fourth largest city in the United States. Today, it has lost more than 50 percent of its population since its high in 1950. East St. Louis has a devastating unemployment rate of around 20 percent, and 30 percent of its residents live below the poverty rate. However, while its neighbors have shrunk in size and wealth, Sauget has prospered. Although its population hovers at 159 citizens, Sauget’s police and fire force out-perform East St. Louis’ and its tax base is high. Sauget has succeeded in part because of its willingness to accept land uses unwanted by other cities, such as chemical manufacturing plants and other noisy and toxic industrial functions, an abundance of strip clubs, and large live music destinations. Similarly, Sauget has avoided most of the violence and scandal that

has plagued the East St. Louis region. In 2010, the mayor of nearby Washington Park was shot dead while coming home from his second job at the sanitation district. This year, the mayor of Alorton was indicted for trying to sell drugs confiscated from one of his citizens. While Sauget has largely dodged scandal, it has its own idiosyncrasies: the city is so named after the family dynasty that has governed it since its incorporation. The Sauget family also owns many local establishments ranging from a 24/7 hour nightclub to an eponymous landfill. While this environment may seem extreme, in many ways it is the prototypical ‘free market’ ex-urban condition. Sauget has come to define a certain type of American urban form: the industrial suburb in transition. The site examined in this studio is a former oil refinery and transfer station that was decommissioned in the early 1990s. Over the last two decades, ecological processes have reclaimed portions of the site, shrouding it in a second-growth forest. This year, demolitions began on the last remaining structures on the east tank farm as the owner prepares to sell the site. Towards that end, this studio was charged

with envisioning possible futures of this site, with the added challenge of abstaining from residential programs for safety reasons. The following proposals are the result of a semester’s worth of research and design iterations. During this process, we developed a fascination with this American urban condition. We have great optimism for the future of this site, and the many others like it, to embody new ideals in industry, waste and recycling, energy creation, and ecology.

n February 2012, the studio conducted research on 20 aspects of the East St. Louis region, including historical, geographical, and infrastructural phenomena. The flood plain conditions of the American Bottom formed the basis for our thinking about the susceptibility of the site to pollution and flooding. Another dominating landscape feature of this region is its loss of physical infrastructure and population. We also noted the importance of the industrial legacy of the site, including an incredible rail network and a density of industrial polluters. Finally, challenging social realities characterize the region, including stark racial segregation and political disinvestment. Highlights from this research can be found on the following pages. Additional mappings can be viewed on the studio website, privatopolis.mit.edu.

LANDSCAPE regional flood zones

project site: Sauget, IL Illinois River

Mississippi River

Missouri River

unprotected land St. Clair County flood zones Madison County flood zones provisional flood zones

above: river confluence, 1991; below: during the flood of 1993

PHYSICAL DISINVESTMENT urban growth + shrinkage

1947

2012

housing values $1,000,000 or more $500,000-$1,000,000 $250,000-$500,000 $100,000-$250,000 $50,000-$100,000 $25,000-$50,000

United States

St. Louis Region

East St. Louis Region

East St. Louis City

less than $25,000

INDUSTRY American industrial suburbs rail lines §

2̈70

areas near a major industrial city, waterway and state borders; with access to rail + raw material; and which are politically and economically dominated by a single firm or industry

Philadelphia + MRS

Camden

§7̈0

OUT OF SERVICE EXXON MOBIL SITE

7̈0

Cincinnati

Covington

St. Louis East St. Louis

Chicago

Gary

POLITICAL + SOCIAL CONTEXT racial segregation

African American Caucasian

timeline of regional scandals

of environmental pollution, changes name of town to that of longtime mayor, Leo Sauget

1968

Sauget Mayor Paul Sauget is deposed after a scandal of “fiscal indiscretions involving toxic waste

excessive debt

and women’s underwear”

for the second time in five years, citing only $50,000 in assets and over $1 million in debt

Washington Park Mayor John Thornton is shot dead while driving home from an overnight shift at his second job at the Metro East Sanitation District

1980

2004

2009

2010

Monsanto,

embarrassed by growing accusations

the state of Illinois appoints a financial advisory board to manage the finances of East St. Louis in exchange for a bailout of the city’s

Alvin Parks

Mayor of East St. Louis

Washington Park files for bankruptcy

John Thornton

Former Washington Park Mayor

Cahokia Mayor Frank Bergman ends his term by stealing city

property and ransacking his office, then receives political appointment at St. Clair County

