Capstone Proposal

kammeron hughes 1Isolation & Insulation

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ISOLATION AND INSULATION

Isolation and Insulation

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project summarySince the 1960’s declining populations have rattled communities across the rust-belt. Communities entire structures are changed by the shrinking of populations and changing of economic climates. Within shrinking communities homes and in extreme cases entire blocks can become abandoned. Abandonment of homes leads to a multitude of problems; fewer “eyes on the street,” built structures falling apart, dangerous untamed natural areas, community disconnection, fewer tax payers to support public works, schools and other amenities, and expensive infrastructure traveling out to areas that are no longer in need, etc. To limit the danger of decrepit buildings being left to rot, and possibly pose danger for people still residing in the neighborhoods affected, cities are spending billions of dollars to tear down foreclosed and abandoned homes. What is left are communities with an excess of open space and declining opportunities for human interaction.

This excess of open space that is created will be my capstone canvas. I will be exploring how uniting the built and natural environments can improve the sense of community and reduce

edge effects on the southeast side of Cleveland, Ohio, USA. This site has been dramatically cleared because of abandonment after shrinking populations and is in need of a renewed sense of place and a sense of community on multiple scales. The site will be reconnected through design to an intact community via human interaction scale, landscape scale, and economic scale.

New design will push through the insulation of edge effects and resolve the negative consequences of urban isolation.

Vacancies, abandonment, vandalism and a changing economic climate have created large areas of low grade urban tissue.

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background research

Percentage population change, 2000-2010Gain 20% or more

No change to 9.9% gain

Gain 10%-19.9%

Loss up to 9.9%

Ohio

Gain 20% or more

Loss up to 9.9%

Gain 10%-19.9%

No change to 9.9% gain

Loss 10% to 19.9%

Loss 20% or more

Percentage population change, 2000-2010

Cuyahoga County

Population change and ranking among the nations largest cities

Cleveland

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reasoningThe catastrophic changes that affected many cities across the US in the 1950’s created a rust-belt consisting of areas appearing war-torn and forgotten. First they were cleared of people by highways and suburban sprawl, then by the disappearance of the built environment and the disintegration of communities.

As these areas lost population, the neighborhoods became abandoned. Over time, vacant buildings were seized by the city, heavily dilapidated structures were demolished and clearance by way of vandalism created a landscape fragmented by a network of open spaces and few single family homes per block.

In cities like Cleveland, entire neighborhoods were isolated, seeming worlds away from any economic activity. The unboundedness of Northeast Ohio allowed for an erasure of any context needed to create a sense of place.

This change in the late 20th century was followed by the foreclosure crisis starting in 2006. This created another wave of population and housing stock loss on top of already struggling communities. Neighborhoods that

had been struggling for years were piled on with new disaster.

Low density standalone housing that has made up the built environment of these areas for decades is the most vulnerable to weathering and vandalism.

With multitudes of vacant properties on the cities hands, Cleveland and Cuyahoga County created an aggressive demolition policy in hopes of re imagining said communities. This removal of nuisance properties through demolition was done in hopes of increasing public safety, appearance and property values in neighborhoods and clearing the path for new development.

While studying these cleared areas from aerial view, it appears an idealized “American Dream” of the pastoral landscape could begin to exist four miles away from a bustling city center, and less than a mile away from important cultural and health institutions.

Instead, what exists, are dangerous bare neighborhoods with edge conditions built up by some of the highest economic impacters in Ohio. Very little social and fiscal support is passed over or through these edges into

background research

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reasoning cont.the neighborhoods that could be feeding right into the system. Census tract boundaries disappear as dozens of square miles of residential and industrial space waste away into the landscape.

Cuyahoga County Land Bank policies have begun to support positive change as they lay a groundwork where it is possible to make changes at a community level through vacant lot reuse, merging parcels, and supporting urban gardening and small scale agriculture.

This policy support is just the very beginning of what needs to happen in these areas for real change and improvement to occur.

