WENTWORTH INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
Master of Architecture 2018
URGENT AMALGAMATIONS Optimistic Trajectories for the Contemporary City
WILLIAM TOOHEY III URGENT AMALGAMATIONS: OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY
By William Joseph Toohey, III
Bachelor of Science in Architecture Wentworth Institute of Technology, April 2017
Submitted to in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Architecture at the Wentworth Institute of Technology, April 2018
William Joseph Toohey, III Author Department of Architecture
Certified by Robert Cowherd, PhD Thesis Supervisor
Accepted by Kelly Hutzell Director of Graduate Programs
©2018 William Joseph Toohey, III. All rights reserved. The author hereby grants to Wentworth Institute of Technology permission to reproduce and to publicly distribute copies of this thesis document in whole or in part using paper, electronic, and any medium now known or hereafter created.
003 PLAGIARISM STATEMENT
Plagiarism is the submission or inclusion of someone else’s words, drawings, ideas, or data (including that from a website) as one’s own work without giving credit to the source. When sources are used in a paper or drawing, acknowledgment of the original author or source must be made through appropriate references (footnotes, endnotes) or if directly quoted, quotation marks or indentations must be used. Even if another person’s idea, opinion, or theory is paraphrased into your own words, you can be accused of plagiarism. The same holds true for drawings. Only when information is common knowledge may a fact or statistic be used without giving credit (https://wvvw. wit.edu/catalog/2017-2018/academic-honesty).
Plagiarism is a serious issue and it is important for all to be able to rely on the integrity of student work. The use of content prepared by another person or agency engaged in the selling of papers or other academic materials constitutes plagiarism. Plagiarism does not only refer to written work but also to computer data, drawings, sketches, design concepts, code, musical scores and visual arts. Plagiarism can be inadvertent, so please become informed about the forms it can take. While we are all using precedents and study the built work to get educated and inspired, it is not acceptable to use entire concepts or appropriate drawings, sketches, 3D models or any other representation thereof and claim them as your own.
I, William Joseph Toohey, III, am aware of the serious nature of plagiarism and of the fact that it includes design concepts, images, drawings and other representations beyond the written word. I will not intentionally use someone else’s work without acknowledgement and will not represent someone else’s work as my own.
Signature Date
005 URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
WILLIAM TOOHEY III URGENT AMALGAMATIONS: M.ARCH 2018 OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR BSA 2017 THE CONTEMPORARY CITY
ABSTRACT
The research and design that unfolds encompasses topics of the origin, influence, implementation, effect, and revision of modernism’s “tower in the park,” as originally defined in the early twentieth century by the International Congress of Modern Architecture (CIAM). Although examining precedents across North America and Europe, the South Side of Chicago serves as a laboratory for design testing: a Midwestern, metropolitan context in the United States that presents a variety of opportunities due to its convoluted politics, racial and social tensions, crime, and isolating planning history. As a result of the city’s ambitious “Plan for Transformation,” beginning in 2000, Chicago’s Near Side neighborhoods and beyond find themselves in a peripheral zone around the vibrant city, cloaked in vacant blocks. Decades later, vast areas of stagnant landscapes continue to rest quietly in a prolonged wake of mass-demolition: a product of the complete erasure of neglected public housing towers. In an effort to reintroduce former tower residents, as well as invite newly-diverse audiences, an alternative method gives shape to new building typologies that integrate themselves with the city’s existing grid and form. A contemporary revision to the initial ambitions of CIAM’s tower in the park becomes an experimental model that establishes new trajectories for growing urban populations. These optimistic environments are capable of reversing the negative effects that have stigmatized numerous communities. A design process that orchestrates a collusion of differences, rather than a collision of similarities, encourages unprecedented amalgamations: a new mix of people, program, place, transit, form, material, and landscape. This work finds itself at the intersection of multiple Figure 001. Original cover disciplines and media not often merged, including urban design, art of J.G. Ballard’s 1975 psychology, sociology, time lapse photography, dystopian science novel, High-Rise, first edition, fiction, film, architecture, and landscape urbanism. Intriguing new designed by Craig Dodd, perspectives advocate for an interconnected architecture that sets a 1975, image published stage for serendipity. by Jonathan Cape, http:// averyreview.com/issues/17/a- Opportunity, Dignity, Diversity, Inclusion, Self- future-now-exhausted KEYWORDS Efficacy, Mixed-Use/Income, Density, Chicago
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CONTENTS
007 Abstract & Keywords 009 Contents 011 Acknowledgments 015 Dedication 017 INTRODUCTION 019 Thesis Statement & Argument 020 Chronicles of the Urban Monolith 032 Personal Accounts of Home & Work 034 Intended Audience 034 Chapter Functionality 035 Key Takeaways 037 LITERATURE REVIEW 055 LIFE, POVERTY & THE PURSUIT OF ALTERNATIVES 056 Analytical Methods of Investigation 059 Identifying the Context: North America & Europe 093 Visualizing the Context: Camera / Computer / Hand 119 Contemporary Responses to the Tower in the Park 132 Design Methods of Investigation 200 NOTES 202 ILLUSTRATIONS 208 BIBLIOGRAPHY
OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 009 URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
DEDICATION
I would like to dedicate this research and design effort to the loving memory of my paternal grandmother (Noni), a persistent advocate and source of encouragement for my chosen pursuit of architecture: someone who served as a match to ignite my early ambitions as a freshman at Wentworth, during her last days on earth and my first approaching final studio review. As a prominent family figure, mother of five and grandmother of fourteen, Noni helped instill in me a heightened sense of awareness of people and purpose. As a rather empathetic source, the memory of Noni, from the unforgettable week of November 25, 2013, to the day I publish this work, operates as a catalyst for the increasing sense of urgency and sometimes agency apparent in this thesis.
A plastic-sleeved binder, accompanied by a Christmas-themed card: “As you think about being an architect...a place for your ideas! Love, Noni” - December 2012
For the dearly missed Eleanor L. Pennisi: April 21, 1941 - November 29, 2013 Lawrence, Massachusetts
OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 011 URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book, as well as the initial desire to create it, would not have been possible without more individuals than I can mention here. I thank you all for the variety of contributions. I would like to give special thanks to my mother, Angie; thank you for being patient with me for most of my life, encouraging me during this pursuit for a master of architecture degree and always supporting my aspirations regardless of the circumstances. I would have also struggled much more without my sister, Erin; thank you for your open-mindedness, comic relief, honesty, and knack for English. You have made me a more confident and critical writer, which has influenced my ability to communicate ideas and attempt to write a thesis book. I would like to thank my father, Bill, for his support and pragmatic approach to many tasks in life, as well as his passion for thinking, designing, and creating.
In addition to family, I am forever indebted to my high school architecture & engineering teacher, David Foote; thank you for officially introducing me to the discipline of architecture and its many conventions and opportunities. Your suggestion in 2011 that I "might enjoy" a career in architecture certainly paid off. Thank you, Mark Barton, for the day that you told me that I could not be sarcastic for the rest of my life; thank you for helping adjust my attitude immediately preceding college. Thank you, Nicole Martineau, for being an influential professional mentor. Thank you to all of my undergraduate and graduate architecture professors, especially the ones whom I consulted during the development of this thesis: Matthew (Ben) Matteson, Alberto Cabre, Elizabeth Ghiseline, Troy Peters, and Austin Samson.
This book would have been written with little focus if not for the help of my Thesis Prep II and Special Topics Studio professor, Carol Burns and Thesis Prep I professor, Jack Cochran. Thank you, Carol, for your critical feedback and skillful judgement. Thank you, Jack, for the unyielding encouragement to narrow the scope of my thesis topic when I sounded overly optimistic about reorganizing the world. I am also grateful for the reminders to get rest and eat properly during some of my more intense moments of the 2017 fall semester. In addition to academic and professional mentors, I would like to thank my classmates and roommates. Thank you for encouraging me to
OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 013 URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS laugh, loosen up, all the while allowing me to follow my passion for architecture and recently, urban design.
Lastly, I would not be writing this page if not for some of my dearest friends, especially Rebecca Moore and Olivia Pelletier. Thank you for playing integral roles in my life since the second grade and providing me with feelings of purpose in the world.
[To Add Later: Dan O’Connell, Reference Librarian (tracking down numerous resources from other universities when Wentworth failed me) Robert Cowherd David Lee People I met in Chicago who significantly changed my perspective, for the better]
OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 015 1890-2018
The work that follows includes a range of foundational elements that contribute to INTRO- an understanding of the overall argument, relevance, and purpose of this thesis.
INTRODUCTION
DUCTION 1.1 THESIS STATEMENT & ARGUMENT 1.2 CHRONICLES OF THE URBAN MONOLITH
1.3 PERSONAL ACCOUNTS OF HOME & WORK
1.4 INTENDED AUDIENCE
1.5 CHAPTER FUNCTIONALITY
1.6 KEY TAKEAWAYS
CHAPTER 1 URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
THESIS STATEMENT
Positioned within the grid of historically-neglected and segregated neighborhoods, optimistic architecture and urbanism has a responsibility to encourage the human perception of opportunity, dignity, diversity, and inclusion: a reintegration of communities and densification of equitable infrastructure.
ARGUMENT
As respondents to the pitfalls of high-rise public housing developments, agents of change must now urgently reformulate, test, and realize architecture’s capacity to do more for its inhabitants. The plentiful shortcomings of CIAM’s “tower in the park” inspire a revised and conscientious design process for creating dense urban conditions, placing the human at the center of the space that forms around them. These environments and destinations connect activity on the sidewalk to flexible public space at the core of the block. Upon incentivizing any pedestrian, the architecture draws in urban participants and provides a myriad of reasons to stay or return for Historically- future inhabitation. Intersections at multiple scales, programmatic neglected and reconfigurations, access to resources and transit, and newly-framed segregated views of the city, at multiple elevations, establish an equitable neighborhoods must framework for contemporary urban life. be reconnected to the contemporary Overall, optimistic architecture and urbanism redefines the purpose city and given of what was once a precarious model for single-use public housing immediate in American cities, isolated from the ground plane and its immediate attention via context. These contemporary solutions respond to a humanistic equitable agenda for architecture that successfully reactivates the vacant blocksinfrastructure: an of Chicago’s former public housing tower sites. optimistic model for urban life that I propose to pursue the work described here under the advisementpositively of influences Figure 002. Reintegration and the following individuals: scales beyond itself. densification of communities Architecture and in South Side Chicago: Thesis Advisor: Robert Cowherd, PhD, Professor urbanism that is Increasingly-diverse scales, actively engaged systems, and inhabitants, Independent Advisors: David Lee, FAIA, Co-founder of Stull & Lee in encouraging analytique drawing (William Elizabeth Ghiseline, Lecturer diversity and Toohey III, CC BY-NC-SA) Austin Samson, Adjunct Faculty inclusion will lead to unprecedented human potential. OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 019
Arch Urgent Amalgamations: Optimistic Trajectories for the Contemporary City William Toohey III M 2018 URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
of the new millennium, innumerous CHRONICLES OF THE URBAN MONOLITH examples displayed the dramatic failures of a seemingly precarious model and TANDING TALL ON AN URBAN BLOCK, ACCOMPANIED BY social structure: a design and planning VAST, OPEN GREEN SPACE, the modern invention of the process that focused mainly on separating tower in the park continues to make its mark within the S uses within cities, which eventually led realm of international metropolitan contexts. In its early twentieth- to high concentrations of low-income century beginnings, confined to speculative axonometric drawings, families, at least in the case of American the tower-in-the-park model was coined by renowned Swiss-French public housing. 04 Contrary to the architect, Charles Jeanneret-Gris, or more commonly known as Le indisputable realities of the worst cases, Corbusier. 01 In many cases, a single-use, high-rise building typology it is important to acknowledge that not took shape as an optimistically dense and efficiently vertical all towers in the park were unsuccessful. response to inadequate urban living conditions found in tenements Overall, New York City serves as a North across growing cities. 02 Although modernism attempted to mitigate American context that remains to be a the poor effects of life in deteriorating dwellings, by means of grand Figure 004. Approaching suitable place for the tower in the park, proposals for high-rise communities, it is uncertain whether or Co-op City, located in the seen in the neighborhoods of Stuyvesant Town, Peter Cooper not an architect as influential as Corbusier understood the social, Figure 003. Plan Voisin: Baychester section of the Village, Co-op City, along with many others throughout Harlem, the environmental, economic, and political implications of his ambitious 60-story towers for Bronx, New York, New York Lower East Side, and Brooklyn. The monolithic towers of brick and fantasies and visualizations. 3,000,000 inhabitants, (©Amani Willett), original mortar are prominent members of the city’s fabric, but while New Paris, France, 1922-25, image altered for black York City serves as a viable Northeastern case for the tower in the The unrealized speculations of new towers quickly became realized conceptual perspective and white representation, park, the Midwestern context of Chicago, Illinois sets a radically in one shape or form; following World War II, the tower-in-the-park drawing by Le Corbusier accessed 10 December different stage. model became rapidly adopted across continents, including areas of (©FLC/ADAGP), accessed 2017, https://urbanomnibus. South America, India, and the Soviet Union, but it found itself more 14 December 2017, http:// net/2014/05/cooperative-city- Through a contemporary lens, a multitude of vacant blocks remain intensely applied within a European and North American context. 03 www.fondationlecorbusier.fr/ cooperative-community/. scattered across the city, many of which were once the physical Within the time frame of a half-century, from the 1950s to the turn corbuweb/morpheus.aspx?sy bases for single-use apartment towers. Today, suspicious grass and sId=13&IrisObjectId=6159&sy eroding concrete surfaces can be found as remnants left in the wake 01 “Le Corbusier Documentation.” sLanguage=en-en&itemPos=2 of mass-demolition of neglected public housing. These temporary 02 “Divis Flats Belfast,” BBC Northern Ireland, 2:09-2:35. &itemCount=2&sysParentNa block conditions were produced by Chicago’s relentless erasure of 03 Rybczynski, Makeshift Metropolis: Ideas About Cities, 49. me=Home&sysParentId=65. nearly 18,000 units, as part of its “Plan for Transformation.” 05 The 1999 pledge to construct or renovate a total of 25,000 units in five to seven years evolved into a process that fell severely behind schedule and continued to fall short of its rather ambiguous goals for the city as a whole. 06
The present day observation of American blocks devoid of life, as they relate to the fabric that once supported towers in the park,
04 Poerschke, “CIAM’s Four-Function Dogma: On the Challenge of Mixing Something That Has Been Separated,” 199. 05 Bittle, “Chicago’s Unfulfilled Promise to Rebuild its Public Housing.” 06 Ibid.
020 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION — 1.2 OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 021 Purpose: Where did the tower in the park come from? URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
CONGRÈS INTERNATIONAUX D’ARCHITECTURE MODERNE raises concerns about a significantly more complex history and future. For the purpose of this thesis, the topic demands a sufficient understanding of the events that preceded the city of Chicago's decision to take such drastic measures—a brief history that helps explain why current conditions are the way they are. This sparks a series of questions: what are the forces that influence the tower in the park; how does the building influence its users and surrounding context; where, when, and why did it succeed or fail; who, if anyone, is responsible; and how can architecture respond today? In order to understand its origin, one must return to the theories of modern urbanism through the eyes of the International Congress of Modern Figure 005. Plan Voisin: Architecture (CIAM), as well as the conditions of deteriorating 60-story towers for 08 tenements throughout expanding urban populations. 3,000,000 inhabitants, Figure 006. Chicago cleans dwelling that Corbusier dubbed the "tower in the park." In a Paris, France, 1922-25, a the slate to make way for 2016 article, titled “CIAM’s Four-Function Dogma: On the Challenge HE INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF MODERN ARCHITECTURE, more realistically- rendered 19-story towers in the of Mixing Something that Has Been Separated,” Ute Poerschke often referred to as CIAM, was an organization cofounded by drawing by Le Corbusier park: An example of single- provides a detailed overview of the reasonably short lifespan 07 T Le Corbusier and others in 1928. The global dissemination (©FLC/ADAGP), accessed use dwellings, inspired (1928-59) of the International Congress of Modern Architecture, its and influence of CIAM’s ideologies can be identified as the primary 14 December 2017, http:// by CIAM's functional city key principles, and its impact. Noteworthy in her documentation source of influence that led to the massive, single-use, high-rise www.fondationlecorbusier.fr/ within the urban-American of this history, first generation CIAM contributors believed in the corbuweb/morpheus.aspx?sy context of Cabrini-Green, premise of the functional city, which was an initial core belief of the sId=13&IrisObjectId=6159&sy Near North Side, Chicago, organization and the pre-World War II notion of urban planning— sLanguage=en-en&itemPos=2 Illinois, summer of 1952, work mainly credited to CIAM's Hannes Meyer, Mart Stam, and 09 07 Poerschke, “CIAM’s Four-Function Dogma: On the Challenge of &itemCount=2&sysParentNa courtesy of the Chicago Victor Bourgeois. The definition advocated for the separation of Mixing Something That Has Been Separated,” 199. me=Home&sysParentId=65. Housing Authority Archives, clearly-defined uses:dwelling , working, recreation, and transportation, accessed 14 December with roads (within the transportation function) acting as a physical 2017, https://chicago.curbed. link between each use. This was a logical system of its time, with com/2016/9/28/13063710/ respect to the growing acceptance of privately-owned automobiles chicago-public-housing-cha. and their role within a dense metropolitan context. 10 However, the intentional separation of uses not only had a tremendous influence on urban planning but also the countless lives that would take part in this strictly-zoned, modern metropolis. With the trajectory set for a new paradigm, the adoption of the tower in the park appeared in
08 Mumford, “The ‘Tower in a Park’ in America: Theory and Practice, 1920–1960.” 09 Poerschke, “CIAM’s Four-Function Dogma: On the Challenge of Mixing Something That Has Been Separated,” 199. 10 Mumford, “CIAM, Sert, and the Street,” Harvard GSD Lecture, 01:04:41-01:22:00.