2011

Frank Bergman

Former Cahokia Mayor

Alorton Mayor Randy McCallum resigns and pleads guilty to federal charges that he used seized money for personal benefit and attempted to sell

seized crack-cocaine

2012

Randy McCallum

Former Alorton Mayor

industry 1

he urban and ex-urban areas in the St. Louis Region, like so many other shrinking cities, have suffered hard economic losses in their post-industrial transitions. At the end of a long period marked by environmental contamination and labor exploitation, our society now has the opportunity to re-envision a cleaner future economy that is also socially viable. Industry can and should remain at the center of our national economy, but the shape it may take for the next generation of American workers is unclear. The Sauget site, an old oil refinery seeking new use, can be seen as a microcosm of this national narrative. It presents a unique opportunity to think innovatively about how to sustainably evolve the industrial tradition of the region and the nation. It is imperative to the local economy that the land’s productive use be reinvigorated, and in the process set a precedent for similarly struggling markets beyond the immediate vicinity. That said, the conception of what constitutes a

“productive landscape” will have to be similarly challenged and rethought, in conjunction with the industries and facilities reliant on that landscape. Shrinking cities, with their underutilized land and facilities and their low employment rates, are ideal locations to explore these new industrial revolutions. Here in Sauget and in other areas like it, human capital, vacant lands, and industrial byproducts can be viewed as untapped resources to assist the transition to a new urban-friendly industrial economy—one that people can be proud to work in and live near. Industry is such a central and defining characteristic of the St. Louis area that any future vision of this site and its surrounds must embrace it. Though the following two projects presented in this chapter explicitly address new ideas about industry, all the work in this publication is heavily influenced by these ideas, as any future vision for sites like this one should be.

DATA LANDSCAPES Andres Bernal, Micah Davison

This project seeks to identify new modes of industrial profitability in the context of Sauget. It addresses the economic transition away from heavy industry, while also seeking to provide attainable jobs for East St. Louis residents. The project proposes a series of data centers and a light manufacturing district set within a publicly accessible open space. The data centers are embedded into the ground in order to maximize natural cooling while also creating dynamic topography. The manufacturing district is envisioned as a cluster of multi-tenant buildings configured to encourage rapid cooperative fulfillment of component requests. The entire project is set within a district energy system that harvests waste heat from the data centers and reduces energy costs for the manufacturing buildings. The site configuration allows for expansion of both data centers and the manufacturing district if market conditions are favorable.

regional clustering

clustering advantages single company output

cooperative output

multiple components request

site synergies

open space cooperative industry

data centers

fiber networks + recently built data centers

downtown 2007-2012

site proposal

schneider electric 2009

savvis 2007

site plan

sample caption text

district energy diagram

program diagram

park, data center, cooperative industry, and context

sculpture park

St. Louis Building Arts Foundation connects with proposed sculpture park

data centers dashed lines suggest future expansion

cooperative industry

multi-tenant

20,000 sf

multi-tenant

single-tenant

14,000 sf

8,000 sf

typical building area + flexible tenant layout new POD Server Technology in 50-foot-grid bar building

RESEARCH & RESOURCE RECOVERY LABS Rudy Dieudonne

Research and Resource Recovery Labs (R-Cubed) proposes a series of laboratory spaces that pioneer machines and systems designed to convert waste to solid fuel. It also functions as an educational and research facility, inventing new approaches towards waste management, material recovery, and integration of recycled materials into everyday uses. R-Cubed engages the broader East St. Louis community through the process of demolition recovery. Through this process, programs such as lab spaces and tool storage are placed within shipping containers, which are installed near abandoned homes and buildings within the shrinking East St. Louis fabric. Workers from the facility deconstruct these abandoned structures, harvest reusable building materials like wood and metal, and load them into the adjacent containers, which are then transported back to the facility to be reincorporated into the broader recovery process. Through these related yet distinct functions, the facility is designed to provide space for the broader public. Gardens encourage gathering, discussion, and display of the new products and processes being pioneered at R-Cubed.