The reasons that these areas became developed in the first place are still the reasons they deserve a second chance at success now. Proximity to the downtown core, multiple opportunities for public transit and proximity to businesses of high economic and cultural importance exist now. The problems lie in the connections between these things and the neighborhoods themselves. Physical, social, psychological and economic connections are nonexistent.

Valuable open space and a kind of blank canvas characterize the physical environment. Crime, poverty, and a lack of support characterize the social environment.

Altering the urban fabric is often quite difficult as many public and private hands are in the mix of policy and ownership. As cities like Cleveland go through this decline, however, the urban spaces become more and more flexible. This new found flexibility and the remaining positive possibilities are what create the opportunity for landscape architecture to alter the fabric physically, culturally, and economically.

background research

E 75th to E 79th between the red and blue RTA lines


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research questionsHow can landscape architecture work to renew a sense of community in a place that has been lost? How is that sense of community created? This question is one that has been a motivator for landscape architects for generations. Since the beginning of the profession a main goal has been using the landscape to create spaces people want to inhabit or inhabit in specific ways. Looking at this question from a modern point of view after researching historic planning ideals leads to modern and “new” modes of designing for community development.

How can open space in debilitated communities be used to successfully create informal economies and a better quality of life for a neighborhoods inhabitants while also reconnecting said community to an existing formal economy and developed area?

As best laid plans from the past go to waste what kind of solutions can be made that will allow communities to flexibly grow as economic impacters and personal motivators change over time? Solutions on how to strengthen communities and creative ways to reconnect lost places into

questions

the common society grid will be necessary until all development is deemed “resilient.”

Should implied edges created as political boundaries or census tracts be used at the physical human level?

How can edges be broken when the functions on each side exist completely separate of each other?

What do communities need?

What amenities strengthen a community?

1953

2012



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18.2%of the 1950 population

61,489 1950 population

11,194 2000 population

23.5% currently vacant

$12,517 median household income

$37,400 median house value

4,500housing units lost since 1980

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neighborhoodThe neighborhood is ideally located between downtown Cleveland and University Circle.

Euclid Avenue, near the neighborhood’s northern border, became the site of many of Cleveland’s largest and most architecturally distinguished churches. This area is home to three nationally recognized institutions. The foremost of these is the Cleveland Clinic, established in 1921 and now ranks as Cuyahoga County’s largest private employer. The Cleveland Playhouse, America’s first regional theatre, was founded in 1915, and the first facility was built in 1923 on Euclid Avenue. Karamu House is the country’s first inter-racial theater and arts center and was established in 1917. It has been located in the Fairfax neighborhood since 1943. The Cleveland Clinic marks the northern edge of the neighborhood and creates an edge in the middle of the census bounded area. The predominantly poverty stricken neighborhood being overlapped by the city’s cultural and medical centers creates multiple dangerous edge conditions.

After its annexation to Cleveland in 1872, the neighborhoods now known as Fairfax and Kinsman

underwent a period of rapid residential development which continued until 1920, when the area’s population reached 60,000. As the city of Cleveland was reaching its highest population in 1950 of over 900,000 people, these neighborhoods acted as the core of the cities industry, and its industrial workers. As the industrial needs of the region shrank and families followed the quality highway system outside the city limits, the neighborhood population shrank dramatically. Together today Kinsman and Fairfax have less than 1/5th their pre World War II populations.

As these two neighborhoods lost population, the neighborhoods became abandoned. The fragmented network that now exists fails to support community, and instead supports further decline and high levels of crime. Street scape on areas that were once part of Cleveland’s most dense retail sector cease to exist as entire blocks consist of boarded up store fronts.

The feeling of community appears extremely weak, if not completely lost.

Fairfax and Kinsman are two neighborhoods on Clevelands near southeast side.

site qualities

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site qualities

The majority of the neighborhood appears the way the map diagram on the right does, with multiple vacant lots creating a piecemeal appearance at birds eye and street level. As you move south through the neighborhood it becomes highly disconnected because of industrial plants (both in use and abandoned) and multiple rail lines (both freight and rapid transit).