022 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION — 1.2 OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 023 Purpose: Why did tenements need a response? What happened to the tower in the park? URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
TENEMENTS TO TOWERS: TRANSITIONS TO VERTICALITY an aggressive wave of optimistic construction, and the philosophy of single-use zoning in post-World War II America was adopted faster than automobiles could drive between each use.
O TRAVEL BACK IN TIME FOR A MOMENT, TENEMENTS PLAYED A SIGNIFICANT ROLE IN THE REASONING BEHIND T ADOPTING TOWERS IN THE PARK. In the original 1890 publication of How the Other Half Lives, Jacob August Riis, a social reformer, journalist, and photographer of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century, captured the essence of poor living conditions seen in tenements across New York City. 11 Willingly or unwillingly, working-class families lived in congested tenements that were less than ideal conditions for human inhabitation. To jump Figure 008. Pruitt-Igoe THE PITFALLS OF AMERICAN HIGH-RISE PUBLIC HOUSING forward nearly seventy years, to a Northern Ireland urban context, from above, low angle a family in similar tenements shared only one toilet with as many oblique USGS photograph, with the deteriorating horizontality that was all too familiar. With no as four other households; this was an inadequate condition not Figure 007. Jacob Riis, “Five St. Louis, Missouri, United 12 reason not to believe that this would be a refreshing new dimension easily replicable in any ethical, architectural response. Rumors of Cents a Spot:" Unauthorized States Geological Survey, and progressive stride forward, families had little to no choice but to plans for new configurations of dwelling likely spread throughout lodgings in a Bayard Street photograph taken at an move and adapt to new environments, at times, much higher above tenements around the globe. The thought of vertical neighborhoods tenement, 1888, The unknown time between the ground than ever before. 13 The tower in the park arrived at a in the early to mid-twentieth century may have been an enticing American Yawp, accessed 1963 and 1972, accessed pivotal moment in history, but it was accompanied by an abundance proposition and alternative to community members displeased 11 November 2017, www. 2 November 2017, https:// of factors: time, federal funding, maintenance, interior space, quality americanyawp.com/text/ commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/ of materials, daylighting, open space on the ground, and proximity 11 Riis, How the Other Half Lives. how-the-other-half-lived- File:Pruitt-igoeUSGS02.jpg. to uses other than dwelling. Unfortunately, life within many of these 12 "Divis Flats Belfast," BBC Northern Ireland documentary. photographs-of-jacob-riis/. towers morphed from forward-thinking to a downward spiral.
AMILIAR TO MINDS BEYOND ARCHITECTURE AND URBANISM, THE TALE OF ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI’S PRUITT-IGOE serves as F the epitome of modern urbanism’s pitfalls in American cities, or as Charles Jencks jarringly put it: “Modern Architecture died in St Louis, Missouri on July 15, 1972.” 14 Polemics from influential figures of any discourse, in this case postmodernism, can send misguided messages to audiences who may not understand the context in which the circumstances exist. Nonetheless, if modernism is to blame for at least one thing, supported by a collective agreement in the late-twentieth and early twenty-first century, it is that a
13 Ibid. 14 Jencks, The Language of Post-Modern Architecture, 9.
024 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION — 1.2 OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 025 Purpose: How did the tower in the park influence society’s imagination and vice versa? URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
ARCHITECTURE’S INFLUENCE ON SCIENCE FICTION & POP CULTURE radical separation of individual uses is neither an opportunistic nor The attitudes and lifestyles within communities that made up sustainable framework for the growth of both people and city. As far high-rise public housing structures began identifying themselves back as the early 1960s, Jane Jacobs publicly objected to the same or being labeled as members of the “projects;” 19 this became a notion of separating uses in her seminal work, notably her 1961 double-edged sword for some. book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities. 15 From reality to fantasy, then back to reality, architecture Trivial or not, popular culture and imagined worlds have a way of inevitably influences society’s perception ofplace, as well as the resonating with society. If reality fails to influence people, fantasy behavior of individuals whom inhabit or observe those inhabiting. seems to unapologetically take its place. In the eyes of J.G. Ballard Since the majority of Earth’s human population could not (1930-2009), the British science-fiction author of novels such as currently function without man-made structures, society relies Crash, High-Rise, and The Drowned World, literary fiction was a heavily on architecture and the built environment to support platform for creating new worlds if they did not already exist, daily life: where one lives, works, plays, shops, pauses, speculates, which at the expense of reality can be dangerously influential. 16 or discovers their own purpose for being in the world. If people Not to imply that fiction is the reason for societal woes, peculiar need buildings, the concept of architecture’s material, formal, parallels can be made between fantasy, architecture, and social functional, programmatic, social, and/or environmental qualities strife in the context of the tower in the park that once stood having a potential negative or positive effect on human behavior or remains in North America and Europe. Said to be influenced maintains a logical position in relevant discourse; hybrid topics of by Ernő Goldfinger’s Trellick Tower in London, J.G. Ballard’s architecture and anthropology or architecture and neuroscience dystopinan science-fiction novel, High-Rise, speculates about serve as emerging combinations gaining prevalent traction in future human behavior, isolated in a high-rise. 17 the 21st century, led by proponents such as Juhani Pallasmaa and Harry Mallgrave. 20 Connections between architecture and Additional Notes: disciplines under the umbrella of natural and social sciences Figure 009. Micah Marty, J.G. Ballard’s response to whether or not all of his fictional begin to shed new light on the dilemmas that face contemporary Dismantling Cabrini Green narratives are “cautionary tales:” alternatives to the failed cases of towers in the park: single- in the Near North Side of use housing typologies that find themselves at an intersection Chicago, a City-Wide Plan for “Yes, I think they are all cautionary tales, in a way. I think they are of particularly complex social, political, and economic factors, “Transformation,” 2000 all extrapolations from tendencies that are present...these are embedded in challenging urban contexts not long-distance prophecies or short-term prophecies of a kind deprived of the proper variety of amenities, like Aldous Huxley and [George] Orwell, used in Brave New World opportunities, and a balance of uses. 21 [or] 1984; they are short-term prophecies looking at the next five minutes, in a sense.” 18 Stigma The stigma that has tainted the public’s Popular Culture & the “Projects” perception of many public housing towers in American cities is due partially to the public’s 15 Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, 170. 16 [SOURCE] Interview with J.G. Ballard 19 When did someone coin the term “projects” to 17 [SOURCE] J.G. Ballard refer to public housing? 18 [SOURCE] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LosxrbL3sU 20 [SOURCE] Pallasmaa / Mallgrave (44:12-44:41) 21 [SOURCE] Pallasmaa / Mallgrave? Maybe others
026 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION — 1.2 OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 027 URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
misunderstanding of crime associated with a place, whether it be academic opportunities, and self-efficacy. 26 reports of gang violence, drug trafficking, or theft in or around Albert Bandura, Stanford University’s David public housing apartment buildings. 22 Lynne C. Manzo, Associate Starr Jordan Professor Emeritus of Social Science Professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture at the in Psychology, has made tremendous strides University of Washington, 23 discusses place attachment in the in his research across multiple disciplines, context of public housing in her chapter “The ‘Shadow Side’ of with his most relevant work being that of Place Attachment” in the 2013 publication Place Attachment: “perceived self-efficacy in self-development, Advances in Theory, Methods and Applications. 24 and adaptation and change, [which] laid the theoretical foundation for his theory of human Architecture’s Limits agency.” 27 In the context of dwelling, the To “de-stigmatize” is not to gentrify, but realistically it is to do ability to feel empowered to succeed in society more than architecture has to offer, however, a design process is inherently linked to the perception of place; Figure 011. Title for Image that leads to conclusions about urban places that support the hence, the responsibility of architecture’s role to function to live, work, and play that balance mixed income shape places has become increasingly imperative for the success and mixed uses, within the context of a former public housing of the people and place: no longer a predominantly stylistic or tower site, can provide the physical infrastructure for future formal exercise of object-making, but rather a contextual, social, adaptation and flexibility. Jacobs uses the terms “slumming” and Figure 010. Trellick Tower, environmentally-conscious, multi-programmatic, diversely-spatial, “unslumming” to describe these circumstances. 25 Sectional Perspective xxxx interconnected, and responsive solution to carefully considered needs and desires of the future inhabitants and the context in Expanding on the Notion of the Projects which it is to be constructed. Whether it be through a tabula rasa As the American tower in the park came to be method of planning, adaptive-reuse, revitalization of existing known in many cases, the “projects” were and infrastructure, or any other method, the design process that remain to be a place where many consider leads to socially and environmentally-conscious architecture home. Beyond predetermined arrangements should consider the human as much as the composition of of architecture that serve as neighborhoods space, program, materials, et cetera. The architecture for the or a variety of public places, humans have contemporary tower-in-the-park alternative then strives to proven to be rather resilient under a variety succeed according to established criteria tied to a specific site of environmental circumstances; one often within a larger urban context. [Add Steven Pinker 28 Pallasmaa 29, has little choice but to make do with the and Mallgrave 30 to this discussion.] life one is dealt. Among many others, some Neglecting the Role of the Human of these variables include living conditions, The tower-in-the-park model went wrong by neglecting the role of socioeconomic status, access to vocational and the human. 31
22 Petty, High Rise Stories, [PG#?] 26 ? 23 [SOURCE] http://swarmdev4.be.washington. 27 http://professoralbertbandura.com/index.html edu/people/lynne-manzo/ 28 Pinker 24 Manzo, Place Attachment, 182. 29 Pallasmaa 25 Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American 30 Mallgrave Cities, 170. 31 Jacobs
028 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION — 1.2 OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 029 Purpose: How did the tower in the park influence outsiders’ and insiders’ perception and behavior? URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
ARCHITECTURE’S INFLUENCE ON PERCEPTION & BEHAVIOR
This is clear by observation of the past, much of which Jane Jacobs accomplished in her 1961 novel, the Death and Life of Great American Cities. In addition to this, the realization of negligence is heard in the retrospective insight from an architect responsible for creating one of the places this thesis is interested in responding to, where he sought the advice of local priests instead of future building inhabitants:
“I never realized...perish priests, quite naturally, have an ethos of looking after their flock and didn’t want their flock scattered, but that wasn’t really the type of feedback I should’ve been picking up on at that time.” 32
Frank Robertson admits that he was maybe concerned about the wrong things at the time of designing the Divis Flats and speaks about the Radiant City influence and optimistic thought of the time: prosperity within the vertical future of dwelling. 33
32 Frank Robertson in BBC interview - Design Architect of the Divis Flats in Northern Ireland 33 Frank Robertson
030 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION — 1.2 OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 031 URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
It is apparent that we play a role in society that only exists because attempt to convey enough information to of the influences that preceded our time. To accept that role, a contractor. Many of these experiences without questioning at least why and who seems dangerously have influenced my own design process complacent. This inherently simple perception of the world serves as and interests as a professional and the foundation for many of my lines of inquiry, architectural or not: student. Overall, the places in which I an endless curiosity about why things are the way they are. have lived and worked, with the people whom I have met along the way, whether 13 Homes neighborhood friends or colleagues, From what I can recall between my first memories and now, I have certainly shaped who I am and how have experienced living in at least thirteen different places that I view architecture and the society who I have considered home: the deepest lot in a North Hampton, needs it. After a variety of experiences New Hampshire mobile home park; a suburban home in Skokie, in multiple settings, I have come to the Illinois; family friend’s house (#1) in Kingston, New Hampshire; realization that life, in all of its complexity a finished basement in Lawrence, Massachusetts; low-income and unanticipated variability, is inevitably housing in Portsmouth, New Hampshire; a house in Rochester, New embedded in architecture and vice versa. Hampshire; family friend’s house (#2) in Rochester; a two-bedroom Figure 012. Enjoying the sun apartment in Rochester; a one-bedroom apartment in Rochester; a If not already immersed in this practice, at the base of a tree with duplex in Haverhill, Massachusetts; a mobile home in Wells, Maine; I hope that this thesis provides ample some friends, the Gosling a house in Newmarket, New Hampshire; and finally, an apartment reason to reconsider certain processes Meadows, Portsmouth, NH, in Boston. I spent most of my childhood with my mother and sister deployed that places the building user, ca. 2001 in southern New Hampshire, but my experience with the notion of especially in terms of human potential home, in conjunction with the integral members of each community and self-efficacy, on an equal playing field Figure 013. Riding a bike, I grew up in, has influenced my desire to understand whathome with elements of design, such as program, the Gosling Meadows, means to others. form, material, and landscape. Portsmouth, NH, ca. 2001
Professional Influence and Experience Chapter 2 From June 6, 2014 to the present, along with studying architecture This section consists solely of a literature at the undergraduate and graduate level at Wentworth Institute review: a developing perspective that of Technology, I have been lucky enough to gain professional begins to merge cross-disciplinary themes, experience in the offices of TMS Architects, Arrowstreet, and as they augment the contemporary Gensler. I have been influenced by the processes of designing discourse concerned with alternatives to residential homes in New Hampshire, understanding seven- the tower in the park. Key points of the story parking garage structures in Providence, and realizing how argument include the importance of the complicated a mixed-use development touching the southern facade building inhabitant, high-rise typologies of TD Garden is. In addition to working in offices and studying at not necessarily being unviable options Wentworth, I was given an opportunity to design a single-family for community, and the potential for home in Dover, New Hampshire following my freshman year: an how a mixture of multiple variables can intense yet rewarding experience of how to understand the needs benefit a city block’s internal community of future building inhabitants, translate ideas to drawings, and and surrounding context. Evidence
032 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION — 1.3 OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 033 URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
is presented in the form of case studies, photographs, resident testimonials, and literary support from credible proponents of the discourse.
Chapter 3 This section includes a variety of studies, both analytical and design, that place the reader in the heart of visual evidence of the past, present, and future; well-informed design tests follow analytical exercises. The iterative processes and methods deployed aim to work towards final design outcomes that support contemporary ideas for architecture that does more for its inhabitants and metropolitan context. The key point of the argument is that landscape and architecture has a way of benefitting the people whom inhabit and use it. Evidence is presented in the form of case studies, photographs, quotes, existing data, analytical investigations, and design tests.
[TBD]
034 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION — 1.4 OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 035 LITERA- 1960-2018
The following chapter consists of a literature review: a grounded perspective that merges cross-disciplinary themes in order to examine the contemporary discourse TURE concerned with alternatives to the tower in the park. LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 INTRODUCTION: CONTROVERSIAL TOWERS IN THE PARK REVIEW 2.2 THE IMPACT ON INHABITANTS 2.3 THE STATE OF ADVOCACY FOR URBAN ARCHITECTURE TO DO MORE
2.4 THE ROLE OF MIXED USES, THE SOCIAL DIMENSION, AND LANDSCAPE URBANISM
2.5 CONCLUSION: REINTEGRATION AND DENSIFICATION
CHAPTER 2 Purpose: From the history/background established, what contemporary URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII concerns must be addressed?
INTRODUCTION: CONTROVERSIAL TOWERS IN THE PARK
HE TOWER IN THE PARK, WITHIN ITS GLOBAL, URBAN CONTEXT, BECAME THE CENTER OF DEBATES AROUND T WHAT IS RIGHT OR WRONG FOR URBAN HOUSING: some sort of vertical ethics. It was in the decades of the 1960s and 70s that brought a dramatic wave of single-use, post-World War II dwellings in the form of high-rise construction in cities across the world (see Figure 001). In many cases, the architecture was indisputably inspired by Le Corbusier and CIAM’s notion of the functional city. 01 What followed the reality of life in these massive, urban elements, years and even decades later, was a wave of demolition: a publicly collective sign of defeat. 02 In many cases, among the myriad of fluctuating variables, including but not limited tosocial , political, economic, and infrastructural concerns, the towers in the park that sprouted across metropolitan areas proved to be lacking something. The optimistic stacking of lives dismissed careful examination and understanding of the needs and wants of the architecture’s future users and uses. 03
In one respect, the potential of this model was hindered by a popular desire for an international identity of modern architecture Figure 014. View to sky: even referred to their own home as a “trap.” 05 Unfortunately, the that did indeed aspire for simplicity, elegant formal gestures, Glasgow’s Red Road flats, predetermined infrastructure of America’s interpretation of the plentiful public space, maximizing daylighting, efficiency, and other constructed from 1964-68. tower in the park provided a less than desirable quality of life. 06 experiential and infrastructural qualities, both inside and out. 04 Hailed as the solution to What rises to the surface in a contemporary, retrospective context Lost in translation within the metropolitan contexts of Chicago, slums, intended to house and critical discussion of the tower in the park includes three key Detroit, and St. Louis, this model became American public housing nearly 5,000 residents, topics: firstly, the impact on its inhabitants; secondly, the state that developed into a vertical neighborhood, highly-concentrated they came to represent the of advocacy for urban architecture to do more, with respect to with low-income families, deprived of sufficient amenities and failings of 20th-century, intervening on existing vacant blocks through the memory, desires, opportunities necessary for the process of motivating community high-rise housing (©Murdo and needs of local and visiting community members; and thirdly, the members to thrive or fairly move towards individually-established MacLeod / The Guardian), role of mixed uses, the social dimension, and landscape urbanism goals. For some community members in the towers, the topic of accessed 7 November 2017, as means of moving towards a more optimistic and significantly less “escaping” the confines of this environment was of the utmost https://www.theguardian. precarious model for previously underserved, urban participants. A importance yet seemingly impossible; some Cabrini-Green residents com/cities/2015/aug/18/red- critical question encompassing these concerns becomes a staple of road-demolition-residents- the design work that is yet to come; what are the ambitions of the glasgow-high-rise-dream. second wave of America’s tower-in-the-park typology?