emerging social factors to address education

solution 1: vocational school

job security

poverty resource management

solution 2: resource recovery facility

solution 3: research laboratory

vocational schools

site plan development

site plan

Phoenix University School of Beauty Fight Training Aviation School

recycling dropoff site current recycling dropoff site proposed areas

collect waste

recycling facilities

vacant lots vacant lots constitute possible locations of intervention

recycling facilities

the 3 wings of the facility

site possibilities

educational wing

abandoned homes

waste management

laboratory wing

cargo configuration

playground

garden space

housing redevelopment

redevelopment of East St. Louis

housing

business

commercial

demolition recovery process

R-Cubed

fabrication

transportation

installation on site

transportation of reusable material

drop off material at R-Cubed

waste 2

auget Mayor Rich Sauget describes his city as St. Louis’ sewer. What can we make of this? Seen through one lens, our site is yet another vacant industrial parcel on the periphery of a shrinking city. But the Sauget site is also part of a grand narrative, a product of the global shift in the way things are manufactured and recycled. Deindustrialization marked the outsourcing of scrap byproducts in addition to labor: in 2010 waste metal and paper was the No. 1 export to China and India. The following two projects alter this narrative by proposing regional and national centers for innovation in scrap recycling and manufacturing. They also propose that these functions have a pedagogical purpose. Kevin Lynch wrote of the educational value of waste: “Wherever possible, we look for ways of

making wasting a positive experience. We can begin with those pleasures that wasting already affords: the strong sensations of destruction, of soiling and cleaning, of shabbiness and backsides, of moving on and using up, of reusing old material and seeing new patterns in it, of appreciating historic depth, age, maturity, and decay. Wasting things could be as valued and interesting as making and consuming them” (Wasting Away, 1990). The following two proposals envision how this site can transform waste into a valued commodity while cleansing the St. Louis landscape. They posit that if the recycling process is made visible and treated as an educational resource for the public, then perhaps we can encourage a more holistic vision of manufacturing and recycling through urban design.

TRANSFER STATION

connected globally

local waste ecology

connected nationally

Midori Mizuhara, Anna Muessig

Mississippi barge traffic is one of the primary routes for scrap metal, paper, and e-waste to flow from North America to newly industrializing countries, such as China and India, who produce this refuse into commodities we then import. This is a market failure as well as a failure of imagination. Transfer Station aims to remedy this situation by closing the loop in our global waste flow. It is a new regional recycling hub, designed to accommodate a large volume of different types of recyclable material. Inspired by the plentiful rail network that marks the East St. Louis region, Transfer Station takes a recycling process normally stacked or coiled and stretches it horizontally. Recycling cars specializing in the breakdown of different materials populate the site according to market needs, allowing for great flexibility. As material is transformed in this circuit, the public mirrors this process in their own ‘parklette’ cars. The entire St. Louis Region shares this visual access through the sorting and shredding tower, a monumental answer to St. Louis’ Gateway Arch. Transfer Station creates a new economic engine and educational experience from an urban design proposition that celebrates reuse and domestic manufacturing.

2̈70

scrap exported

highway

products imported §7̈0

current scrap metal flow

train §

7̈0

proposed modification

scrap production

freight river train highway

Sauget scrap recovery

river

product distribution

why sauget? ALUMINUM

COPPER

E-WASTE

WAGES

• highly recyclable: 2/3 of aluminum that has ever been produced is still in existence

• $3.7/lb of recycled product • found in gutted housing from plumbing and electrical wiring

• 35¢/lb for hard drives • $2.8/lb for memory chips • RAM/CPUs, gold fingers, circuit boards are recyclable

• $64k - city scrap metal • $44k - wholesale and distribution

• ideal location • STL is regional scrap cluster • Sauget is already home to lots • few complaints about new ind • ESL is desperately in need of e

circulation raw scrap producer

metal manufacturing car salvage scrap metal commercial waste

site plan

materials

recycling facility metal electronics pallets zinc refrigerant

shredding tower sorting melting/casting manufacturing packaging/storage green citizen/learning center

+ MRS

OUT OF SERVICE EXXON MOBIL SITE

landfill

GREEN CITIZEN

DROP OFF

transfer station

visitor

TPU

OU PICKUP / DROP OFF

INPUT

highway

PACKAGE / STORE

SHRED

R 350

SORT

MILES

MANUFACTURE

CAST

PICKUP DROP OFF

employee

s of industrial activity dustrial activity economic activity 1:2500

CONNECTION TO ADJACENT RAIL

EXXON PARCELS

linear recycing

CRUSH

WASH

SORT

MELT

COOL

CAST

PROCESS

RECYCLING PROCESSES Take a vertical process and stretch it horizontal

CRUSH

crush

PROCESSES process and stretch crush raw scrap it metal ishorizontal crushed sort and sorted in vertical machine wash melt cool cast process

sort

SORT

crushed metal is sorted and quality controlled by hand

wash

metal is de-lacquered and cleansed of impurities

separated uses

flexible factory • recycling and manufacturing cars arranged on circuit of heavy rail allow for flexible recycling processes to be easily reprogrammed as necessary

recycling lab

public walkway

• cars reconfigure with influx of different recycled metal, approximately once every 3-6 months public entrance

