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ADVISORY COMMITTEE

Hollie Zajicek, Economic Development Director

Luke Nelson, City Manager

Luke Parris, Community Development Director

Jaki Livingston, Council Member

MAYOR + CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS

Tom Phillips, Mayor

David Lester, Council Member

Ed Kuhl, Council Member

Brian Baker, Council Member

Jaki Livingston, Council Member

Stephanie Riva, Council Member

URBAN DESIGN + PLANNING TEAM

Adam Mekies

In collaboration with:

Naksha Satish - Harvard GSD

Sipes Architects - Colorado

Bishop Engineering - Iowa

Developer Planning Engagement:

Diligent Development

This project takes a bold approach in proposing a multi-layered waterfrontdevelopment. An underground fulfillment and distribution center, which can bereached by water or land, is structurally capped by a generous waterfront park.Repurposing the City’s historic and vacant warehouse building provides muchneeded affordable housing. The building’s ground floor and park frontage isactivated as a market with fresh produce and other products delivered directly fromland and sea.

“Over the past decade, many of Long Island City’s historic industrial buildings havebeen bulldozed to make way for a dystopian collection of anonymous glass towers.No other neighborhood in the entire country has had as many luxury apartmentsbuilt in the last eight years, and no other neighborhood in New York City has seenits landscape changed as much by rezoning and redevelopment.”(1)

Industrial development typically stands in direct conflict with public open space andhousing. We have developed a typology, where rather than privatizing the coastline,our mixed-use industrial development opens up physical, visual, economic, andequitable access to a resilient waterfront.

The episodic nature of urban development hinges on a balance in its temporal evolution, punctuated by visions for radical change. Design in this case, is framed by realities (often viewed as limitations) and visions which can either be challenged or accepted as status quo. It is through (4) key strategies of reality to vision transfer that we achieve this translation in time, value, and physicality of site.

These layers capitalize on understood and accepted community realities or (cultural values) of today. They do so by responding to outward and regionally appropriate contexts that scale impact to  meaningful and tangible implications for not only neighborhood but district and Boston at large.

River + Valley | The Neponset River Valley has presented critical resources and vitality in ecological and early industrial expansion. While ecological flows in and around our site still are certainly present, they have been significantly fragmented. Through topographic elevation, slope aspect, geologic data sets, and comparison to present day successional vegetation, as well as proximity to digitized historic stream and wetland mappings we began by understanding the site in its pre-development condition. Through the re-tracing of key stream corridors and identification of critical threshold moments along the valley edge, infrastructural interventions become the impetus for change. 

Constructed Ecologies + Earthwork Development | A series of landscape interventions are based on a rigorous landscape assessment of existing conditions. We have based the location and scale of intervention for construction or removal of the current developed condition on the following (4) factors. 

• Existing Function 

• Existing Ecological Condition 

• Adaptability of Current Infrastructure

• Existing Hard Cost Investment ($/sf) 

Earthwork Stream and Habitat Creation | Critical aspects of ecological condition presented the greatest opportunity along historic stream corridors – due to their lasting threshold conditions. By focusing on the process of ecological land forming a series of topographic operations trigger significant earthworks of cut and fill on site. 

The cut operations are tied primarily to the construction of significant new stream corridor and riparian conditions. The large cuts are offset on-site with the fill of new up-land habitat zones, recreational island ecologies, and primary modifications to the developed terrain on the western slopes of the site. 

Development Lands | The site’s current western slopes are a drastically altered set of terraced conditions created from brutalist commercial and office pads cut into the landscape. Little effort has been made to work with the contouring of the landscape. What is a picturesque view to the eastern side of the valley and the Blue Hills is a drastically altered commercialized terrain today. 

By filling these slopes, a much more gradual (Roughly 5% grade) is able to be established across the western portion of the site. Providing access and developable ground, while still maintaining topographic vantage and interest in the typologies of architecture to come. To the eastern side of the site the existing development pads are raised above floodplain and larger land use / architecture requirements take advantage of the more level building pad sites. 

Landscape Strategies | Provide a critical framework for addressing the following functions. 

• Urban Intersection 

• Development Edges 

• Elevated Recreation Corridor 

• Infrastructure Thresholds  

• Upland Railroad Corridors 

• Lowland Railroad Corridors 

• Highway Wildlife Underpasses 

• Ecological Transitions 

• Riparian Overlooks 

• Upland / Sloped Sites + Trails Conditions 

• Upland Wilds 

Grid Framework | The site is operated from a development standpoint on a 240 x 400 ft grid. Established by primary (80ft) Right of Ways and Secondary (40ft) right of ways for vehicular traffic. Tertiary right of ways are build around primary pedestrian conditions at (20ft) allowing for multi-modal bike and pedestrian traffic, green infrastructure, and emergency access. An Incremental Framework | The planning framework that occupies the site is based on the logic of creating a set of rules that can aid diverse and incremental development. In this way, the design on site is not assumed as a static big picture, but a dynamic growth. We predict four sets of building typologies based on user groups, program and density: 

• Home / Office: a co-living/working typology for small scale ventures that may start small but grow incrementally. 

• Lab / Warehouse: Light manufacturing warehouses and test labs that could work in conjunction with the small-scale ventures. 

• Healthcare / Office: Established healthcare facilities that require larger floor plates for institutional/office use. 

• Home / Hospitality: Senior assisted living facilities that work in conjunction with the healthcare facilities and hotels for families/visitors. 

A Test Case Scenario | The deployment of these on site is based on specific adjacencies that address the circulation and programmatic hierarchies. For instance, it’s logistically important for healthcare/warehouse facilities to be situated on the main roads for access, while senior living facilities benefit from being closer to the ecological features on site. While we demonstrate one possible scenario of how this grid fills up, it is crucial to note that this sort of iterative development on the site will be dictated by demand and real estate trends while still following the baseline framework. 

Regional Context | As we apply the landscape analysis and typologies on this site, other similar sites in the region take on a similar character and set of issues. A greater analysis of opportunity, constraint, and choke points or thresholds provides continuity within a larger fragmented and potentially linked landscape.

The regenerative potential of a site can often be discovered following a major destructive event. The deliberation and method through which the new landscape vessel takes form can be just as important as the form itself, and may become a “blue print” for future recoveries.

Mapleton, Iowa, was razed by a Tornado in 2011. Commercial, residential, and public, properties were left in various degrees of destruction; many were abandoned all together. The town and its 1,300 residents were left with an opportunity to ponder their future as a community, and re-define their identity.

This project has two major goals:

1. To describe and assist the town of Mapleton in their process of long term recovery. What are now considered remnants and debris of the past evolve into functional, ecological, and esthetic elements of the civic landscape. Moreover, the process of coming together as a community will provide the town with an opportunity to redefine a core identity, heal, and develop.

2. To devise a method through which to address the development of blighted sites, blighted by natural disasters, neglect, or ecological abuse, using the basic elements of landscape architecture.