01 Poerschke, “CIAM’s Four-Function Dogma,” 197. 02 [SOURCE ON DEMO?] 05 Rybczynski, “Bauhaus Blunders: Architecture and Public Housing,” 03 Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, 242. 89. 04 Who says this? E. Mumford? CHECK SOURCE. 06 [WHO SAID THIS?]
038 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW — 2.1 OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 039 Purpose: How did the tower-in-the-park URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII model affect its inhabitants?
THE IMPACT ON INHABITANTS
HE PROJECTS, AS THE AMERICAN TOWER Figure 015. Young boy views feelings of isolation from the rest of the city. 09 IN THE PARK CAME TO BE KNOWN IN Chicago through a chainlink T MANY CASES, were and remain to be a barrier in an open-air gallery If the ability to feel empowered or actually be able to succeed place where many consider home. Beyond the at Robert Taylor Homes, in society is inherently linked to the place one grows up, then a predetermined arrangements of architecture contemporary tower in the park must serve a greater purpose than that serve as neighborhoods, humans have it once did. 10 Seen through the perspective within and between proven to be rather resilient under a variety of Chicago’s former Robert Taylor Homes (see Figures), the views are environmental circumstances; one often has little rather ominous. Within this context, entering an open-air gallery choice but to make do with the life one is dealt. upon departure from one’s dwelling awards a view through a Among many others, some of the variables at chainlink fence. Surrounded by brick and mortar, four foot by stake include living conditions, socioeconomic four foot windows and vast open space between the observer status, access to vocational and academic and the street edge appears to be lacking qualities of a successful 07 Figure 016. 2-Mile Path, opportunities, and self-efficacy. Albert Bandura, neighborhood. 11 Robert Taylor Homes, South Stanford University’s David Starr Jordan Professor Side, Chicago,1965. Emeritus of Social Science in Psychology, has made Concerned with more of the pragmatism that accompanied tremendous strides in his research across multiple urban development, those responsible for the architecture and disciplines, with his most relevant work being that construction pushed for a quick and efficient realization, allowing of “perceived self-efficacy in self-development, and the human in the architecture to fall victim to the byproducts of adaptation and change, [which] laid the theoretical time and budgetary constraints. 12 What the City of Chicago likely did 08 foundation for his theory of human agency.” not anticipate were the results of adopting local Mies van der Rohe The theory of human agency ties in closely to the apartment designs (mostly for upper-middle-class) for low-income social circumstances around the single-use towers families: discussed in this thesis, and while it also relates to the broader realm of placemaking throughout Without restricted access, the lobbies and corridors were the built environment it supports an argument vandalized; without proper maintenance, elevators broke that wishes to address impact on inhabitants and down, staircases became garbage dumps, roofs leaked, highlight a series of detailed moments, viewed and broken windows remained unreplaced; without baby- through a closer lens. The vertical arrangements sitters, single mothers were stranded in their apartments, of homogeneously-stacked and horizontally- and children roamed unsupervised sixteen floors below. 13 replicated massing of monotonous rows of apartments, such as the former towers of Cabrini- Green and Robert Taylor Homes, impacted the 09 Petty, High Rise Stories: Voices from Chicago Public Housing, #. families and individuals who inhabited them. Many [Find P#] of these cases were filled with social strife and 10 Chyn, “Moved to Opportunity: The Long-Run Effect of Public Housing Demolition on Labor Market Outcomes of Children” 1. 11 Shaw, Metz and Associates, “Taylor, Robert, Homes.” 07 [Do I need a source? A sociologist? Info seems Figure 017. Vandalized Entry, 12 [NEED SOURCE.] like common sense.] Robert Taylor Homes, South 13 Rybczynski, “Bauhaus Blunders: Architecture and Public Housing,” 08 Bandura, “Home.” Side, Chicago, (Year? Author?). 85.
040 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW — 2.2 OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 041 Purpose: What are the observations, speculations, and calls to action in response to URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII the tower in the park?
THE STATE OF ADVOCACY FOR URBAN ARCHITECTURE TO DO MORE
The past reality of strife and isolation is avoidable for the discussing the social implications within the same context, 16 but contemporary city, regardless of income level. Serious reevaluations where Maas does not spend time, Jane Jacobs does. In her 1961 of at least the what, why, and how that drives design and novel, the Death and Life of Great American Cities, she... construction must occur within a variety of urban contexts. From the controversies within the past of the tower in the park to the now The ambiguous nature of quotes from Rem Koolhaas and Winy vacant blocks left in the wake of demolition, the state of advocacy Maas, that demand a “new newness” 17 or a “truly urbanistic for more critical, urban architecture awaits a response. architecture,” 18 respectively, give a new generation of architects and designers the ability to revise trajectories and bring light to T THE TURN OF THE CENTURY, a meeting among a variety the pressing and contemporary urban challenges that architecture of prominent and influential architects and theorists was faces. To....engage in new or ongoing dialogues between people and A organized by Bernard Tschumi in the form of a conference place or the process of constantly attempting to fuse both into one to address the “state of architecture at the beginning of the twenty- progressive and meaningful experience that supports a increasingly first century.” 14 One member in particular, Winy Maas, in his article interconnected architecture that can operate as a community hub titled “Toward an Urbanistic Architecture,” focuses on what the with a variety of opportunities and uses. city needs and exclaims that “the world has become a battlefield for urban planning, and more than ever a coherent urbanistic Jane Jacobs approach [for architecture] is lacking...urbanism has become a “...massive single elements in cities...cast a deadening haven for resistance and protectionism...creating zones rather than influence.” 19 possibilities.” 15 This type of observation or polemical statement about what architecture is failing to do can be found across a Rem Koolhaas wide range of relevant authors involved in similar architecture “Pervasive urbanization has modified the urban condition itself and urbanism discourse, whether it be Rem Koolhaas, Jane Jacobs, beyond recognition. ‘The’ city no longer exists...distorted and Robert Stern, Richard Sennett, or Witold Rybczynski. As it relates stretched beyond precedent.” 20 to the tower in the park, these voices act as advocates for urban architecture to do more, sometimes experimental, pragmatic, Many others to potenitally discuss... social, or adaptive to the unknown urban future. Accompanied and challenged by contemporary debates, the reevaluation of the past ROWING IN POPULARITY THROUGHOUT THE LATTER HALF and invention of the future model for the tower in the park will lead OF THE 20TH CENTURY, rolling into the 21st, designers, to architecture that does more, by intervening on existing vacant G planners, and other relevant proponents had to explicitly blocks through the memory, desires, and needs of local and visiting reinforce the reality that buildings are meant for people: a rather community members of the future. simple and seemingly obvious observation that was not always
Contrary to his optimism about supporting the notion of urban life and density in high-rise typologies, Maas fails to spend time 16 Ibid., 14. 17 Koolhaas, “What Ever Happened to Urbanism?,” 971. 14 Tschumi, The State of Architecture at the Beginning of the 21st 18 Maas, “Toward an Urbanistic Architecture,” 14-15. Century, 7. 19 Ibid., 242. 15 Maas, “Towards an Urbanistic Architecture,” 14. 20 Koolhaas, “What Ever Happened to Urbanism?,” 963.
042 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW — 2.3 OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 043 Purpose: How can mixed uses, social environments, and landscape urbanism influence an alternative URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
THE ROLE OF MIXED USES, THE SOCIAL DIMENSION, AND LANDSCAPE URBANISM apparent in the products of modern architecture. 21 sounds rather subjective and aggressive, the basis of his argument is neither irrelevant nor inaccurate; Pruitt-Igoe resembled a “drab Another topic that emerged from Tcshumi’s Columbia University cement box.” conference in 2003 was the notion of architecture’s formal and physical properties having an ability to affect the social aspects of Whether it be through a tabula-rasa method of planning, adaptive- the architecture and its inhabitants. Fortunately, this is not an idea reuse, revitalization of existing infrastructure, or any other new for this century, but it has been discussed and written about method, the design process that leads to socially-equitable and through a variety of literature and builds upon the themes of how environmentally-conscious architecture should consider the human architecture certainly does have an ability to influence its users. as much as the composition of space, program, materials, et cetera. Roughly forty years after Jane Jacobs’ urban observations, the built The architecture for the contemporary tower-in-the-park alternative environment continued to evoke the mid-twentieth-century response then strives to succeed according to established criteria tied to that architecture needs to more critically consider the lives of people a specific site within a larger urban context.[Maybe add Steven who use it. 22 And working towards a quarter of the way into the 21st Pinker 25 Pallasmaa 26, and Mallgrave 27 to this discussion.] century, the call to action is still heard in contemporary literature. Robert Stern, in his 2003 article, “Urbanism is About Human Life,”...? Additional Notes: Growing awareness of the benefits of ______. Of the many conclusions Jacobs made, noteworthy for its relevance is the realization that diversity, both social and infrastructural, How to reinforce the social dimension in a design process? is essential for the positive performance of American cities. 23 Who is paving the path in the literature? Infrastructural diversity can be met by the call for more mixed uses which grew in popularity in the early 1990s [fact check...Who says? 1985 C.M. Deasy’s book: Designing Places for People Was this New Urbanism? When did everyone start advocating for Sarah Williams mixed uses?]. From Jacobs’ perspective, the tower in the park may Steven Pinker have been a precarious model from its inception not because of what it had but what it lacked. 24 Sarah Williams Goldhagen [I feel like I need more female opinions in this thesis] With the emergence of the relationship between neuroscience and place [environment...not people? Return to this later.] Disciplines that have emerged in recent decades, due in part to the growing demands for more environmentally-conscious and Steven Pinker’s opinion of modernism: “the early 20th century “green” buildings, include landscape and ecological urbanism. These failed because architects felt free ‘to write off people’s enjoyment fall within the broader disciplines of urban design and planning. of ornament, natural light, and human scale and forced millions Although formed at different times, they both operate as critical of people to live in drab cement boxes.’”3 Although Pinker’s voice alternatives to new urbanism: 28 an encouraged new perspective
21 [SOURCE] Who backs this up besides a bunch of different sources 25 Pinker [SOURCE CORRECTLY] supporting the general notion? 26 Pallasmaa [SOURCE CORRECTLY] 22 Stern, “Urbanism is about Human Life,” 21. 27 Mallgrave [SOURCE CORRECTLY] 23 Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, 242. 28 Waldheim, “On Landscape, Ecology and other Modifiers to 24 Ibid., 176-77. Urbanism,” 21.
044 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW — 2.4 OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 045 URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
following a public critique that new urbanism’s principles and poverty, and built structures deemed as damaged beyond repair, execution, as a whole, remains inadequate for the success of future leading to their demolition. Design tests build off of the research cities and their users. 29 The neglected variables of landscape and that precedes this section of the literature review and begins to nature in planning, urban design, and architecture, especially the influence the formulation of generative criteria that informs a former and current monoliths of public housing in the United States, conscientious design process that advocates for the notion of encourages a more interdisciplinary and/or ecological approach to “responsible architecture.” contemporary city-making. What are the implications of landscape and ecological urbanism for an alternative to the tower in the park? Does the alternative have to be a tower? Does it have to recreate How can landscape, whether or not utilized as a productive system the density that public housing towers once supported? What within a city block, benefit the community at large? In what ways qualities should be embedded in an alternative building typology does this enhance the quality of life of residents, visitors, employees, that respects the memory of the site and intended purpose of public and other stakeholders? housing towers in Chicago?
• You Don’t have time to review Landscape Urbanism Reader! What Is This Place? The response to the tower in the park begins to take shape as a ITUATED IN A COMPLEX NETWORK OF INFORMATION, balance of residents of varying income levels and intended time architecture in the first quarter of the 21st century spans for dwelling; this could be labeled “mixed-income housing,” Sfaces growing demands to create high-performance, but this building typology intends to do more by integrating shared environmentally-conscious, yet socially-equitable urban places amenities, mixed uses, public and private programs, childcare that sustain the quality of life of its inhabitants. Architecture that facilities, educational program, incubators for startup companies is present has the gift of being able to learn from the past in order (which might attract newcomers to be a part of the growing to avoid remaking mistakes but must also anticipate an unknown neighborhood), leasable retail space, recreational fields, et cetera. future. An architectural alternative to the tower in the park now has an opportunity to reshape not only the places one lives within an Qualities of the Architecture existing, currently deteriorating urban area but also the perception • Porosity at street-level of the city as a whole. What was once stigmatized, publicly branded • Open/transparent physical relationships with immediate context with misconstrued stereotypes and broad generalizations that • Revising relationships between the sidewalk and the core of the undermined the integrity of communities, can now be more city block: where are the physical barriers? critically aware of the context: equally concerned with the social, • Relationship between ground level, level 2, and level 3 environmental, and economic forces that contribute to the success • Interlocking of massing: mixed-use program configurations of an alternative. • Balancing and diversifying density within interconnected volumes Urban Context • Plan vs. section hierarchy: developing a system of clear parts This thesis situates itself in the context of the Near Side • Circulation: private to public gradients/arrangements. Where neighborhoods surrounding Chicago’s downtown area: sites are the circulation cores? Where is the public invitation upward? for ongoing design tests that have historically fallen victim to • Interior vs. exterior at all levels of built structure stereotypes, broad generalizations, controversies of crime and
29 Ibid., 22.
046 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW — 2.4 OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 047 URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
The housing function of the architecture becomes a place for families or individuals to reposition themselves, prepare, save, or just stick around and call home.
Potential Stakeholders This thesis speculates about an approach that incentivizes an increasingly diverse set of stakeholders to support the proposed architecture: private investors, the Chicago Housing Authority, market-rate, affordable, and public housing candidates, local community members that can utilize new amenities offered, and members of the various uses, e.g., childcare professionals, retail employees, and emerging professionals/recent graduates from local universities.
048 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW — OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 049 Purpose: Where is this thesis going?
CONCLUSION: REINTEGRATION AND DENSIFICATION
HE RESPONSIBILITY OF ARCHITECTURE’S ROLE TO SHAPE Figure 018. Vacant THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT TODAY HAS BECOME IMPERATIVE Blocks, Analytical diagram T FOR A SYNERGY BETWEEN PEOPLE AND PLACE. Therefore, highlighting existing context the architecture needed for the city of the twenty-first century near public transit, South must be increasingly cognisant of the need to support human life. Side Chicago along South The predominantly stylistic or formal exercise of object-making State Street, between that dismissed the human dimension, in the context of the tower West Cermak Road and in the park, contributed to its own detriment. 30 While the world 24th Street, Bing satellite remains an overflowing container of convoluted politics, relentless image underlay, by author, social issues, and other topics well beyond the actual scope of this 17 January 2018, (William thesis, there can at least be a valiant effort to develop a design Toohey III, CC BY-NC-SA) process that speaks more intimately to the social and environmental responsibilities of contemporary architecture. This process then strives to realize design outcomes that take shape as both graphic and physical artifacts. A successful alternative to the tower in the park seeks contextual, social, environmental, multi-programmatic, diversely-spatial, interconnected, and ecological solutions that respond to the needs and desires of some known, but others hypothetical, future inhabitants within the context of Chicago’s Near Side neighborhoods. Developing an explicit set (or sets) of criteria that can alternate between site specificity and autonomy, relative to the many variables at play, will influence the perceived success or failure of design outcomes. In preparation for the analytical and design investigations that unfold in Chapter 3, it is firstly essential to gain an enhanced understanding of existing contexts across North America and Europe: a catalog of visual evidence.