• integrated rail circuit allows for raw and manufactured product to easily re-enter product stream • linear process allows for public viewing

recycling cars

public traincar entrance + overlook

recycling cars

WASH

LWAYS

visitor experience

SHELL PLAY CARS

MATERIAL RECYCLING CARS

melt

MELT

cool

COOL

cast RAIL

metal is melted down and cooled so it can be cast into billets and other raw forms for manufacturers

never shell, rail rarely recycling cars always material, public cars

CAST

PROCESS

process

metal is hot-rolled, cold-rolled, or pressed into extrusions, ready to use

scrap input

output commodity

from foundries: grindings • spills • slag • dross • flashings • ferrous scrap (w/iron): auto bodies • demo scrap • industrial scrap • bushelig • non-ferrous scrap: aluminum • copper • copper alloys • copper wilres • stainless steel

structural metal: rebar • expanded metal • simple extrusions • raw material: billets • ingot • slabs

daily input: 350 tons/day,

100,000 tons/year

VIA: truck, barge, rail

daily output: 580 tons/day = 20-30 standard containers

RECYCLED LANDSCAPES

existing waste typologies

Colleen McHugh

The landscape of East St. Louis is vehicles VEHICLES sparse: some blocks have three or fewer houses, vacant plots of overgrown weeds sit next to unkempt public parks, structures sink toward the earth due to years of disrepair. These spaces have become unofficial TIREtires PILES VEHICLES receptacles for waste, particularly scrap vehicles and tires. This project catalogues these spaces and proposes a two-fold TIRE PILES VEHICLES neighborhood outreach plan for integrating these dumping grounds into a networked waste system. Dispersed collection sites act as systematized drop-off locations for scrap tires. On the remaining lots, phytoremediation is used as a strategy for mitigating further dumping. The Sauget site itself acts as a centralized receptor, vertically integrating the vehicle recycling process. Scrap tires are filtered through the site and used as a productive material to bolster failing local infrastructure. Scrap metal from the site is sold to regional contractors. Scrap tire materials have a range of potential uses in their second life. This project identifies needs in the regional built environment and proposes solutions using locally sourced recycled tires as building materials. Recycled Landscapes provides a model for urban waste and recycling as a community asset rather than an intractable liability.

TIRE PILES

DEBRIS

neighborhood wooded area

backyard of vacant home

vacant industrial site DEBRIS

debris DEBRIS

adjacent to other waste site

vehicle recycling facility

back lot of in-use building

a new waste network

collection

abatement

abatement sites: phytoremediation strategy

collection sites: modular tire racks

process

phytoremediation fields

shredder

salvage yard

elevated research facility

tire shreds

scrap metal

fluff

2nd growth forest as barrier / remediation

elevated research center

waste as infrastructure before

vacant lots, polluted soils

unsafe sites

unmaintained playfields

unmaintained streets

insufficient levees

after

raised urban farming beds

capping unsafe structures

low-maintenance play surfaces

sidewalks, road paving, and drainage

structural support in civil engineering

energy 3

nergy is the foundation of our modern way of life and an essential component of any economy. Indeed, its availability at affordable prices is one of the key driving forces behind this country’s prosperity. The current energy challenge, then, is not just environmental and technological, but also social and economic. MIT is positioned at the fore of the energy revolution, using a multidisciplinary approach that brings together scientists, engineers, economists, architects, planners, and social scientists. The MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI) combines research, education, campus energy management, and outreach activities that address energy supply and demand, security, and environmental impact. The program merges industry with academia, blending real-world experience and research to usher in a new era of energy systems. Today, America faces many energyrelated challenges. As we look to explore new, alternative energies, we must also continue to strive to improve those we

currently rely on. One way to do this within the context of disinvestment is through waste-to-energy systems. With its excess waste and sparse landscape, the St. Louis region— and particularly East St. Louis— is well-disposed towards this type of investigation. Through energy technologies, the area’s negative products are transformed into positive assets. In this way, trash can become energy, but also, a damaged national reputation of pollution and unsustainable industry can take its first steps towards improvement. If shrinking cities can become centers of energy innovation, generating new resources rather than merely depleting them, they could become productive and vital once again. Perhaps we might then discover a more socially just future, as well as a more energy efficient, environmentally responsible one. The current energy crisis may ultimately reveal long-sought solutions to problems much broader in scope.

