Undergraduate Category: Arts and Humanities Degree Level: B. Arch Abstract ID# 227
SYSTEMIZING LANDSCAPES: A NEW URBAN WATERFRONT PROTOTYPE SOLVING ECOLOGICAL, TRANSPORTATION, DRAINAGE AND INFRASTRUCTURAL ISSUES THOUGH ONE COMPREHENSIVE ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN LANDSCAPE SYSTEMS
Author:
Landscape systems such as individual gardens, landscaped plazas, recreational parks, and community gardens act as amenities that utilize the water system in place.
Kelley Johnson Abstract: As the need for sustainability becomes an increasingly apprehensive topic amongst urban planners and architects, there is a growing need for sustainable urban design prototypes that mitigate the transition between static built structures and active natural landscapes. This design research focuses on the integration of four systems: architecture, water, landscape, and transportation. The architecture of the site is densely aggregated to open up the site for ecological needs. However, the condensed architecture of the master plan is broken apart to allow interweaving with ecological and multi-modal transport systems. Water systems consisting of rain gardens, retention ponds, and salt marshes eliminate the risk of overflow, provide an ecosystem for marine life, and filter the pollutants from rainwater runoff before releasing the water into the river. Landscape systems such as individual gardens, landscaped plazas, recreational parks, and community gardens act as amenities that utilize the water system in place. Transportation infrastructure for pedestrians and bicycles is interwoven with a new a MBTA stop to embrace transit oriented design. The infrastructure also implements new paths and bike share systems that stretch out into the surrounding area and connect the train to the site, the city, and the river.
Whats The Need? There is a great need for architecture to integrate water systems. Due to global temperatures rising, water is rising 1/8” per year, a rate that has doubled in the past 50 yrs.
It is predicted that waters will rise 2.5-6.5 feet by 2100. Thinking about this locally, in Boston a 1.5 ft rise is seawater would result in about 6 trillion in property damage.
There is also more rain; there has been a 10% increase in precipitation in the Boston area in the past 10 years due to the global weather changes. This issue relates to our cities because cities are essentially as large, paved bowls that collect water, flood, and release the polluted water into local receiving waters, such as the mystic river and the Charles, or directly into the ocean. The way our cities are built does not coincide with the way water should be managed. Somerville, which is just north of Boston and on the mystic river, is where I’ve chosen a site to test the prototype. It is the densest of the Boston suburbs. I’ve mapped the paved areas vs the landscaped, water absorbing areas and it is staggering how much of the mystic river is surrounded by post industrial, paved and “bowl-like” sites, especially in the south towards Boston. These are the areas that are highly prone to property damage as waters rise.
References: Allan, Stan, and Marc McQuade. Landform Building: Architecture’s New Terrain. Baden: Lars Müller, 2011. Print. Corner, James, and Alex S. MacLean. Taking Measures across the American Landscape. New Haven: Yale UP, 1996. Print. “Document Center.” Boston Redevelopment Authority. Boston City Hall, n.d. Web. Koolhaas, Rem, Bruce Mau, Jennifer Sigler, and Hans Werlemann. Small, Medium, Large, Extra-large: Office for Metropolitan Architecture, Rem Koolhaas, and Bruce Mau. New York, NY: Monacelli, 1998. Print. Margolis, Liat, and Alexander Robinson. Living Systems: Innovative Materials and Technologies for Landscape Architecture. A Basel: Birkhäuser, 2007. Print. “Research and Maps.” Boston Redevelopment Authority. Boston City Hall, n.d. Web. Spirn, Anne Whiston. The Granite Garden: Urban Nature and Human Design. New York: Basic, 1984. Print. “US EPA National Stormwater Calculator.” EPA. Environmental Protection Agency, n.d. Web.
ARCHITECTURAL & BUILT SYSTEMS
AGRARIAN ZONES The immense amount of landscapes in the area surrounding the mystic river are not only unused, but also terribly disparate. N
The architecture of the site is densely aggregated to open up the site for ecological needs. However, the condensed architecture of the master plan is broken apart to allow interweaving with ecological and multi-modal transport systems.
WATER SYSTEMS Water systems consisting of rain gardens, retention ponds, and salt marshes eliminate the risk of overflow, provide an ecosystem for marine life, and filter the pollutants from rainwater runoff before releasing the water into the river.
TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS
Transportation infrastructure for pedestrians and bicycles is interwoven with a new a MBTA stop to embrace transit oriented design. The infrastructure also implements new paths and bike share systems that stretch out into the surrounding area and connect the train to the site, the city, and the river.
FLOOD ZONES The large scale infrastructure divides the landscapes and the massive hardscaped areas block any possible water retention, making the area very susceptible to flooding.
SITE-WIDE SYSTEM
The entire site mitigates landscape systems, architectural systems, water systems, and transportation in a gradient that distribues the systems from most built to least built.
THE SITE PLAN While most architectural master plans are densely packed with impermeable buildings and roads, in this prototype the architecture is pressed densely to one side of the site, liberating the ground plane to be equally dense with natural systems. Overall this project designs how there systems are utilized and incorporated into the architecture and the master plan through a site wide urban to nature gradient, allowing a buffer zone between city and river that mitigates water drainage, flooding, and landscape needs.