30 Big claim. [FIND THIS SOURCE.]
050 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW — 2.5 DESIGN 2000-2018
Chapter 3 includes a variety of analytical studies that place the reader in the heart of AS RE- visual evidence of the past, present, and future. DESIGN AS RESEARCH 1
3.1 OUTLINING ANALYTICAL INVESTIGATIONS SEARCH 1 3.2 IDENTIFYING THE CONTEXT: NORTH AMERICA & EUROPE 3.3 VISUALIZING THE CONTEXT
3.4 PRE-FRAMING: RECONSTRUCTING ROBERT TAYLOR HOMES
3.5 CONTEMPORARY RESPONSES TO THE TOWER IN THE PARK
CHAPTER 3 Purpose: What aspects of the tower-in-the-park model are the URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII most important to identify and respond to? ANALYTICAL METHODS OF INVESTIGATION
CONTEXT Metropolitan Area Varying proximity to city center
BUILDING TYPOLOGY The Tower in the Park (Single-Use Housing) Inspired by modernism’s notion of the functional city
CONTEXTUAL IDENTIFICATION MONTAGED HISTORIES CONTEMPORARY RESPONSES TO THE NORTH AMERICA & EUROPE Camilo J. Vergara’s Photography TOWER IN THE PARK St. Louis Cabrini-Green LOW2NO - Mixed-Use Sustainable Development Pruitt-Igoe City: Helsinki, Finland Chicago SCIENCE-FICTION, DYSTOPIAN THRILLER Architects: REX Cabrini-Green URBAN SPECULATIONS Robert Taylor Homes J.G. Ballard’s High-Rise Star Apartments Rockwell Gardens Movie Adaptation of 1975 novel City: Los Angeles, California NYC Architects: Michael Maltzan Architecture Stuyvesant Town–P.Cooper Village PRE-FRAMING (P1) Co-op City Reconstructing Robert Taylor Homes New Carver Apartments Detroit Bronzeville, South Side, Chicago, Illinois City: Los Angeles, California Frederick Douglas Homes Architects: Michael Maltzan Architecture Toronto NEWSPAPER ARCHIVE St. James Town Public Housing, Crime, & Incessant Issues Taylor Library & Affordable Housing London Bronzeville, South Side, Chicago, Illinois City: Chicago, Illinois Trellick Tower Architects: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill / Heygate Estate PRE-FRAMING (P2) Perkins + Will / John Ronan Architects Glascow Manipulating Robert Taylor Homes Red Road Flats Bronzeville, South Side, Chicago, Illinois Montpleyel(+) Belfast City: Paris, France (upper north) Divis Flats Architects: MVRDV
054 CHAPTER 3: DESIGN AS RESEARCH 1 — 3.1 OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 055 IDENTIFYING THE CONTEXT: NORTH AMERICA & EUROPE 3.2 URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
PRUITT-IGOE
Condition Figure 019. Previous 33 buildings at 11 stories page: View from window Location at Stuvesant Town, Near North Side, St. Louis, Missouri photograph by Christian Constructed Mueller / Shutterstock, 1955 2017, https://ny.curbed. Demolished com/2017/2/7/14540094/ 1972-1976 east-village-stuyvesant-town- affordable-housing
058 CHAPTER 3: DESIGN AS RESEARCH 1 — 3.2 OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 059 URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
ROBERT TAYLOR HOMES
Condition Figure 020. S. State Robert 28 buildings at 16 stories Taylor Homes, 16-story Location towers Chicago, Illinois Bronzeville, South Side, Chicago, Illinois Constructed 1961-1962 Demolished 1998-2007
060 CHAPTER 3: DESIGN AS RESEARCH — 3.2 OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 061 URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
CABRINI-GREEN
Condition Combination of rowhouses, mid & high-rises, the tallest standing at 19 stories Location Cabrini-Green, Near North Side, Chicago, Illinois Constructed 1942-1962 Demolished 1995-2011
062 CHAPTER 3: DESIGN AS RESEARCH — 3.2 OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 063 URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
ROCKWELL GARDENS
Condition Series of high-rises Location East Garfield Park, West Side, Chicago, Illinois Constructed 1958-1959 Demolished 2003-2006
064 CHAPTER 3: DESIGN AS RESEARCH — 3.2 OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 065 URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
STUYVESANT TOWN–PETER COOPER VILLAGE
Condition 110 buildings and 11,250 apartments Location Eastside of Manhattan, New York City, New York Constructed 1945-1947
066 CHAPTER 3: DESIGN AS RESEARCH — 3.2 OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 067 URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
STUYVESANT TOWN–PETER COOPER VILLAGE
Source URL: https://www.stuytown.com/about-nyc-apartments/stuytown
068 CHAPTER 3: DESIGN AS RESEARCH — 3.2 OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 069 URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
CO-OP CITY
Condition Residential towers Population 43,752 (2010 census) Location Bronx, New York City, New York Constructed 1966-1973
“Co-op City is a paradigmatic product of 1950s urbanism. It was designed in 1951 by the architect Herman Jessor who, from the 1920s through the ‘70s, worked on housing for tens of thousands of New Yorkers in cooperatives and affordable projects...” 01
01 Caitlin Blanchfield May 28, 2014 (Urban Omnibus source)
070 CHAPTER 3: DESIGN AS RESEARCH — 3.2 OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 071 URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
FREDERICK DOUGLASS HOMES
Condition 6 high-rise buildings at 14 stories Location Detroit, Michigan Architect Harley Ellis Devereaux Constructed 1952-1955 Demolished 2003 (2 of the 6 high-rise buildings, with the abandoned remains of the development set for future demolition)
Abandoned towers in the park
072 CHAPTER 3: DESIGN AS RESEARCH — 3.2 OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 073 URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
ST. JAMES TOWN
Condition 19 buildings at 14 to 32 stories (Largest high-rise community in Canada) Location Toronto, Canada Constructed 1959-1967
Surrounded by green space but deprived of sufficient public and private amenities
074 CHAPTER 3: DESIGN AS RESEARCH — 3.2 OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 075 URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
TRELLICK TOWER
Condition 1 building at 31 stories, surrounded by a collection of mid and low-rise buildings Location Kensal Town, Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England Architect Ernő Goldfinger Constructed 1972
076 CHAPTER 3: DESIGN AS RESEARCH — 3.2 OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 077 URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
TRELLICK TOWER
Source URL: https://www.ft.com/content/7ae5d134-bacf-11e5-bf7e-
078 CHAPTER 3: DESIGN AS RESEARCH — 3.2 OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 079 URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
HEYGATE ESTATE
Condition 1214 homes for 3000+ people Location Elephant and Castle, Walworth, Southwark, London, England Constructed 1971-1974 Demolished 2011–2014
“The Corbusier-inspired concept behind the construction of the estate was of a modern living environment. The neo-brutalist architectural aesthetic was one of tall, concrete blocks dwarfing smaller blocks, surrounding central communal gardens” - Wiki
080 CHAPTER 3: DESIGN AS RESEARCH — 3.2 OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 081 URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
RED ROAD FLATS
Condition 2 “point blocks” at 28 stories & 6 “slab blocks” at 31 stories Location Glascow, Scotland Constructed 1964-1968 Demolished 2012-2015
082 CHAPTER 3: DESIGN AS RESEARCH — 3.2 OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 083 URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
DIVIS FLATS
Condition 1 building—20 stories 9 buildings—8 stories Location Belfast, Northern Ireland Architect Frank Robertson Constructed 1966-69 Demolished 2012-15 (the 20-story tower remains standing, today)
Architect’s Intent ··Recreate the sense of community that Figure 021. Divis Flats, Aerial the residents had been used to in their terrace houses and streets. Photograph Designed 19-story tower and complex of 7-story blocks ··Link buildings via walkways Figure 024. Divis Flats, Inside ··Take the old models of the streets and dwellings but stack them: the Stairwell 10’ wide galleries outside residents’ doors could become the “new street” for children to play on Figure 025. Divis Flats, ··In 1960’s Ireland, there was nowhere near the emphasis on public Children Swinging Around relations as there is in contemporary society. “The only public Figure 022. Optimistic feedback that we could identify was from the parish priests.” 01 Newspaper Articles of Life in the Divis Flats Retrospective Insight from the Architect Robertson reflects on neglecting the human dimension: Figure 023. Site Plan Diagramming the Divis Flats “I never realized...perish priests, quite naturally, have an ethos of looking after their flock and didn’t want their flock scattered, but that wasn’t really the type of feedback I should’ve been picking up on at that time.”
01 Frank Robertson in a BBC TV documentary
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DIVIS FLATS
Figure 026. View of Remaining 20-story Divis Tower taken from Divis Street and Lower Falls Road, Belfast, Northern Ireland, 1998
086 CHAPTER 3: DESIGN AS RESEARCH — 3.2 OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 087 PORTION OF CABRINI-GREEN
VISUALIZING THE CONTEXT: CAMERA / COMPUTER / HAND 3.3
HAROLD ICKES HOMES URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
MONTAGED HISTORIES: CABRINI-GREEN
Introduction to Image Analysis Figure 027. Previous page: Conclusions This analytical exercise identifies the architecture of the dwelling Astronaut photograph Based off of material discussed function, expressed via CIAM’s notion the functional city. 01 The ISS041-E-103791, captured in chapters 1 and 2, the tower-in-the-park model, an architectural condition later described from the International contemporary response to former by Jane Jacobs as a “massive single element [with a] deadening Space Station on October towers in the park, or in the case, influence,” 02 is shown to the right (Figures 000 through 000) at 1117 28, 2014 with a Nikon D4 “towers on the pavement,” across North Cleveland Street in the Near North Side of Chicago: a context digital camera and 800 mm swaths of Chicago’s metropolitan that once supported the Cabrini-Green apartment towers. lens, shows 16 miles of the landscape is mixed-income Lake Michigan shoreline, housing. ... Argument Chicago, Illinois, https:// The precarious nature of this model has as much to do with the earthobservatory.nasa.gov/ ... one could argue that part of architecture, modernist influences, and its intentions as it does IOTD/view.php?id=84943. the answer lies within something the failed maintenance, understaffed housing authorities, politics, inherently more architectural. socioeconomics, and crime. Figure 028. Photograph of Subsequent design tests advocate one of a series of towers at for more combinations: mixed- Analysis Cabrini-Green, 1117 North materials, mixed-uses, mixed- The material used and how it is applied, repetitiously distributed Cleveland Street, Near North volumes, mixed-objects, and across the facade, has an immediate effect on one’s perception of Side, Chicago, Illinois, 1988 mixed-proportions. The social the place. The horizontal and vertical lines that make up the grid are (©Camilo José Vergara) dimensions embedded in an overly-monotonous for the context and does not help to prevent the architectural response to failed inevitable nature of this introverted structure. The cheap application Figure 029. Photograph of public housing in America requires of brick and mortar may be economical, but it may have already one of a series of towers at a careful and calculated process, proven to be detrimental to the community it shelters. Cabrini-Green, 1117 North fostering a sense of community, Cleveland Street, Near North place, and opportunity. The The massiveness of the building and its poor connection to the Side, Chicago, Illinois, 1995 design process can initiate the ground is lacking something. The structure stands alone on a paved (©Camilo José Vergara) formulation of an architecture surface with no welcoming invitation, in stark contrast to the more that reconsiders the relationships prosperous posture of the John Hancock Center, beyond. Figure 030. Photograph of among material, program, space, one of a series of towers at objects, and people. The program supports only one use on the interior and one on the Cabrini-Green, 1117 North exterior: dwelling and recreation, respectively. The separation and Cleveland Street, Near North lack of integration was and remains to be an issue with this model, Side, Chicago, Illinois, 1998 evident in other metropolitan areas across the world. (©Camilo José Vergara)
01 Poerschke, Ute. “CIAM’s Four-Function Dogma,” 199. 02 Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, 242.
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MONTAGED HISTORIES: CABRINI-GREEN
Figure 031. Montaged histories: a decade’s length of deterioration, 3-part series of Cabrini-Green, 1117 North Cleveland Street, Near North Side, Chicago, Illinois, photographed 1988-1998 (©Camilo José Vergara), collage construction, (William Toohey III, CC BY- NC-SA)
092 CHAPTER 3: DESIGN AS RESEARCH — 3.3 OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 093 URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
Figure 032. Frame from Ben Figure 033. Frame from Ben FILM ADAPTATION OF J.G. BALLARD’S 1975 NOVEL, HIGH-RISE Wheatley-directed High-Rise Wheatley-directed High-Rise
Figure 034. Frame from Ben Figure 035. Frame from Ben Wheatley-directed High-Rise Wheatley-directed High-Rise
(00:19:42) (01:53:22) 03
Maximum Architectural Introversion Evidence of Active Building Systems Seen Penetrating Inhabitants’ Constructed Landscape Unseen Surroundings
(00:35:16) (00:19:00) I am in utopia No, you are not
Disproportionate Entry to the Overly-Massive Architecture
03 High-Rise. Film Adaptation of the 1975 Novel, High-Rise.
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Figure 036. Frame from Ben Figure 038. Frame from Ben FILM ADAPTATION OF J.G. BALLARD’S 1975 NOVEL, HIGH-RISE Wheatley-directed High-Rise Wheatley-directed High-Rise
Figure 037. Frame from Ben Figure 039. Frame from Ben Wheatley-directed High-Rise Wheatley-directed High-Rise
(00:04:55) (00:36:07) 04
Where Did I Park? Clear Division Between Life & Privately-Owned Transportation
(00:04:30) (00:05:09)
Neighbor Separations: Balconies Support Limited Visual and No Physical Connections
The Beatles: Horizontal Mirror? Life on the Impervious Surface
04 High-Rise. Film Adaptation of the 1975 Novel, High-Rise.
096 CHAPTER 3: DESIGN AS RESEARCH — 3.3 OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 097 Figure 040. Analytical Purpose: Does a reconstruction and analysis of a mid-twentieth-century axonometric: Vertical tower in the park offer value to future design framing and testing? Are circulation of a reconstructed there salvageable elements of the single-use, high-rise dwelling? In the Robert Taylor Homes tower, context of Chicago’s South Side, can the former high-rise model of Robert rendering and wireframe Taylor Homes, designed by Shaw, Metz and Associates, influence the from Rhino model, 9 trajectory of this thesis and its design outcomes? Does a building that December 2017, (William embodies modernist principles, built between 1961 and 1962 (x28), Toohey III, CC BY-NC-SA) reveal anything noteworthy about itself or its users?
ELEMENTS OF THE ISSUE METHODOLOGY EXISTING TOWER-IN-THE- Tool PARK TYPOLOGY Digital Modeling with Rhino / Photoshop Representation SPACE Sectional Perspective / Axonometric Indoor Isolation Diagramming Outdoor Vastness Reveals informative elements of the tower in the park Lack of Hierarchy PRE-FRAMING EXERCISE P1 MATERIAL Reconstructing Robert Taylor Homes Low Quality Chain-link Railing CONTEXT OF INVESTIGATION Solid-Transparent Ratio Bronzeville, South Side, Chicago, Illinois Notorious public housing projects PROGRAM Lack of Diversity BUILDING TYPOLOGY Tower in the Park SCALE Single-Use Housing Monumentality
FORM Monotonous Stacking
The visual evidence that follows in this section was created the by the author, unless otherwise noted, renderings from Rhino model, 11 December 2017, (William Toohey III, CC BY-NC-SA) URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
PRE-FRAMING: RECONSTRUCTING ROBERT TAYLOR HOMES
Figure 041. Typical floor plan: 3rd through 16th floors, Robert Taylor Homes, digital scan of drafted plan by Shaw, Metz and Associates, the Art Institute of Chicago Ryerson & Burnham Archives: Archival Image Collection, original image altered for black and white representation, move IN accessed 25 November 2017, http://digital-libraries. saic.edu/cdm/singleitem/ collection/mqc/id/16239/ rec/1.
Figure 042. First floor plan, Robert Taylor Homes, digital scan of drafted plan by Shaw, Metz and Associates, the Art Institute of Chicago Ryerson & Burnham Archives: Archival Image Collection, original move UP image altered for black and white representation, accessed 25 November 2017, http://digital-libraries. saic.edu/cdm/singleitem/ collection/mqc/id/16339/ rec/2.
Figure 043. Axonometric: Entry
Figure 044. Axonometric: Vertical circulation move THROUGH
Figure 045. Axonometric: Horizontal circulation
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PRE-FRAMING: RECONSTRUCTING ROBERT TAYLOR HOMES
Figure 046. Partial site plans: super blocks that made a continuous 2-mile stretch of public housing high-rises, Robert Taylor Homes, digital scan of drafted plan by Shaw, Metz and Associates, the Art Institute of Chicago Ryerson & Burnham Archives: Archival live as FAMILY Image Collection, original image altered for black and white representation, accessed 25 November 2017, http://digital-libraries. saic.edu/cdm/singleitem/ collection/mqc/id/16358/ rec/3
live as COMMUNITY 1
Figure 047. Axonometric: Private dwellings
Figure 048. Axonometric: live as COMMUNITY 2 Communal laundry
Figure 049. Axonometric: Communal open-air gallery
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PRE-FRAMING: RECONSTRUCTING ROBERT TAYLOR HOMES EL.185.45'
Figure 050. Sectional perspective #1
Figure 051. Sectional perspective #2
Living Room
Bedroom Restroom
Bedroom Open-Air Gallery
Passage
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PRE-FRAMING: RECONSTRUCTING ROBERT TAYLOR HOMES Figure 052. Sectional perspective #3
Figure 053. Sectional perspective #4
Laundry Room
Elevator Egress / Main Stair
Elevator Lobby
Laundry Room
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PRE-FRAMING: RECONSTRUCTING ROBERT TAYLOR HOMES
Figure 054. Sectional perspective #5
Figure 055. Sectional perspective #6
Open-Air Gallery Egress Threshold Egress / Main Stair
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PRE-FRAMING: RECONSTRUCTING ROBERT TAYLOR HOMES
Figure 056. Sectional perspective #7
Figure 057. Sectional perspective #8
Mostly Living Rooms Mostly Bedrooms
110 CHAPTER 3: DESIGN AS RESEARCH — 3.4 OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 111 DECEMBER 03, 1986 Purpose: ______DREAM OF PROGRESS DIED BY BONITA BRODT, PATRICK REARDON & JERRY THORNTON QUICKLY AT TAYLOR HOMES THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE
METHODOLOGY GUNSHOTS RING OUT OLD YEAR, JANUARY 02, 1992 Tool BY WILLIAM RECKTENWALD Digitally-Archived Newspaper Articles THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE RING IN NEW Representation Quotes
NEWSPAPER ARCHIVE Realities throughout the Built Environment N1
CONTEXT OF INVESTIGATION Understanding the Issues The topic of public housing towers in American cities opens up extremely convoluted subtopics within subtopics. By framing a JANUARY 21, 2018 “newspaper archive,” sharing segments from Chicago Tribune 14 KILLED, BY DEANESE WILLIAMS-HARRIS and New York Times articles, a better understanding of the city of & MADELINE BUCKLEY 16 WOUNDED THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE Chicago, public housing, tensions, pressures, and inequity can be achieved.