RE-ENERGIES

Jocelyn Drummond, Bernard Harkless, Kari Milchman In an ex-urban landscape marked by vacancy, waste and dumping, and questionable industry, Re-Energies is both site-specific and regional. It combines three originally distinct schemes—a waste-to-energy facility, composting plant, and urban agriculture research facility—that each benefit from its proximity to the others. The waste-to-energy facility responds to the impending closure of two local landfills. The scheme forms an energy network between the site and a water turbine that harnesses power from the Mississippi River for an existing incinerator that will then produce energy for the new facility. Waste is sourced from landfills and illegal dumpsites, transformed into power that supports all on-site operations, and sold at a discount throughout the city.

proposed interventions

unsolved problems

products

discounted power to ESL

high power costs

power to Sauget Business Park

landfills near capacity poor sanitation services vacancy + disinvestment unsustainable agriculture

electricity

community gardens in ESL

compost

compost sold for profit

research

sustainable agriculture practices environmental + health benefits

programmatic relationships water turbine

Veolia services plant

ESL homes

landfills + dumpsites

The composting plant sources biowaste from the greater St. Louis region and sells compost to the area’s agribusinesses. A portion is donated to a pilot community garden program established in vacant parcels and maintained by community development corporations. The scheme also offers the opportunity to learn about the composting process and gardening techniques through an observation and education area.

Sauget Business Park

waste-to-energy plant

sorting facility

regional biowaste

ESL community gardens

composting facility

electricity waste

urban agriculture research facility

compost

Lastly, the research facility strives to establish a sustainable agricultural model for the future, thereby supplanting the industrial approach taken by the multinational biotechnology corporation Monsanto, after which the town of Sauget was originally named. The facility features a vertical farm and several greenhouses. It utilizes compost produced next door, and represents a departure from the historically strict division between big industry and food-related systems.

economic + social byproducts

power network

water turbines

Veolia ES plant

waste-to-energy plant

other site facilities

Sauget Business Park and ESL homes

east st. louis waste sources

site Veolia ES markets restaurants municipal waste sources vacant parcels water highways

commercial district

illegal dumping grounds

Milam Landfill

form + function

site plan

CONTEXT

waste-to-energy facility

PROGRAM

compost facility urban agriculture r+d

steam

composting + waste-to-energy space plans

electricity FLOW OF MATERIALS ash

1. waste collection + storage

waste

2. composting 3. unloading

compost

4. observation 5. incineration 6. turbine energy generation

waste flow steam flow electricity flow public access compost flow

water

1 VEHICULAR CIRCULATION public access

authorized access

compost facility courtyard

regional benefits

input/output site site vacant parcels dump sites municipal solid waste

dump sitesparcels vacant commercial areasareas commercial

300 tons biowaste

2,000 tons municipal solid waste

127 tons compost

60,000 killowatts electricity

existing community gardens existing gardens proposed community gardens proposed gardens

power network power network

Bolden Park

Jones Park

urban agriculture

aeroponics

nutrients

soil-free air or mist environment

aquaponics

pump

filter

fish tank

water-based mineral nutrient solutions

hydroponics

manifold

return drain

pump

terraced r+d landscape

fertilization by natural fish emulsion

ecology 4

he concept of ecology may seem paradoxical in the industrial context of Sauget. Common ideas about the systems that underlay our built environment conceive of “nature” as something incompatible with intensive human uses like heavy industry. However, in removing the possibility of ecological function from these sites, we preclude any true long-term visioning. The following two projects looked at the ecological functions of the Sauget site with particular interest in flooding and remediation. The act of remediation is not only a practical litigious concern, but also a broader conceptual framework for restoring and reclaiming the landscape for its many possible futures. By remediating the Sauget site, the owners acknowledge responsibility for their past, but implicitly acknowledge optimism for better, more responsible future uses. The environmental and psychological proximity of the Mississippi River holds

particular relevance for our site. The American Bottom is a historic floodplain, pocketed with remnant ponds from previous river shifts and shielded from future flooding by an intensive levee system that has historically failed in catastrophic fashion. The 20th century has been marked by an increasing insistence on keeping the river stationary, channelized, and controlled, necessities for this important industrial corridor. This control is tenuous, though, and should not be taken for granted when envisioning long-term futures for our site. Contemporary Sauget is seen as an industrial landscape, but hardly an ecological one. The following two projects argue that it is not only possible but imperative for these two functions to be combined. They challenge, redefine, and broaden the notion of ‘productive landscape’ to include not only presentday economic concerns but also sustainable social and ecological futures.