These rail lines pose many problems in the way of pedestrian and vehicle connection, while also creating pockets that are completely cleared of anything but urban shrub fill. They also create multiple opportunities in the Kinsman and Fairfax neighborhoods as in this area three rapid transit stops exist, on two separate lines. This gives the neighborhood an 11 minute train trip from most of its interior into the downtown core as well as out to sprawling suburbs. Pursuits at reuse of vacant sites have been attempted, as a few community garden plots exist in the area to support local farmers markets.

Larger scale development has affected pockets of the neighborhood. A new Cuyahoga County Juvenile Justice Center was

built in 2011 on a 12 acre site at the southeast corner of East 93rd Street and Quincy Avenue. This is a 9 story tower that creates an environment for the intervention, rehabilitation, and education of youth offenders, ages of 10 through 18. It replaced the old Cuyahoga County Juvenile Detention Center. The Cleveland Clinic on the north edge is also consistently expanding and updating their facilities.

The “Health-line” on Euclid corridor is a bus rapid transit line that moves passengers from Public Square (downtown) to University Circle (museum quarter) in 20 minutes and connects many of the cities health providers. It runs along the north edge of the site, and is another form of public transportation available t the neighborhoods residents.

Vacancies and empty lots create an open network without much structureVacancies and empty lots create an open network without much structure

neighborhood cont.

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site qualities

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site qualities

edge conditions

The edge conditions on the site create boundaries that block all forms of movement and communication.

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site qualities

Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals

$11 billion economic impact in Ohio

Industrial (working and abandoned)

Railways

30 milesin Kinsman and Fairfax

300 acresin Kinsman and Fairfax

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definitionsforeclosure - a bank or other secured creditor selling or repossessing a parcel of real property (immovable property) after the owner has failed to comply with an agreement between the lender and borrower called a “mortgage” or “deed of trust.”

abandonment – something abandoned by its owner with the intention of not retaking it

community - a social unit larger than a small village that shares common values

human interaction scale – the level of community at which people have day to day and human to human contact, interactions

landscape scale – a understand of the landscape that combines both the lands physical origins and the cultural overlay of human presence

economic scale – the level of community at which money is passed and humans make a livelihood

urban fringe - the transition zone where densely urban and suburban areas clash

excess open space – landscape parcels with no program and no necessary need at this point in

time in a certain neighborhood

strategic land amendment - assembled contiguous lots in order to make larger parcels of developable land or green space available

amenity - something that contributes to physical or material comfort, past those of basic necessities

need - something required to have a basic quality of life

edge - a dividing line or border, often uncomfortable with physical differences apparent

implied edge - a dividing line or border not physically noticeable to the human eye

urban tissue - the built and natural environment that makes up a metropolitan area

unbounded city - a city without hard borders such as a river or lake. a city with the ability to grow in at least one direction without physical implications

shrinking city - a city that has lost or is losing large amounts of population and therefore is also suffering from a shrunken built

Important definitions that will inform the way language is used in design

background research

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background research

environment - the circumstances or conditions that surround one; surroundings

built environment - built structures that make up how a place looks and feels

natural environment - non built structures that make up the way a place looks and feels

nature - living things and the outdoors, separate of creations by man

sprawl - haphazard growth or extension outward by a population

project goals

Renew a sense of place

Increase quality of life

Connect to developed economy

Connect to existing community

Connect regionally to alternative modes of transportation

Move away from a car based structure

Use “new” greenfield space to support human + non-human habitat

Create a resilient way of life

Create a flexible scaffolding off of which to build that accommodates changing needs

Renew community needs and renew amenities

Soften the edge conditions

Finding a way to break through these edge conditions will be a huge part of this project. Using specific pieces of the site to create community and reconnect are important to setting up this area for forward movement in the future.

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references

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references

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Capstone Proposal