ESTABLISHED BOUNDARIES FOR ANALYSIS xxxxxx
THE TOWERS CAME DOWN, AND WITH FEBRUARY 06, 2018 BY BEN AUSTEN THEM THE PROMISE OF PUBLIC HOUSING THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE DREAM OF A CRACK OF GUNFIRE ECHOES FROM A DISTANCE. IT GOES UNNOTICED, A FAMILIAR MELODY TO WHICH THE YOUNG CHILDREN PROGRESS PLAY. HIGH-PITCHED VOICES BOUNCE OFF THE BARREN PLAYGROUND WITH ITS HARD, CONCRETE FLOOR. BODIES TANGLE, DIED QUICKLY SCRAMBLING OVER BENCHES THAT HAVE NO SEATS AND DODGING THE LEGS OF A RUSTED AT TAYLOR SWINGSET WITHOUT A SINGLE SWING. WATCHING, EDIE BISHOP SIGHS. HOMES “THIS IS NO PLACE FOR CHILDREN,” THE 65-YEAR-OLD WOMAN SAYS, PEERING TOWARD THE PLAYLOT THROUGH THE ZIGZAG OF WIRE MESH THAT STRETCHES ACROSS HER KITCHEN WINDOW. “NOT FIT TO BE ANYBODY’S HOME.”
SHE DIDN’T ALWAYS FEEL THIS WAY, NOT WHEN SHE FIRST HEARD THE CITY HAD BUILT HOUSING FOR PEOPLE WITH LOW INCOMES DECEMBER 03, 1986 AND SHE DRESSED IN HER BEST CLOTHES TO BY BONITA BRODT, PATRICK REARDON INQUIRE. THAT WAS IN 1960, BACK WHEN & JERRY THORNTON APARTMENTS WERE FIRST RENTED IN THE THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE ROBERT TAYLOR HOMES. DAURELL BODIE, 18, DIED AFTER BEING SHOT GUNSHOTS TUESDAY NIGHT WHEN THE CAR IN WHICH HE WAS RIDING STOPPED AT A STOP SIGN ON 69TH STREET AND MEN IN ANOTHER CAR RING OUT OPENED FIRE, SAID BRIGHTON PARK VIOLENT CRIMES SGT. FRANCIS LEE JR. THE INCIDENT OLD YEAR, OCCURRED ABOUT 7 P.M., LEE SAID. JOHN LACY, 20, WHO WAS RIDING IN THE CAR WITH BODIE, ALSO WAS SHOT AND RING IN NEW WAS LISTED IN FAIR CONDITION IN CHRIST HOSPITAL ON WEDNESDAY. NO SUSPECTS WERE IN CUSTODY, POLICE SAID.
IN ANOTHER INCIDENT, ANGIE RAMIREZ, 21, WAS SHOT TO DEATH ABOUT 8:30 P.M. TUESDAY IN AN APARTMENT IN THE 1900 BLOCK OF WEST NORTH AVENUE, POLICE SAID.
THE GUNMAN, MARTIN BERMUDEZ, 23, RAMIREZ’S BOYFRIEND, THEN FATALLY SHOT HIMSELF, SAID HARRISON VIOLENT CRIMES SGT. JOHN CHOJNACKI. RAMIREZ JANUARY 02, 1992 AND BERMUDEZ WERE FOUND DEAD IN THE BY WILLIAM RECKTENWALD KITCHEN OF THE APARTMENT THEY SHARED, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE CHOJNACKI SAID. A 19-YEAR-OLD WOMAN WAS ENTERING THE PARTY WHEN SHE WAS SHOT AT BY SOMEONE 4 KILLED, IN A PASSING CAR, POLICE SAID. TWO MEN, 24 AND 21, AND ANOTHER WOMAN, 30, WERE 16 WOUNDED ALSO WOUNDED. THE FIRST FATAL SHOOTING HAPPENED AROUND 1:15 P.M. SATURDAY AT THE BUS STOP OUTSIDE THE 69TH STREET STATION, 15 W. 69TH ST., POLICE SAID.
IN THE DOUBLE HOMICIDE, TWO MEN, 25 AND 19, WERE SHOT AROUND 3 A.M. SUNDAY IN THE 6000 BLOCK OF WEST BELDEN STREET IN THE BELMONT CENTRAL NEIGHBORHOOD.
THE MEN WERE WALKING WHEN SOMEONE FIRED AT THEM FROM A BLACK VEHICLE, POLICE SAID. THE 25-YEAR-OLD WAS SHOT IN THE BACK AND DIED AT LOYOLA UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER IN MAYWOOD, AND THE 19-YEAR-OLD WAS SHOT IN THE HEAD AND DIED AT ILLINOIS MASONIC MEDICAL CENTER.
JANUARY 21, 2018 A 5-YEAR-OLD GIRL WAS ALSO SHOT BY DEANESE WILLIAMS-HARRIS SATURDAY WHILE SHE WAS IN A CAR WITH & MADELINE BUCKLEY A FAMILY MEMBER IN THE NORTH AUSTIN THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE NEIGHBORHOOD. “I SEE ONE-THIRD OF A NATION ILL HOUSED, ILL CLAD, ILL NOURISHED,” ROOSEVELT THE TOWERS ANNOUNCED THAT YEAR.
“THE TEST OF OUR PROGRESS IS NOT CAME DOWN, WHETHER WE ADD MORE TO THE ABUNDANCE OF THOSE WHO HAVE MUCH; IT IS WHETHER WE PROVIDE ENOUGH FOR THOSE WHO HAVE AND WITH TOO LITTLE.” THE C.H.A. MOVED ANNIE RICKS SIX MILES THEM THE AWAY, TO CHICAGO’S SOUTH SIDE, INTO WENTWORTH GARDENS, A LOW-RISE PUBLIC- HOUSING DEVELOPMENT BUILT JUST AFTER PROMISE WORLD WAR II. SINCE THEN, WENTWORTH HAD BECOME SANDWICHED BETWEEN THE 14 LANES OF THE DAN RYAN EXPRESSWAY OF PUBLIC AND THE PARKING LOTS FOR THE WHITE SOX BASEBALL STADIUM. THE ONLY PLACE NEARBY TO BUY GROCERIES WAS HOUSING A GAS STATION AND LIQUOR STORE ON THE FAR END OF THE COMPLEX.
“PEOPLE AT WENTWORTH THINK YOU’RE STEPPING ON THEIR TURF,” RICKS SAID. FEBRUARY 06, 2018 “THIS IS NOT YOUR TURF. THIS IS C.H.A.’S BY BEN AUSTEN TURF. YOU CAN’T RUN ME FROM MY HOME. THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE BECAUSE I DO PAY RENT.” THEN SHE WAS STARTLED BY SCREAMING IN LAKEFRONT, AND SHE DOCUMENTED EVERY THE DISTANCE. SHE RECOGNIZED THE VOICE TIME SHE PHONED THE AGENCY TO GET AN BEFORE SHE SAW HIM: REGGIE. UPDATE. SHE CHECKED IN WITH A PRO BONO LAWYER WHO AGREED TO TAKE HER CASE, HE CAME RACING TOWARD HER OUT OF THE ASKING WHEN SHE SHOULD EXPECT TO MOVE. DARKNESS WITH RAQKOWN SPRINTING “SO HOW LONG WILL THAT BE?” BESIDE HIM. A MOB OF MEN WERE AT THEIR HEELS. HER SONS DASHED PAST HER AND UP “I WISH I KNEW. I THINK THEY’LL RESPOND THE STAIRS TO THEIR APARTMENT, THEIR TO ME. I’LL BOTHER THEM UNTIL THEY DO. I PURSUERS RUSHING PAST AS WELL. THINK THIS IS GOING TO BE TAKEN CARE OF. IT’S NOT GOING TO BE DONE QUICKLY.” REGGIE, WHO WAS BLEEDING FROM HIS HEAD, LIFTED A COOKING POT OFF THE STOVE “IT SHOULD BE QUICKLY, BECAUSE YOU’RE MY AND SWUNG IT TO FEND OFF BLOWS. ROSE LAWYER,” RICKS SAID. ARMED HERSELF WITH A MOP. THEIR MOTHER USUALLY CARRIED A FIST OF KEYS WITH HER, “I MAY BE A LAWYER; HOWEVER, I’M NOT A AND SHE NOW PUNCHED WITH IT. SHE HELD MAGICIAN.” THE AEROSOL CAN OF BUG REPELLENT AS WELL, AND SHE SPRAYED IT INTO ANY FACE SHE ENDED UP CUTTING TIES WITH HIM. CLOSE BY. HE’D BEEN EMAILING THE C.H.A. SINCE JULY, BUT THREE MONTHS LATER, HER SITUATION “I’M JUST GOING TO SAY IT LIKE THIS,” RICKS REMAINED THE SAME. SAID LATER THAT NIGHT, “WE DID WHATEVER WE HAD TO DO TO GET THEIR ASSES OUT OF “I’M NOT PREJUDICED,” SHE SAID. “BUT IF I’D OUR HOUSE.” HAVE BEEN WHITE, HE’D HAVE MOVED ME THE VERY SAME DAY. HE DOESN’T HAVE TO LIVE IN SHE PUT IN FOR A TRANSFER TO A WENTWORTH GARDENS, IN THE GHETTO, AS DIFFERENT C.H.A. DEVELOPMENT ALONG THE THEY SAY.” THE PROBLEMS OF CONCENTRATED A $26 BILLION BACKLOG IN REPAIR AND POVERTY AND ISOLATION, WHICH THE MAINTENANCE NEEDS, A FIGURE ESTIMATED DEMOLITIONS WERE SUPPOSED TO SOLVE, TO HAVE BALLOONED SINCE THEN TO MORE PERSISTED — AND RELOCATED FAMILIES THAN $50 BILLION. NOW FOUND THEMSELVES IN STRANGE TERRITORY WITHOUT THEIR FORMER SUPPORT EACH YEAR, SOME 10,000 TO 15,000 UNITS ARE NETWORKS. LOST SOLELY BECAUSE OF NEGLECT.
ANNIE RICKS’S OLDEST DAUGHTER, KENOSHA, HUD, RATHER THAN TRYING TO REPLENISH ITS LEFT CABRINI-GREEN WHEN SHE WAS IN DANGEROUSLY INSUFFICIENT CAPITAL FUND, HER 20S AND MOVED WITH HER FAMILY TO SUBMITTED A 2018 BUDGET THAT WOULD A BLOCK ON THE WEST SIDE. “I’VE BEEN OUT SLASH IT BY ANOTHER TWO-THIRDS. HERE ALMOST A DECADE, AND I KNOW THREE OR FOUR OF MY NEIGHBORS,” SHE TOLD ME TODAY, ONLY ONE OF EVERY FIVE FAMILIES RECENTLY. “ ‘THEY FROM THE PROJECTS,’ POOR ENOUGH TO QUALIFY FOR A HOUSING PEOPLE SAY. BUT THEY DON’T KNOW ME. SUBSIDY ACTUALLY RECEIVES ONE. THEY WEREN’T RAISED HOW WE WERE RAISED. WE WERE RAISED TO STICK TOGETHER. IF A QUARTER OF ALL RENTERS NATIONWIDE YOU’RE A NEIGHBOR, YOU LET THE NEXT PAY MORE THAN HALF THEIR INCOME IN NEIGHBOR KNOW WHAT’S GOING ON. RENT. FAMILIES ARE FORCED TO MAKE THEY DON’T DO THAT OUT HERE.” HARMFUL CHOICES BETWEEN RENT AND FOOD, DOCTOR’S VISITS AND EDUCATION VIRTUALLY NO NEW PUBLIC HOUSING HAS COSTS. BEEN BUILT IN THE COUNTRY IN DECADES. THERE’S STILL A STOCK OF OVER A MILLION SEVENTY YEARS INTO OUR TEST AS A UNITS NATIONWIDE, DOWN FROM A PEAK COUNTRY TO PROVIDE HOUSING FOR THOSE OF 1.4 MILLION. MUCH OF IT IS AT RISK. A WHO HAVE TOO LITTLE, HUD-COMMISSIONED STUDY IN 2010 FOUND WE ARE HARDLY ANY CLOSER TO PASSING. URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
Figure 058. Axonometric Purpose: Similar to the reconstruction of Robert Taylor Homes, as representation of a seen in the analytical pre-framing exercise (see section 3.4), this design manipulated Robert Taylor exercise builds on the themes identified throughout the former half Homes following a “pivot” of Chapter 3. To continue seeking answers to pressing questions, this operation, rendering from section looks to Robert Taylor Homes as a design opportunity, iteratively Rhino Model, 11 December manipulating its form in hopes of discovering something worth taking 2017 forward to the final design outcomes of this thesis. With strict guidelines to focus a design test, how can contemporary manipulations break the monotony of the old tower in the park, while simultaneously reversing its introverted nature?
METHODOLOGY Tool Digital Modeling with Rhino Representation Plan / Elevation / Axonometric
PRE-FRAMING EXERCISE Manipulating Robert Taylor Homes P2
CONTEXT Bronzeville, South Side, Chicago, Illinois (Temporarily Autonomous for Framing Exercise)
CONSTRAINING CONDITIONS 1 Must use Robert Taylor Homes as model to manipulate 2 Must not discard or add any massing to existing building 3 Must manipulate form in a way that suggests the ability to incorporate exterior green space above the ground plane: individual or communal balconies
OPERATIONS F-A1 Pivot. F-A2 Flip & Fragment. F-A3 Shear. F-A3 Stack & Bridge.
OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 127 URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
FRAMING: MANIPULATING AN EXISTING MODEL—ROBERT TAYLOR HOMES
Description The design tests visualized in the following pages include four different approaches to a manipulation and rearrangement of the original design of Robert Taylor Homes. The process of creating alternative arrangements of the building’s overall formal composition neither adds nor subtracts any mass to or from itself, respectively.
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Opertation F-A1 Pivot.
Cons ··Form remains rather monotonous ··Unknown change to interior quality of daylight throughout the year ··Appears dystopically iconic... ··No clear sign of sufficiently-sized communal spaces ··Unconventional structure creates less economical alternative
Pros ··Form breaks the singularity of the previous model ··Quality of daylight for exterior space becomes enhanced in some areas of the form, depending on the building’s siting/orientation ··If unique to its context, blatant rejection to the status quo might create a beneficial new symbol for its inhabitants ··Creates opportunities for exterior space above the ground plane: modestly communal or just individual ··Unconventional structure maintains the same footprint as original tower in the park
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FRAMING: MANIPULATING AN EXISTING MODEL—ROBERT TAYLOR HOMES
Opertation F-A2 Flip & Fragment.
Cons ··Too repetitive ··Rotating in this manner creates unrealistic conditions, for the floor plates become roughly 12 feet wide (conceptually, it has some merit) ··30-foot channels between each mass might cause a lesser quality of daylight than the original tower in the park ··More disruptive on the ground by an increased building footprint ··Overly conventional for the context and purpose of a revised model
Pros ··Low to mid-rise alternative makes public space easily accessible (but this thesis looks to explore denser solutions with equivalent or greater opportunities for community-oriented exterior space) ··Compared to a high rise, the “core” of each mass likely not fear total darkness, but this depends on space between buildings ··Sharing a block with structures of varying form and density, one or two of these less dense building slices might help the overall composition and hierarchy of the proposed architecture
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FRAMING: MANIPULATING AN EXISTING MODEL—ROBERT TAYLOR HOMES
Opertation F-A3 Shear.
Cons ··The operation of “shearing” the form can cause undesirable shadow ··If constrained by a budget, excessive cantilevering will need revisions
Pros ··Differentiating four clear parts of the tower begins to break the monotony of the original model ··Four-part fragmentation could suggest new relationships between the building’s form and uses: no longer just dwelling ··Although large overhangs contribute to sometimes undesirable shade, it opens up the horizontal surface on the opposing side of
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FRAMING: MANIPULATING AN EXISTING MODEL—ROBERT TAYLOR HOMES
Opertation F-A4 Stack & Bridge.