OPEN RESTORE: AMERICAN BOTTOM Katie Lorah, Gilad Rosenzweig

Open Restore: American Bottom is an integrative, multi-scalar approach to regional remediation. The scheme responds to the fragmented ecology of the industrial American Bottom, where widespread deforestation, manufacturing and transportation infrastructure, and heavy soil contamination have relegated ecological function to small, disconnected patches. The system is both site-centric and regional in scale. The Sauget site itself is re-envisioned as a new kind of preserve for “slow-pace” repair of native ecologies and micromigrations, while simultaneously functioning as a hub for the active remediation of ecological contaminants from sites around the region in an industrial process called “soil-washing.” An overlay of public programs invites local and larger communities to observe and play an active part in the region’s restoration. An integrated, seven-mile-long toxic emissions pathway system stretches from soil contamination the Mississippi River to the bluffs at the region’s eastern edge, reconnecting the site with its larger surroundings and crosscutting the industrial landscape to reveal American Bottom: a landscape of industrial contamination processes usually hidden from view. Ecological elements—groves of native trees and plants, modular greenery pathway attachments, and habitat interventions for pollinators, birds, and other fauna—line the pathway and disperse into the broader environment. The result is a landscape of greater ecological connection, where the region’s endemic function can gradually reclaim the industrial landscape. soil contamination as a pervasive byproduct of industry

infrastructure transforms from barrier to connector

project scope: from river to bluffs, with the Sauget site along the path

view from the Gateway Arch: relinking isolated ecological zones

elevated railpath

signage

2 mile

_gateway to the pedestrian path _information and service facilities

1 mile

metrorail station

under interstate

path variations

railfanning walk 3 mile

American Bottom as ecological and social connector

East St. Louis

ESL patch

ro nt Patch

switching yards

St. Louis

rf ve

Solutia factory

Mississippi connection

public use overlays ecological function, encouraging participatory restoration

restored wetland

native plant nursery

community workshop

living fence

permeable crossings

100 year outlook

5 mile

a regional scheme

4 mile

overpass

6 mile

pathway lighting

interstate patch

attachment of ecological elements to pathway N

Centerville

bluff pavilion

_gateway to the pedestrian path _information and service facilities _parking _connection to conservation zone

Sauget business park

forest clusters

attracting pollinators

secondary paths

ecoinfrastructure

the path crosscuts the landscape, revealing industrial and ecological processes

REMEDIATION LANDFORMS Kristen Zeiber

The American Bottom region is flat, flood-prone, and dotted with monumental manmade topography: the Cahokia mounds, remnants of a pre-Columbian city; contrasted with the current industrial landscape of earthen levees and industrial spoil piles. The act of remediating the contaminated soil below our site necessitates a certain amount of earthwork. Current remediation techniques are reliant on both the levels of contamination and the future use of the site. But what if future uses were likewise influenced by the current methods for remediation? In a site with little current market such land may lay fallow for years or decades above the slowly biodegrading hydrocarbon plumes; monitoring wells could be replaced by a distinctly spaced and systematically evolving forest. Such land could also become a larger dumping ground for other excavated industrial soils in the heavily contaminated region. Once capped and planted, these new mounds consolidate much toxic land into a monumental public space, bringing the two eras of American Bottom landform building back into dialogue. Rather than a fixed formal park, the project becomes a proposal for flexible landforming processes with time as its variable: a series of formal remnants of an industrial clean-up that become both signage for the progress of the site back into the larger ecosystem, and, in the long term, a curious series of monuments awaiting future social and public meanings.

hydrocarbon plume over time 1940 flood of 1927

1993

levee building

2002

Cahokia mounds

2008

industrial spoil pile

2011

the Mississippi River, flooding, and landform building

remediation process as landform generator

layers of landforms on site

PATHS

MOUND

TREES

WELLS

WALLS

BERMS

BASE

PLUME

ROCK

site analysis tank farm

refining byproducts

refinery tank farm tank farm

former use

landfilling + capping

gasoline + diesel; BTEX

monitored biodegradation excavation

gasoline + diesel; BTEX

projected contamination

remediation strategies

monitoring well grid mound

slurry wall permeable barrier

containment strategies

phytoremediation barrier

berm spacing

formal datum

site section progressions

+10 yrs

+25 yrs

reforestation

monitoring wells are replaced with trees, creating a forest that registers underground process