Cons ··Residents in the top-right corner do not appear to have easy access to the elevated public grounds offered to the rest of the community: inhabitants of the terminal corner may be susceptible to feelings of isolation or exclusion from community-oritented activities (depending on the interior of a future model) ··Significant structure needed to achieve bridging shown in this tower rearrangement (ability to revise, of course) ··Increased building footprint from original model
Pros ··Utilization of themes explored and discovered in previous operations (F-A1, F-A2, and F-A3) allow for the form-driven amalgam of F-A4 ··Adopts the four-part fragmentation technique to stack and define a more intimate center courtyard or plaza, unlike traditional American towers in the park ··Large elevated surfaces create an opportunistic stage for social activity: community gardens, playgrounds, running track...? (See Michael Maltzan’s Star Apartments in Los Angeles, CA)
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FRAMING: MANIPULATING AN EXISTING MODEL—ROBERT TAYLOR HOMES
Key Takeaways ··Monotony of traditional models of the tower in the park can be challenged by fragmenting new vertical massing ··Distinct forms can serve as an indication from the exterior of different uses throughout the overall composition’s programmatic organization ··Hierarchy of new program will influence the new forms ··Increased building footprints are more likely acceptable if the green space potential on the ground plane is at least offset up above, embedded within the architecture ··Unique compositions of form could have a positive effect on the perception of the place, from the point of view of both outsiders
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LOW2NO
Client Figure 059. Previous Page: Sitra, The Finnish Innovation Fund New Carver Apartments, Program functional fins lining the Mixed-use sustainable development interior courtyard. © 14,000 m² of residential units Iwan Baan, 2009, https:// 8,000 m² headquarters www.arch.columbia.edu/ 13,200 m² of “Urban Infill” books/reader/137-social- Area transparency-projects-on- 35,200 m² (378,900sf) housing City Helsinki, Finland Figure 060. Massing model of Architect Lo2No proposal by REX: Two REX slender residential towers Status totaling to around 150,700 SF, Limited competition, second prize, 2009 Helsinki, Finland, 2009, http:// www.rex-ny.com/low2no/ Relevance REX’s Lo2No Sustainable Development serves as a forward-thinking Figure 061. Visualization atop precedent that offers an alternative model to the tower in the park. the podium, http://www.rex- A diverse configuration of program, space, and density supports the ny.com/low2no/ needs and desires of communities that will enchance urban contexts Figure 062. Diagram of a of high-rise models for living. diverse mix of uses at street- level, http://www.rex-ny.com/ low2no/
142 CHAPTER 3: DESIGN AS RESEARCH — 3.5 OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 143 URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
STAR APARTMENTS
Client Skid Row Housing Trust Building Users Formerly Homeless Individuals Location Skid Row, Downtown Los Angeles, California Architect Michael Maltzan Architecture Type Affordable Housing, Social Services Counseling, Community Activities, Market-Rate Retail (Mixed-Use Model for Living) Size 95,000 SF Status Completed 2014 LEED Status LEED Platinum For Homes Cost $19.3 million
Awards American Architecture Award Chicago Athenaeum, Museum of Architecture and Design, 2016; Mies Crown Hall America’s Prize (MCHAP) Finalist, 2016; AIA, Los Angeles Residential Architecture Design Award, 2016; AIA, Los Angeles Architecture Design Honor Award, 2015; U.S. Green Building Council Outstanding Affordable Housing Project, 2015; AIA, California Council Architecture Design Honor Award, 2015; Los Angeles Business Council Architectural Award, 2012; AIA Next LA Design Award, 2012 01 Figure 063. Star Apartments, existing retail development Skid Row Housing Trust’s Mission and rendering of new complex. Courtesy of Michael “ The Skid Row Housing Trust provides permanent supportive Maltzan Architecture. https:// housing so that people who have experienced homelessness, www.arch.columbia.edu/ prolonged extreme poverty, poor health, disabilities, mental illness books/reader/137-social- and/or addiction can lead safe, stable lives in wellness.” 02 transparency-projects-on- housing 01 Maltzan, “Star Apartments.” 02 “Our Mission & Values.”
144 CHAPTER 3: DESIGN AS RESEARCH — 3.5 OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 145 URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
NEW CARVER APARTMENTS
Client Skid Row Housing Trust Building Users Formerly Homeless Individuals (disabled and/or elderly) Location South of Downtown Los Angeles, California—adjacent to Interstate-90 Architect Michael Maltzan Architecture Type 97-Unit Affordable Housing Apartment Building Size 53,000 SF Status Completed 2009 LEED Status LEED Platinum For Homes Cost $18.4 million
Awards AIA Los Angeles Design Award, 2011; AIA/HUD Secretary’s Award for Excellence in Affordable Housing Design, 2011; Westside Urban Forum Design Award, 2011; Urban Land Institute Supportive Housing Innovation Award, 2010; LABC Housing Award, 2010; Rose Award for Affordable/Subsidized Housing, 2010 03
Analysis & Conclusions The previous two projects, both located in Los Angeles for and designed by Michael Maltzan Architecture, provide value for Figure 064. New Carver thoughts of for an alternative urban model for living...... Apartments, functional fins intriguing, recurring themes apparent through a variety of forces lining the interior courtyard. encompassing all of the projects: the visual, experiential, social, © Iwan Baan. https:// economic, and more. By means of a partnership between Skid Row www.arch.columbia.edu/ Housing Trust and Michael Maltzan Architecture, these projects books/reader/137-social- are given a chance in the built environment to perform for their transparency-projects-on- internal and surrounding communities, with an emphasis on the housing
03 Maltzan, “New Carver Apartments.”
146 CHAPTER 3: DESIGN AS RESEARCH — 3.5 OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 147 URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
NEW CARVER APARTMENTS purpose of the architecture as an entity that can do more than pose as an icon or object. Notably, for the context of this case study, Skid Row Housing Trust is an ambitious not-for-profit organization, “committed to preventing and ending homelessness in greater Los Angeles.” 04
The Trust develops, manages, and operates permanent and supportive housing for formerly homeless individuals across Los Angeles. Our innovative housing and services help individuals move beyond poverty, illness, and addiction. Founded to save low- income housing in Los Angeles’ Skid Row neighborhood, we have been preserving, managing, and building housing for more than 25 years. 05
Merged with SRHT, supported by their real estate development, service, and funding partners, architecture enters the process and augments the product of a collaboration among the complicated mix of team members involved (see 2015 Annual Report for comprehensive list of contributors: http://skidrow. org/2015annualreport/#page/17). What the design team at Michael Maltzan Architecture brings to the table is a process that advocates for the building inhabitants’ identity as real participants in the city. 06 This is contrary to the popular and stereotypical belief of the role and identity of not only the Los Angeles homeless population but homeless individuals across the United States and the world. Providing a home for under-served homeless citizens, a place that inevitably qualifies as “nice” or “iconic” architecture, according to locals, is a peculiar yet enthralling phenomenon;3 cities need more of this! Architecture, as a practice that strives for socially-equitable solutions through space, material (color, in the case of Maltzan’s work), and form, partnered with the right team and resources, can make considerable strides towards reversing generally-complacent perceptions of people and the stereotypes that accompany them. In this sense, the complexities and preconceived notions of race, class, ethnicity, among many other variables, can be challenged
04 “Our Mission & Values.” 05 “Our Buildings.” 06 Maltzan, “Michael Maltzan,” GSAPP Recorded Lecture.
148 CHAPTER 3: DESIGN AS RESEARCH — 3.5 A SOCIO-ENVIRONMENTALOPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES ALTERNATIVE FOR TO THE THE CONTEMPORARY TOWER IN THE PARK CITY 149 URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
TAYLOR STREET LIBRARY & APARTMENTS: SOM
Info: Coming Soon Figure 065. Renderings of Taylor Street Library and Apartments, Near West Side, Chicago, Courtesy of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, March 2017
http://www.som.com/news/som_wins_design_competition_for_new_co-located_chicago_housing_ authority_and_public_library_branch http://www.som.com/projects/taylor_street_library_and_apartments http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/ct-rahm-emanuel-design-kamin-met-0319-20170317- story.html
150 CHAPTER 3: DESIGN AS RESEARCH — 3.5 OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 151 URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
MONTPLEYEL(+)
Info: Coming Soon Figure 066. Renderings of Montpleyel, Paris, France, courtesy of MVRDV, www. mvrdv.nl/projects/montpleyel
https://www.behance.net/gallery/60032573/The-Montpleyel-Mixed-Use-Development
152 CHAPTER 3: DESIGN AS RESEARCH — 3.5 OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 153 2000-2050
Chapter 4
DESIGN DESIGN AS RESEARCH 2 AS RE- SEARCH 2
CHAPTER 4 Purpose: What aspects of a revised model will contribute to a “reversal” of effects, apparent in its former life? URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
DESIGN METHODS OF INVESTIGATION
CONTEXT Metropolitan Area Potential Variables at Play Varying proximity to city center People / Place / Transit Form-based zoning BUILDING TYPOLOGY Mixed-income housing Contemporary Alternatives to the Tower in the Park Community space Architecture and urbanism that does more for its Relationships between the street and building entry inhabitants and immediate context Incubation space for growing startups Formal fragmentation across multiple blocks that support a variety of landscape and architecture Flexible infrastructure with an ability to adapt to demanding contexts
ELEMENTS OF DESIGN RESEARCH FRAMING & TESTING IDEAS INFLUENCE F-D HUMAN: SOCIAL DIMENSIONS EVOLVING CRITERIA. D1 Movement Through the Block D2 Movement Through the Building F-B PROGRAM: MIXED USE D3 Movement Upward F-G MATERIAL B1 Establish New Uses. D4 Moments for Meeting G1 Quality vs. Market Forces B2 Fuse Vertical & Horizontal Circulation. G2 Lightness B3 Suggest Building Form: A Product of F-E DENSITY: FINDING A BALANCE G3 Solid-Transparent Ratios B1 & B2, Informed by Clearly Established E1 Low to High (Preliminary) Geometric Principles. F-H BUILDING SCALE F-F SPACE: VOLUMETRIC RELATIONSHIPS H1 Horizontal vs. Vertical Massing (Establish F-C LANDSCAPE: ON & ABOVE THE F1 Indoor (Balancing Privacy & What is Appropriate for Context: Define GROUND Community) Reasons that Lead to Conclusions Made) C1 Operation TBD F2 Outdoor (Defining Landscaped Zones) C2 Operation TBD F3 Proportion (Block-to-Building, F-I URBAN MOBILITY C3 Operation TBD Building-to-Program, Program-to- I1 Public Transit User, User-to-Block) I2 Private Transit F4 Hierarchy
156 CHAPTER 3: DESIGN AS RESEARCH — 3.6 OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 157 URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
Figure 067. Axonometric representation of a manipulated Robert Taylor Homes following a “pivot” operation, rendering from Rhino Model, by author, 11 December 2017, (William Toohey III, CC BY-NC-SA)
3.7
OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY Purpose: How can a design method be applied to the context of South State Street in South Side, Chicago? URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
FRAMING: ARMOUR SQUARE
City Figure 068. Site Plans: Chicago, Illinois Zooming into a northern Neighborhood portion of Armour Square, Armour Square Chicago, Illinois, Google Earth Zoom 1 Neighbor Adjacencies satellite image Chinatown / Near South Side Street South State Street Site History Close Proximity to former Robert Taylor Homes Blocks Existing Conditions Vacant Adjacencies: Demolition Byproducts Outdoor Track & Field Park No. 540
Reason for Approach Using satellite imagery at multiple scales, in conjunction with trace and drawing over the closer scale (Zoom 3), operates as a sufficient medium to conduct site analysis. Zoom 2 In order to move from site analysis to design, this method utilizes digital massing models to generate quick backgrounds for diligent overlays, putting the generative criteria to work. See series of images on page 114 for a diagrammatic series of conceptual intervention.
Findings The images reveal a peculiar amount of vacant blocks in the South Side. Local amenities can improve life in/near the proposed building(s). To propose a building here is to invite the public in.
Critical Evaluation Zoom 3 Substantial improvements of rigor must be deployed next time. This is an insufficient “design test.” This is only a brief start to a design investigation.
162 OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 163 URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
FRAMING: ARMOUR SQUARE
ITUATED IN A COMPLEX NETWORK OF INFORMATION, Figure 070. Site plan analysis: Figure 071. Section study: The response to the tower in the park begins to take shape as a architecture in the first quarter of the 21st century Sketching over Armour Sketching over Armour balance of residents of varying income levels and intended time S faces growing demands to create high-performance, Square neighborhood along Square neighborhood along spans for dwelling; this could be labeled “mixed-income housing,” environmentally-conscious, yet socially-equitable urban places South State Street, South South State Street, South but this building typology intends to do more by integrating shared that sustain the quality of life of its inhabitants. Architecture that Side, Chicago, Illinois, Google Side, Chicago, Illinois, view to amenities, mixed uses, public and private programs, childcare is present has the gift of being able to learn from the past in order Earth satellite image north facilities, educational program, incubators for startup companies to avoid remaking mistakes but must also anticipate an unknown (which might attract newcomers to be a part of the growing future. An architectural alternative to the tower in the park now has neighborhood), leasable retail space, recreational fields, et cetera. an opportunity to reshape not only the places one lives within an existing, currently deteriorating urban area but also the perception Qualities of the Architecture of the city as a whole. What was once stigmatized, publicly branded ··Porosity at street-level with misconstrued stereotypes and broad generalizations that ··Open/transparent physical relationships with immediate context undermined the integrity of communities, can now be more ··Revising relationships between the sidewalk and the core of the city critically aware of the context: equally concerned with the social, block: where are the physical barriers? environmental, and economic forces that contribute to the success ··Relationship between ground level, level 2, and level 3 of an alternative. ··Interlocking of massing: mixed-use program configurations ··Balancing and diversifying density within interconnected volumes Context ··Plan vs. section hierarchy: developing a system of clear parts This thesis situates itself in the context of the Near Side ··Circulation: private to public gradients/arrangements. Where are neighborhoods surrounding Chicago’s downtown area: sites the circulation cores? Where is the public invitation upward? for ongoing design tests that have historically fallen victim to ··Interior vs. exterior at all levels of built structure stereotypes, broad generalizations, controversies of crime and poverty, and built structures deemed as damaged beyond repair, leading to their demolition. Design tests build off of the research that precedes this section of the literature review and begins to influence the formulation of generative criteria that informs a conscientious design process that advocates for the notion of “responsible architecture.”
Does the alternative have to be a tower? Does it have to recreate the density that public housing towers once supported? What qualities should be embedded in an alternative building typology that respects the memory of the site and intended purpose of public housing towers in Chicago?
164 CHAPTER 3: DESIGN AS RESEARCH — 3.9 OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 165 URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
FRAMING: ARMOUR SQUARE
Figure 072. Site plan analysis: Sketching over Armour The housing function of the architecture becomes a place for Square neighborhood along families or individuals to reposition themselves, prepare, save, or South State Street, South just stick around and call home. Side, Chicago, Illinois
Potential Stakeholders Figure 073. Section study: This thesis speculates about an approach that helps incentivize an Sketching over Armour increasingly-diverse set of stakeholders to support the proposed Square neighborhood along architecture: private investors, the Chicago Housing Authority, South State Street, South market-rate, affordable, and public housing candidates, local Side, Chicago, Illinois community members that can utilize new amenities offered, and members of the various uses, e.g., childcare professionals, retail employees, and emerging professionals/recent graduates from local universities.
166 CHAPTER 3: DESIGN AS RESEARCH — 3.9 OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 167 Figure 074. Elevation Purpose: How can landscape be integrated into a range of proposed translation from plan-view low-to-high-rise typologies? How might it enhance life above the ground testing: Landscape surfaces plane? What is the relationship between landscaped site and building on and above the ground surfaces? plane influence building form, by author 17 December 2017, (William Toohey III, CC BY-NC- SA)
METHODOLOGY Tool Pilot G-02 07 Black Pen / Red Pencil / 8.5” x 11” Paper Representation Sketchy Axonometric / Plan / Elevation Diagramming Red = Landscape
FRAMING: LANDSCAPE ON & ABOVE THE GROUND PLANE 4.0
CONTEXT Armour Square, South Side, Chicago, Illinois
BUILDING TYPOLOGY Tower in the Park (Single-Use Dwelling)
OPERATIONS Define a more intimate relationship between landscape & architecture URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
ATTEMPT 01 FRAMING: LANDSCAPE ON & ABOVE THE GROUND PLANE
170 CHAPTER 3: DESIGN AS RESEARCH — 4.0 OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 171 URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
ATTEMPT 02 FRAMING: LANDSCAPE ON & ABOVE THE GROUND PLANE
172 CHAPTER 3: DESIGN AS RESEARCH — 4.0 OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 173 URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
ATTEMPT 03 FRAMING: LANDSCAPE ON & ABOVE THE GROUND PLANE
174 CHAPTER 3: DESIGN AS RESEARCH — 4.0 OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 175 FOLLOWING DESIGN INVESTIGATION PREVIOUS DESIGN INVESTIGATION GENERATIVE & GENERATIVE CRITERIA CONCLUSIVE CRITERIA In the Form of a New Question Upon Evaluation of Design Testing E.g. How do EVALUATIVE DESIGN walls increase A visibility B through the C block? INVESTIGATIONS Is the question specific enough? Are there clearly established boundaries? CATALOG MOST SUCCESSFUL What must architecture do to achieve this goal? ELEMENTS OF DESIGN TEST “A, B, and C seem promising.”