+100 yrs

remediation processes result in chronologically-scaled shifts across the next century or more

projections

his site is not unique. Vacancy in industrial suburbs is a widespread American condition, especially as cities in the so-called Rust Belt and elsewhere continue to lose jobs and population. The potential to intervene in similar transitional sites is an exciting challenge for urban designers.

These sites also represent a new urban frontier. While their constraints are many, they lack the physical obstructions that often dictate urban design outcomes in dense metropolitan settings. This freedom to design in an urban context within a vacant parcel is a great opportunity for both formal and programmatic experimentation.

Former industrial sites have the potential to change public perception around often-maligned functions such as recycling, agribusiness, and remediation processes. Embedding educational experiences within these former industrial sites speaks to the growing public interest in open source, transparent processes, and could engender a greater understanding and appreciation of how formerly industrial land is repurposed, cleansed, and put back to work.

Finally, sites representing industries of the past are ideal places to locate industries of the future. The innovative evolutions of traditional industries such as agriculture, manufacturing, energy production, waste management, and environmental remediation presented in this book have incredible power to mark these sites not as post-industrial wastelands, but instead as new opportunistic frontiers of innovation.

ANDRES BERNAL was born and raised in Bogotá, Colombia. He moved to Boston by way of Liverpool, and attended the Boston Architectural College (BAC), where he received a Bachelor in Architecture. Before graduate school, Andres worked for CBT Architects as a project designer on multifamily housing, student housing, student centers, and other typologies. He also taught advanced architectural studios at the BAC and co-founded a design collaborative called OZIIO. Andres is currently pursuing a Masters in Architecture and Urbanism at MIT.

BERNARD HARKLESS graduated from the University of Virginia with a degree in Architecture and minors in Philosophy and Urban Planning. After graduation, he worked for Clark Construction Group, LLC, managing the on-site compliance of contractor work. Past projects include the Shakespeare Theatre Harman Center for the Arts and the George Mason University Academic VI/ Research II project. Bernard is now working towards dual Masters in City Planning and Real Estate Development.

MIDORI MIZUHARA was born in Tokyo and grew up in Los Angeles, CA. After receiving her BArch at the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) in 2007, she worked as an architectural designer and project manager at Atelier Hitoshi Abe, Los Angeles. Projects include the new campus for Vienna University of Economics and Business, affordable housing in New Orleans for the Make It Right Foundation, and Little Tokyo Design Week: Future City, a collaborative arts festival in Downtown Los Angeles.

MICAH DAVISON is interested in reinvigorating post-industrial cities as productive landscapes where real, physical “stuff” is made and not simply consumed. His approach to this issue spans the realms of built form, social capital, and economic development. Prior to studying urban planning at MIT, he completed a degree in urban geography from Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, where he also worked in the public school system and interned at a planning firm. He likes cats, music, philosophy and exploring new places.

KATIE LORAH is a Masters in City Planning student in the City Design and Development group. Prior to coming to MIT, she spent six years as head of communications for Friends of the High Line, the nonprofit that preserved, built, and maintains New York City’s elevated-railroad-turned-park. Katie holds a B.A. in urban planning and journalism from NYU’s Gallatin School. Her planning interests include participatory and alternative urban design models, nonprofit strategic planning, and water and flood management.

ANNA MUESSIG grew up in Minneapolis, MN. She researches the role of artists in cities, with a special interest in how they can play a role in a revived manufacturing economy. Prior to coming to MIT for her Master in City Planning, Anna worked in New York as a fundraiser, funder, curator, and project manager at Creative Time and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts. She co-founded Nuit Blanche New York, which produces outdoor site-specific light and projection experiences. Anna holds a B.A. in Urban Studies from Vassar College.

RUDY DIEUDONNE became a Masters of Architecture student at MIT in 2010 after receiving his Bachelors of Design with a minor in Mass Communications from the University of Florida. He was born and raised in Miami, and is a first generation Haitian American. In addition to architecture, Rudy’s interests include graphic design, photography, and journalism. He strives to use these skills to address social issues in developing countries and in the United States.

COLLEEN MCHUGH hails from San Francisco, where she most recently worked as a photographer and intern at an urban planning and policy think tank. Colleen studied geography and globalization at UCLA, focusing on new models of citizenship in the global city. As a Masters in City Planning student in the City Design and Development group, Colleen is interested in exploring issues of urban resiliency, particularly as they relate to disaster mitigation.

GILAD ROSENZWEIG is a professional architect with more than a decade of experience in the residential, commercial, and industrial real estate sectors. More recently, he has turned his focus to urban planning with a specialization in transportation. Gilad has a M.Arch from the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, in London. Originally from Toronto, Canada, he is most recently based in Tel Aviv, Israel.

JOCELYN DRUMMOND is a first year Master in City Planning student in the City Design and Development Group. She has a B.A. in Architecture from Princeton University and has worked for a community organization on the West Side of Chicago and as a New York City Urban Fellow with the Department of Transportation. Jocelyn is interested in the intersection of urban design and community development, and enjoyed exploring the design possibilities for a post-industrial American economy in the Shrinking Cities studio.

KARI MILCHMAN has a background in the fine and performing arts, and has worked as a writer/editor for the New York Press, New York magazine, and other publications. At MIT, she is pursuing a Master in City Planning and Certificate in Urban Design. Kari’s research focuses on the potential of affordable housing models to address issues of middle-class displacement. Her experience in the Shrinking Cities studio inspired a greater interest in the implications of culturallyled urban regeneration for lower-income groups.

KRISTEN ZEIBER is a student in MIT’s post-professional Architecture Studies program, with a focus on urban design and planning and particular interests in social justice and interdisciplinary design. Before MIT, she worked in Mississippi for more than four years at the Gulf Coast Community Design Studio, and has dabbled here and there in woodworking and design/build projects. She has a professional degree in architecture from Penn State University, and probably too many crafty hobbies.

STUDIO INSTRUCTOR

LINKS + RESOURCES

BRENT D. RYAN is Assistant Professor in Urban Design and Public Policy in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His MIT research focuses on emerging urban design paradigms in postindustrial cities and neighborhoods. His first book, Design After Decline: How America Rebuilds Shrinking Cities, was published in 2012 by the University of Pennsylvania Press. Brent has worked as a city planner and urban designer in the New York City, Boston, and Chicago. From 2007 to 2009, he was Assistant Professor of Urban Planning at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, and from 2002 to 2007 he was Assistant Professor of Urban Planning and Policy at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and co-director of their City Design Center. Brent has published in edited volumes including The City After Abandonment (forthcoming, 2013) and the Oxford Urban Planning Handbook (forthcoming, 2012). He received his B.S. degree in Biology from Yale in 1991, his M. Arch. from Columbia in 1994, and his Ph.D. in Urban Design and Planning from MIT in 2002 .

Privatopolis: Sauget Shrinking Cities Studio 2012 privatopolis.mit.edu After-City: Baltimore Shrinking Cities Studio 2011 aftercity.mit.edu Buffalo: Shrinking Cities Studio 2010 shrinkingcitystudio.wordpress.com

MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning dusp.mit.edu MIT Department of Architecture architecture.mit.edu MIT School of Architecture and Planning sap.mit.edu MIT Energy Initiative web.mit.edu/mitei MIT Production in the Innovation Economy mit.edu/pie

TEACHING ASSISTANT ALLISON N. ALBERICCI earned a professional M.Arch degree from the School of Architecture at Tulane University before working for several years as an urban designer for Skidmore, Owings and Merrill in San Francisco and for Eherenkrantz, Eckstut and Kuhn in New York City. An architect registered in the State of California and a LEED® Accredited Professional, Allison’s work spans a multitude of scales and contexts, yet her primary concentration has been complex, large-scale, mixed-use, hybrid and transitoriented design in urban centers worldwide. A passionate proponent of sustainable urbanism, Allison’s research in the SMArchS and MCP programs at MIT has focused on the use of Urban Information-Communications Technology (ICT) in facilitating sustainable development and social equity in the cities of Latin America.

East St. Louis Research and Action Project (ESLARP) www.eslarp.uiuc.edu East-West Gateway Council of Governments www.ewgateway.org

Photographs © Colleen McHugh flickr.com/colleenmchugh © School of Architecture + Planning 2012 Massachusetts Institute of Technology 77 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, Massachusetts | 02139 USA