Think. Test 1 Make. FIELDWORK: FROM 12 TO 106 HOURS W1 Critique. EVALUATIVE Stuck in Chicago: January 3rd-7th CRITERIA FIELDWORK: POLITICAL PERSPECTIVES Chicago’s Mayor, Rahm Emanuel & Mohsen Mostafavi W2
Think. Test 2 Make. FRAMING: PROGRAM MASSING & CIRCULATION AXES Overall Proximity / Distribution F1 Critique. EVALUATIVE Did the architecture achieve CRITERIA its goal(s)? What must it now do in order to reach its FRAMING: MAGNETIC SOCIAL ATTRACTORS F2 full potential? Internal Destinations for the Approaching Pedestrian
Think. FRAMING: HORIZONTAL INVITATIONS Test 3 Make. Internal Movement & Visual Cueing F3 Critique. EVALUATIVE CRITERIA FRAMING: VERTICAL INVITATIONS Internal Movement & Visual Cueing F4
FRAMING: COMMUNAL RESTORATION Reconnecting the Grid & Increasing Density F5
FRAMING: FORM FOLLOWS MEMORY CATALOG LEAST SUCCESSFUL A Familiar Ground Plane & Renewed Sense of Home F6 ELEMENTS OF DESIGN TEST “X, Y, and Z do not work very well” URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
Figure 075. Photo of Hilliard Purpose: What is the current state of Chicago’s former housing tower Homes and the Willis Tower sites? Who was displaced? Where did they go? What is the experience in the distance, with former of walking through these sites? Does anyone have a reason to travel to Harold Ickes blocks to the these locations? Do local residents have stories to share? What are their left, image captured from wants and needs? Are people content with the current situation? the back of an Uber turning onto South State Street, intersected by 24th, windy and 7 degrees Fahrenheit, 4 January 2018, (William Toohey III, CC BY-NC-SA) METHODOLOGY The visual evidence beyond Tool this page was created by the Sketch Book / Camera / In-Person Observation / Plane / Train / author, unless otherwise Uber / Taxi noted, (William Toohey III, CC Representation BY-NC-SA) Photograph / Notes
FROM 12 TO 106 HOURS Stuck in Chicago: January 3rd-7th W1
CONTEXT OF INVESTIGATION A solo trip to Chicago that was meant to only last 12 hours turned into an eventful 106; New England winter storms caused two flight cancellations and a delay, but it awarded exceptional, unanticipated encounters with Chicagoans who unknowingly added tremendous value to this research. Due to the limitations of time to create this book, the thorough overview of this adventure will not be revealed. However, key takeaways have been briefly cataloged.
1/2/2018 Boarding Pass - Print your boarding pass - American Airlines
TOOHEY III Boarding pass Record Locator: PZWUWJ WILLIAM Record Locator: PZWUWJ TOOHEY III / WILLIAM Seat : 22B
BOS ORD Boston to Chicago Departing: Wednesday, January 03, 2018 Figure 076. Logan to O’Hare: Gate Flight Seat Boarding Time (EST) B30 AA1404 22B 6:30 AM Flying out of Boston to Terminal B Departing at 7:00AM (EST) investigate existing conditions 1 bag under seat More Flight Details 3 h 9 m in the Near North and South Arriving at: 9:09AM (CST) Inflight Services: Side Chicago, 3 January 2018 Ticket: 0012163133525 For gates, terminals and flight status, please check with us at aa.com/gates or call 1-800-433-7300. Doors close 10 minutes before departure
OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 179
https://www.aa.com/reservation/printBoardingPass.do?selectedIds=01.01 1/1 URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
FROM 12 TO 106 HOURS
Key Takeaways Xxxxx
180 CHAPTER 5: DESIGN AS RESEARCH 3 — W1 OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 181 URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
FRAMING: FIELDWORK IN CHICAGO, IL—12 HOURS—JANUARY 3, 2018
Heightened Observation Is there a sufficient amount of public space? Visit prosperous loop sites (public to private)
....Then Visit vacant block sites. Feel the contrasting effects. Document How private does the context feel? What are the activities around the difference through methods of drawing, photographing, and writing here?
Contemplate how architecture can transplant experience in order to stimulate or activate under-served areas Do nearby colleges influence the context? if so, How? Why do you think that is? Conduct Brief Interview w/ a local or two: If there was an architectural response to be had, who would the 1. “What’s missing here?” primary stakeholders be? Former DIsplaced communities? Young professionals? Retailers? How does one provide incentive for these stakeholders? How can architecture encourage a melting pot? 2. “Why do you think that is?” Map Travel Routes (Scale: US > IL > Site) & log time. Include things like time leaving house, arriving at airport, boarding, flying, landing, 3. “If you could change anything about this neighborhood, interviewing, eating lunch somewhere that somehow provides what would it be?” value to the fieldwork, etc. Be able to make a log of this, just for the record; all details need not go into the final thesis book.
4. “Who do you think can and/or will make that a reality?” General Safety: Talk with Officer Mike McDermott about precautions for traveling What’s the experience from the block to local public transit? Train solo Station? Bus Stop? What is unique about this context? Materials? People? Infrastructure? What to Bring: • Batteries for Devices (store in bags) Walk down South State Street, from the Loop to Armour Square: • Chargers for Devices • Notebook, Pencils, Pens (bag just in case) How does the urban fabric start to unravel itself? What falls apart? Why • Camera with space do you think that’s the case? • Iphone with space for LOTS of new images • Gloves (x2), Tube Socks + Backups for Double-Wrapping, Muffs, Boston Cap, Jacket, Scarf What can ACTIVATE THIS STREET? What is the context lacking?
Where to Go: • Chicago Cultural Center, 78 E Washington St, Chicago, IL 60602
182 CHAPTER 3: DESIGN AS RESEARCH — 4.1 OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 183 URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
Figure 077. Dean Mohsen Purpose: What is the current mayor of Chicago actively doing to Mostafavi in conversation stimulate deprived economies and rebuild communities in historically- with Rahm Emanuel, Piper segregated and isolated neighborhoods? What must designers and Auditorium, the Harvard planners do in order to incentivize policy makers and politicians to University Graduate School improve the built environment? of Design, 20 February 2018, (William Toohey III, CC BY-NC- SA)
The visual evidence beyond this page was created by the author, unless otherwise METHODOLOGY noted, (William Toohey III, CC Tool BY-NC-SA) Sketch Book / In-Person Observation Representation Photograph / Notes
POLITICAL PERSPECTIVES Rahm Emanuel & Mohsen Mostafavi W2
CONTEXT OF INVESTIGATION The Harvard University Graduate School of Design 20 February 2018 Public Lecture
OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 185 URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
POLITICAL PERSPECTIVES
Key Takeaways Xxxxx
186 CHAPTER 5: DESIGN AS RESEARCH 3 — W2 OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 187 URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
Figure 078. Testing Purpose: How does the arrangement of primary uses and circulation configurations of primary encourage community within the architecture? uses: Plan, elevation, and axonometric, 8.5x11 canvas, 22 January 2018
METHODOLOGY Tool Paper / Pen / Pencil Representation Plan / Elevation / Axonometric
PROGRAM MASSING & CIRCULATION AXES Overall Proximity / Distribution F1
CONTEXT OF INVESTIGATION Intentionally-autonomous exercise that will adapt to future site
ESTABLISHED BOUNDARIES FOR DESIGN TESTING ··Arrange the following primary uses: housing, community, office, and retail. ··Determine a promising configuration of mixed uses, as a response to the single-use tower in the park. ··Create simple shapes to start, and allow the following design tests to refine enlarged architectural scales.
OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 189 URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
PROGRAM MASSING & CIRCULATION AXES
Most Successful Elements of Design Testing 1: Intersections made of as many as 5 and 6 incoming axes 2:
Least Successful Elements of Design Testing 3: Too much housing F1-F 4: Community space that does is not at the ground floor to greet
Key Takeaways Xxxxx F1-A
F1-B
F1-C
1 F1-D
F1-E
190 CHAPTER 5: DESIGN AS RESEARCH 3 — F1 OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 191 URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
Figure 079. Testing ground Purpose: How does architecture and public space draw people into the floor walls and general block and retain them? building footprints : Plan, elevation, and axonometric, 8.5x11 canvas, 28 January 2018
METHODOLOGY Tool Paper / Pen / Pencil Representation Plan / Elevation / Axonometric
MAGNETIC SOCIAL ATTRACTORS Internal Destinations for the Approaching Pedestrian F2
CONTEXT OF INVESTIGATION Intentionally-autonomous exercise that will adapt to future site
ESTABLISHED BOUNDARIES FOR DESIGN TESTING ··Arrange the following primary uses: housing, community, office, and retail. ··Determine a promising configuration of mixed uses, as a response to the single-use tower in the park. ··Create simple shapes to start, and allow the following design tests to refine enlarged architectural scales.
OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 193 URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
MAGNETIC SOCIAL ATTRACTORS
Most Successful Elements of Design Testing 1: Intersections made of as many as 5 and 6 incoming axes 2:
Least Successful Elements of Design Testing 3: Too much housing 4: Community space that does is not at the ground floor to greet
Key Takeaways Xxxxx F2-A
1
194 CHAPTER 5: DESIGN AS RESEARCH 3 — F2 OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 195 URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
Figure 080. Combining Purpose: How do solid planes create inviting architectural gestures? multiple sections from F2 in order to create a single axonometric drawing, 8.5x11 canvas, 1 February 2018
METHODOLOGY Tool Paper / Pen / Pencil / Highlighter Representation Axonometric / Perspective
HORIZONTAL INVITATIONS Internal Movement & Visual Cueing F3
CONTEXT OF INVESTIGATION Intentionally-autonomous exercise that will adapt to future site
ESTABLISHED BOUNDARIES FOR DESIGN TESTING ··Arrange the following primary uses: housing, community, office, and retail. ··Determine a promising configuration of mixed uses, as a response to the single-use tower in the park. ··Create simple shapes to start, and allow the following design tests to refine enlarged architectural scales.
OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 197 URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
HORIZONTAL INVITATIONS
Most Successful Elements of Design Testing 1: Intersections made of as many as 5 and 6 incoming axes 2:
Least Successful Elements of Design Testing 3: Too much housing F1-F 4: Community space that does is not at the ground floor to greet
Key Takeaways Xxxxx F1-A
F1-B
F1-C
1
F1-D
F1-E
198 CHAPTER 5: DESIGN AS RESEARCH 3 — F1 OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 199 URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
FRAMING: FIELDWORK IN CHICAGO, IL—12 HOURS—JANUARY 3, 2018
• National Public Housing Museum, 625 N Kingsbury St, Chicago, IL 60654 • Continue on to Cabrini-Green, along N. Larrabee St. • Willis Tower (top? Nice aerial photos of surrounding context (All Sides: North, West, & South) • John Hancock Tower? (...for the Gram) • Ice Skating lunch/din break? • South State Street • Wrap up and GTF back to O’Hare by 7:30PM
January 4, 2018 Proposal 1: • Prepare 7 to 8-minute ppt presentation • New framings and findings (Chicago trip) • WOW, THIS DID NOT GO AS PLANNED. - 2018.04.04
DELETE THIS SECTION/CREATE VERY BRIEF OVERVIEW OF KEY TAKEAWAYS
200 CHAPTER 3: DESIGN AS RESEARCH — 4.1 OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 201 Purpose: What are the pressing questions of the current state of this thesis? URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII How will they influence/generate more design framing/testing?
RAPID-FIRE QUESTIONS EXERCISE: INFLUENCING DESIGN WORK TO COME
CHICAGO AS A LABORATORY FOR DESIGN TESTING Why cannot Near Side neighborhoods benefit from public realm activities closer to home, compared to the variety of public places/ socially-stimulating activities prevalent in the area of the Loop? How does one transplant experience? Catalog viable options for public and private amenities that offer formerly-neglected neighborhoodsmore .
Instead of blaming economics and politics, can simple ideas for higher quality public places, in neighborhoods deprived of them, spark productive dialogue and engagement with future interventions?
··Ice Rink for the South Side—good or bad? Why? ··Neighborhood stage: a physical built structure for performances and a range of other activities, specified by community opinions ··Constructed landscapes that stimulate vacant blocks—could embracing landscape urbanism principles enhance the experience of residents in the Near Side neighborhoods of the North, West, and South Side of Chicago? ··Solutions at this scale need not match the building scale
What are the temporal qualities of public placemaking ideas? Take advantage of the ever-changing, Midwest climate.
Can a completely new approach to planning the two-mile stretch of what once was the area of Robert Taylor Homes help activate this portion of the city? Grappling with the term “gentrification,” what are alternative, is the notion of unifying a variety of variables (e.g., the essential ethical practices and/or questions to answer for this program, people, space, material, landscape, et cetera) inherently scenario? (This was ethical question #1) ^ flawed? I would like to believe (and thus, so does this thesis) that contemporary architecture has the ability to create more unified Is gentrifying without displacement of low-income families an and optimistically-amalgamated environments that support and acceptable strategy in contemporary cities? Are there any ongoing encourage diverse experience; this is truly the heart of the notion studies of planning strategies that strive to retain low-income of “responsible architecture.” To improve a deteriorating or vacant residents upon the act of “gentrifying?” It may be that the negative block/series of blocks, what is or is not ethical about the process connotation of the word “gentrification” is too influential towards the needed to actually improve the conditions? immediate opinions or assumptions made about the discussion that would follow; open-mindedness is key, especially for this topic. In an attempt to develop universally-deployable design processes, how can concepts of program, space, form, material, and landscape Informed by a rigorous process that leads to the tower-in-the-park adapt to a variety of metropolitan contexts? How does this evolve
202 PRESSING QUESTIONS FOR NEXT STEPS OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 203 2000-2050
Chapter 5
SYNTHE- SYNTHESIS: ARCHITECTURAL & URBAN REFINEMENT SIS
CHAPTER 5 GENERATIVE & EVALUATIVE DESIGN INVESTIGATIONS
URBAN SYNTHESIS: ATTRACT. BRIDGE. DENSIFY. Positioning Neighborhood-Scale Elements U1
ARCHITECTURAL SYNTHESIS: EQUITABLE INFRASTRUCTURE Developing a Library of Typologies for Building Community A1
ARCHITECTURAL SYNTHESIS: PROGRAM. ATTRACT. ADAPT. Reactivating the Blocks of Harold Ickes Homes A2 URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
Figure 081. Foam Massing, Purpose: How can a subtractive method of physical model making test photograph of 1:50-scale optimal configurations of building mass on a vacant block along South model, by author, 27 March State Street, between West Cermak Road and West 23rd Street? 2018, (William Toohey III, CC BY-NC-SA)
METHODOLOGY Tool Paper / Pen / Pencil Representation Plan / Elevation / Axonometric
ATTRACT. BRIDGE. DENSIFY. Positioning Neighborhood-Scale Elements U1
CONTEXT OF INVESTIGATION Intentionally-autonomous exercise that will adapt to future site
ESTABLISHED BOUNDARIES FOR DESIGN TESTING ··Arrange the following primary uses: housing, community, office, and retail. ··Determine a promising configuration of mixed uses, as a response to the single-use tower in the park. ··Create simple shapes to start, and allow the following design tests to refine enlarged architectural scales.
OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 209 URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
ATTRACT. BRIDGE. DENSIFY.
Most Successful Elements of Design Testing 1: Intersections made of as many as 5 and 6 incoming axes 2:
Least Successful Elements of Design Testing 3: Too much housing F1-F 4: Community space that does is not at the ground floor to greet
Key Takeaways Xxxxx F1-A
F1-B
F1-C
1 F1-D
F1-E
210 CHAPTER 5: DESIGN AS RESEARCH 3 — F1 OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 211 URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
Figure 082. Foam Massing, Purpose: How can a subtractive method of physical model making test photograph of 1:50-scale optimal configurations of building mass on a vacant block along South model, by author, 27 March State Street, between West Cermak Road and West 23rd Street? 2018, (William Toohey III, CC BY-NC-SA)
METHODOLOGY Tool Foam / Hot Wire Cutter / 11x17 Rendering / Pentel Sign Pen Representation Photograph of Model Key Takeaways List of Pros & Cons
MODEL MAKING: SUBTRACTIVE DENSIFICATION WITHIN A BLOCK M1
CONTEXT OF INVESTIGATION Former Block of Harold Ickes Homes South Side, Chicago, Illinois Units Removed: 1,006 (2008-2010) Units Replaced: 0 (2018) East: Deteriorating Blocks West: 400’-Thick Infrastructural Barrier & Chinatown North: Hilliard Homes South: Dearborn Homes
OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 213 URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
Figure 083. Foam Massing, photograph of 1:50-scale model, by author, 27 March 2018, (William Toohey III, CC BY-NC-SA)
Figure 084. Foam Massing, photograph of 1:50-scale model, by author, 27 March 2018, (William Toohey III, CC BY-NC-SA)
OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 215 URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
Figure 085. Foam Massing, photograph of 1:50-scale model, by author, 27 March 2018, (William Toohey III, CC BY-NC-SA)
Figure 086. Foam Massing, photograph of 1:50-scale model, by author, 27 March 2018, (William Toohey III, CC BY-NC-SA)
OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 217 URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
Figure 087. Foam Massing, photograph of 1:50-scale model, by author, 27 March 2018, (William Toohey III, CC BY-NC-SA)
Figure 088. Foam Massing, photograph of 1:50-scale model, by author, 27 March 2018, (William Toohey III, CC BY-NC-SA)
OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 219 URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
Figure 089. Foam Massing, Purpose: How can programming, secondary attractors, and internal/ photograph of 1:50-scale external forces encourage human perception of opportunity, dignity, model, by author, 27 March diversity, and inclusion? 2018, (William Toohey III, CC BY-NC-SA)
METHODOLOGY Tool Paper / Pen / Pencil Representation Plan / Elevation / Axonometric
PROGRAM. ATTRACT. ADAPT. Reactivating the Blocks of Harold Ickes Homes A2
CONTEXT OF INVESTIGATION Intentionally-autonomous exercise that will adapt to future site
ESTABLISHED BOUNDARIES FOR DESIGN TESTING ··Arrange the following primary uses: housing, community, office, and retail. ··Determine a promising configuration of mixed uses, as a response to the single-use tower in the park. ··Create simple shapes to start, and allow the following design tests to refine enlarged architectural scales.
OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 221 REFLEC- TION & APRIL 2018 X
CRITICAL REFLECTION & CRITICAL EVALUATION EVALUA-
TION CHAPTER 6 FINAL REMARKS
TXXXXXX. THEREFORE, THE ARCHITECTURE XXXXXXX
SDFEQUE EXCEATUR, SUNTOTATQUAE RE COREM A INT, EXPLABO RPORUM QUI ALICIAEST, QUIDITE EAQUODIO EA NIMPORECTAE PLIA ET, SED QUAE EXPLIAE PERUNT.
FUGIT FUGA. TEM RES ESTIBUS.
SOLOREH ENDERIO NSEQUE NATEM ENTEMQUID MOLOR AUTE Figure 090. Final Thesis SUS MILITAS IMPOREM PORROVITEM VELIBUS SAM QUOSA Defense, Watson Auditorium at Wentworth Institute CONET EOSTRUM VOLORRORERUM CON RA VENIME CON ET IUM of Technology, © Qiang ET MAXIMINT EOST QUIA VOLO VOLUPTA TEMPEDI GNITAEP (Nelson) Wang, 10 April 2018 REHENT.
AXIMPOREPEL MOLECUL LESTISQ UIATEMQUI TE CORATUR, OMNIS DITAS ET LACIENEM FUGIAS DUSAPID QUE VOLUPICILLAB IUSCIUM DOLORUM LABO. NEQUI APED UNT QUAE PRO EXERITIAS ALIS ULPARUN TIBUS, QUE NE EX EA VEL MOLORE VENT OMMOSSUME SOLORUMQUE VEL MOLORROR ALISINIS RECEA SOLECTATIUR, CORUM NUS ANDELIT EXPLITI IUM, SI UT ASIMI, SE NITATIUS ET EA QUIST, ODISCIL LUPTATUS SEQUE VOLUPTATUR, UT VOLUPIENIM FACILLOREM DUCIUMQUI DIOR SUS PE PARCHIT, UT ATUR, CONE QUAT LABOREP ERAEPER ORRUPTIBUS VOLLAM, QUIATION REPREPED QUAM IUS.
MAXIMA VOLUPTAS MINT ADIS DOLORRUME NONET IURITIS ESERUMET OMNIAE SIMPELL UPTATUR SI ABORESTO OMNITI RE LANT IMILIS ET ET AB IM QUI REM SEQUE ESTIBUS IS NIET ET, SUM RA DOLORES ACIPIS RE, QUE SENIEND EBITIONSEQUE QUI BEARUM RAE PERFERFEROR AUT MAGNAM, TEM ACCAE PORIBUS REM QUI TENI OMNIM ES UT UTESED MODITAE NUMENTI ORUMQUI ALITEM RE NONSEQUAM EXPERUN DIPIENT HIL IDUNT ILIT EXPERESTIO. FUGA. XEREPERRO DOLUPTATQUO OPTATUR AUDIO ETUMET ODIT NONSED QUE EVCORE QUAT.
224 URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
NOTES
01. The National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC), “Socio-Environmental Systems.” 37. [SOURCE ON DEMO?] 02. “Le Corbusier Documentation.” 38. Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, 242. 03. “Divis Flats Belfast,” BBC Northern Ireland, 2:09-2:35. 39. Who says this? E. Mumford? CHECK SOURCE. 04. Rybczynski, Makeshift Metropolis: Ideas About Cities, 49. 40. Rybczynski, “Bauhaus Blunders: Architecture and Public Housing,” 89. 05. Poerschke, “CIAM’s Four-Function Dogma: On the Challenge of Mixing Something That Has Been 41. [WHO SAID THIS?] Separated,” 199. 42. [Do I need a source? A sociologist? Info seems like common sense.] 06. Bittle, “Chicago’s Unfulfilled Promise to Rebuild its Public Housing.” 43. Bandura, “Home.” 07. Ibid. 44. Petty, High Rise Stories: Voices from Chicago Public Housing, #. [Find P#] 08. Poerschke, “CIAM’s Four-Function Dogma: On the Challenge of Mixing Something That Has Been 45. Chyn, “Moved to Opportunity: The Long-Run Effect of Public Housing Demolition on Labor Market Separated,” 199. Outcomes of Children” 1. 09. Mumford, “The ‘Tower in a Park’ in America: Theory and Practice, 1920–1960.” 46. Shaw, Metz and Associates, “Taylor, Robert, Homes.” 10. Poerschke, “CIAM’s Four-Function Dogma: On the Challenge of Mixing Something That Has Been 47. [NEED SOURCE.] Separated,” 199. 48. Rybczynski, “Bauhaus Blunders: Architecture and Public Housing,” 85. 11. Mumford, “CIAM, Sert, and the Street,” Harvard GSD Lecture, 01:04:41-01:22:00. 49. Tschumi, The State of Architecture at the Beginning of the 21st Century, 7. 12. Riis, How the Other Half Lives. 50. Maas, “Towards an Urbanistic Architecture,” 14. 13. "Divis Flats Belfast," BBC Northern Ireland documentary. 51. Ibid., 14. 14. Ibid. 52. Koolhaas, “What Ever Happened to Urbanism?,” 971. 15. Jencks, The Language of Post-Modern Architecture, 9. 53. Maas, “Toward an Urbanistic Architecture,” 14-15. 16. Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, 170. 54. Ibid., 242. 17. [SOURCE] Eric Mumford GSD lecture? or Ute P? 55. Koolhaas, “What Ever Happened to Urbanism?,” 963. 18. [SOURCE] Interview with J.G. Ballard 56. [SOURCE] Who backs this up besides a bunch of different sources supporting the general notion? 19. [SOURCE] J.G. Ballard 57. Stern, “Urbanism is about Human Life,” 21. 20. [SOURCE] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LosxrbL3sU (44:12-44:41)UPDATE58. Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, 242. 21. When did someone coin the term “projects” to refer to public housing? 59. Ibid., 176-77. 22. [SOURCE] Pallasmaa / Mallgrave 60. Pinker [SOURCE CORRECTLY] 23. [SOURCE] Pallasmaa / Mallgrave? Maybe others 61. Pallasmaa [SOURCE CORRECTLY] 24. Petty, High Rise Stories, [PG#?] 62. Mallgrave [SOURCE CORRECTLY] 25. [SOURCE] http://swarmdev4.be.washington.edu/people/lynne-manzo/ 63. Waldheim, “On Landscape, Ecology and other Modifiers to Urbanism,” 21. 26. Manzo, Place Attachment, 182. 64. Ibid., 22. 27. Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, 170. 65. Big claim. [FIND THIS SOURCE.] 28. ? 66. Caitlin Blanchfield May 28, 2014 (Urban Omnibus source) 29. http://professoralbertbandura.com/index.html 30. Pinker 31. Pallasmaa 32. Mallgrave 33. Jacobs 34. Frank Robertson in BBC interview - Design Architect of the Divis Flats in Northern Ireland 35. Frank Robertson 36. Poerschke, Ute. “CIAM’s Four-Function Dogma,” 197. [DOUBLE-CHECK]
226 NOTES OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 227 URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
ILLUSTRATIONS FIGURES: CHAPTER 1 + 2
Figure 001. Original cover art of J.G. Ballard’s 1975 novel, High-Rise, first edition, designed by Figure 013. Enjoying the sun at the base of a tree with some friends, the Gosling Meadows, Craig Dodd, 1975, image published by Jonathan Cape, http://averyreview.com/ Portsmouth, NH, ca. 2001 ...... 028 issues/17/a-future-now-exhausted ...... 005 Figure 014. Riding another bike, one that evoked a sense of ecstacy; thanks for the present, Figure 002. Manipulating the public housing model of former Robert Taylor Homes, once mom, the Gosling Meadows, Portsmouth, NH, ca. 2001 ...... 028 belonging to the context of Bronzeville, South Side, Chicago, Illinois, axonometric Figure 015. View to Sky: Glasgow’s Red Road flats, constructed from 1964-68. Hailed as discursive image, rendering from computer model, by author, (William Toohey III, the solution to slums, intended to house nearly 5,000 residents, they came to CC BY-NC-SA)...... 015 represent the failings of 20th-century, high-rise housing. (Photograph by Murdo Figure 003. Plan Voisin: 60-story towers for 3,000,000 inhabitants, Paris, France, 1922- MacLeod / The Guardian)...... 037 25, conceptual perspective drawing by Le Corbusier, image by ©FLC/ADAGP, Figure 016. A Young Boy Views Chicago through a Chainlink Barrier in an Open-Air Gallery...... 039 accessed 14 December 2017, http://www.fondationlecorbusier.fr/corbuweb/ Figure 017. 2-Mile Path, Robert Taylor Homes, South Side, Chicago,1965...... 039 morpheus.aspx?sysId=13&IrisObjectId=6159&sysLanguage=en-en&itemPos=2&i Figure 018. Vandalized Entry, Robert Taylor Homes, South Side, Chicago, (Year? Author?)...... 039 temCount=2&sysParentName=Home&sysParentId=65...... 016 Figure 019. Analytical sketching over South Side Chicago blocks along South State Street: Figure 004. Approaching Co-op City, located in the Baychester section of the Bronx, New Speculating on a site between West 23rd and 24th Street, how can architecture York, New York. Photograph by ©Amani Willett, original image altered for invite the public into the core of the block? Google satellite image underlay, by black and white representation, accessed https://urbanomnibus.net/2014/05/ author, 21 November 2017, (William Toohey III, CC BY-NC-SA)...... 048 cooperative-city-cooperative-community/...... 017 Figure 020. View of Remaining 20-story Divis Tower taken from Divis Street and Lower Falls Figure 005. Plan Voisin: 60-story towers for 3,000,000 inhabitants, Paris, France, 1922-25, Road, Belfast, Northern Ireland, 1998...... 085 a more realistically- rendered drawing by Le Corbusier, image by ©FLC/ADAGP, Figure 021. Site Plans, Zooming into Northern Portion of Armour Square, Chicago, Illinois ...... 142 accessed 14 December 2017, http://www.fondationlecorbusier.fr/corbuweb/ Figure 022. Site Plan Study, Sketching over Armour Square Neighborhood along South State morpheus.aspx?sysId=13&IrisObjectId=6159&sysLanguage=en-en&itemPos=2&i Street, South Side of Chicago, Google Earth Satellite...... 144 temCount=2&sysParentName=Home&sysParentId=65...... 018 Figure 023. Section Study, Sketching over Armour Square Neighborhood along South State Figure 006. Chicago cleans the slate to make way for 16-to-19-story towers in the park: An Street, South Side of Chicago, View to North...... 145 example of single-use dwellings, inspired by CIAM's functionalUPDATE city, within the Figure 024. Site Plan Study, Sketching over Armour Square Neighborhood along South State urban-American context of Cabrini-Green, Near North Side, Chicago, Illinois, Street, South Side of Chicago ...... 146 summer of 1952, courtesy of the Chicago Housing Authority Archives, https:// chicago.curbed.com/2016/9/28/13063710/chicago-public-housing-cha...... 019 Figure 007. Jacob Riis, “Five Cents a Spot:" Unauthorized lodgings in a Bayard Street tenement, 1888, The American Yawp, www.americanyawp.com/text/how-the- other-half-lived-photographs-of-jacob-riis/...... 020 Figure 008. Pruitt-Igoe from above, low angle oblique USGS photograph, St. Louis, Missouri, United States Geological Survey, photograph taken at an unknown time between 1963 and 1972, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pruitt-igoeUSGS02.jpg . . . . .021 Figure 009. Micah Marty, Dismantling Cabrini Green in the Near North Side of Chicago, a City-Wide Plan for “Transformation,” 2000...... 023 Figure 010. Trellick Tower, Sectional Perspective xxxx...... 024 Figure 011. Title for Image...... 025 Figure 012. Riding my first bike (no training wheels!) through mobile home park, North Hampton, NH, ca. 1999 ...... 028
228 ILLUSTRATIONS OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 229 URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
ILLUSTRATIONS FIGURES: CHAPTER 3
Figure 025. Previous page: View from window at Stuvesant Town, photograph by Christian saic.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/mqc/id/16239/rec/1...... 099 Mueller / Shutterstock, 2017, https://ny.curbed.com/2017/2/7/14540094/east- Figure 047. First floor plan, Robert Taylor Homes, digital scan of drafted plan by Shaw, village-stuyvesant-town-affordable-housing...... 056 Metz and Associates, the Art Institute of Chicago Ryerson & Burnham Figure 026. S. State Robert Taylor Homes, 16-story towers Chicago, Illinois...... 058 Archives: Archival Image Collection, original image altered for black and white Figure 027. Divis Flats, Aerial Photograph ...... 082 representation, accessed 25 November 2017, http://digital-libraries.saic.edu/ Figure 028. Divis Flats, Inside the Stairwell...... 082 cdm/singleitem/collection/mqc/id/16339/rec/2...... 099 Figure 029. Divis Flats, Children Swinging Around ...... 082 Figure 048. Axonometric: Entry...... 099 Figure 030. Optimistic Newspaper Articles of Life in the Divis Flats ...... 082 Figure 049. Axonometric: Vertical circulation ...... 099 Figure 031. Site Plan Diagramming the Divis Flats...... 082 Figure 050. Axonometric: Horizontal circulation...... 099 Figure 032. Previous page: Astronaut photograph ISS041-E-103791, captured from the Figure 051. Partial site plans: super blocks that made a continuous 2-mile stretch of International Space Station on October 28, 2014 with a Nikon D4 digital camera public housing high-rises, Robert Taylor Homes, digital scan of drafted plan by and 800 mm lens, shows 16 miles of the Lake Michigan shoreline, Chicago, Shaw, Metz and Associates, the Art Institute of Chicago Ryerson & Burnham Illinois, https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=84943...... 088 Archives: Archival Image Collection, original image altered for black and white Figure 033. Photograph of one of a series of towers at Cabrini-Green, 1117 North Cleveland representation, accessed 25 November 2017, http://digital-libraries.saic.edu/ Street, Near North Side, Chicago, Illinois, © Camilo José Vergara, 1988...... 088 cdm/singleitem/collection/mqc/id/16358/rec/3...... 101 Figure 034. Photograph of one of a series of towers at Cabrini-Green, 1117 North Cleveland Figure 052. Axonometric: Private dwellings...... 101 Street, Near North Side, Chicago, Illinois, © Camilo José Vergara, 1995...... 088 Figure 053. Axonometric: Communal laundry...... 101 Figure 035. Photograph of one of a series of towers at Cabrini-Green, 1117 North Cleveland Figure 054. Axonometric: Communal open-air gallery...... 101 Street, Near North Side, Chicago, Illinois, © Camilo José Vergara, 1998...... 088 Figure 055. Sectional perspective #1 ...... 103 Figure 036. Montaged histories: a decade’s length of deterioration, 3-part series of Figure 056. Sectional perspective #2 ...... 103 Cabrini-Green, 1117 North Cleveland Street, Near North Side, Chicago, Illinois, Figure 057. Sectional perspective #3 ...... 105 photographed 1988-1998 (©Camilo José Vergara), collage construction, (William Figure 058. Sectional perspective #4 ...... 105 Toohey III, CC BY-NC-SA)...... UPDATE...... 091 Figure 059. Sectional perspective #5 ...... 107 Figure 037. Frame from Ben Wheatley-directed High-Rise ...... 093 Figure 060. Sectional perspective #6 ...... 107 Figure 038. Frame from Ben Wheatley-directed High-Rise ...... 093 Figure 061. Sectional perspective #7 ...... 109 Figure 039. Frame from Ben Wheatley-directed High-Rise ...... 093 Figure 062. Sectional perspective #8 ...... 109 Figure 040. Frame from Ben Wheatley-directed High-Rise ...... 093 Figure 063. Previous Page: New Carver Apartments, functional fins lining the interior Figure 041. Frame from Ben Wheatley-directed High-Rise ...... 095 courtyard. © Iwan Baan, 2009, https://www.arch.columbia.edu/books/ Figure 042. Frame from Ben Wheatley-directed High-Rise ...... 095 reader/137-social-transparency-projects-on-housing ...... 112 Figure 043. Frame from Ben Wheatley-directed High-Rise ...... 095 Figure 064. Massing model of Lo2No proposal by REX: Two slender residential towers Figure 044. Frame from Ben Wheatley-directed High-Rise ...... 095 totaling to around 150,700 SF, Helsinki, Finland, 2009, http://www.rex-ny.com/low2no/ . .112 Figure 045. Analytical axonometric: Vertical circulation of a reconstructed Robert Taylor Figure 065. Visualization atop the podium, http://www.rex-ny.com/low2no/...... 112 Homes, rendering and wireframe from Rhino model, by author, 9 December Figure 066. Diagram of a diverse mix of uses at street-level, http://www.rex-ny.com/low2no/. . . . .112 2017, (William Toohey III, CC BY-NC-SA)...... 097 Figure 067. Star Apartments, existing retail development and rendering of new complex. Figure 046. Typical floor plan: 3rd through 16th floors, Robert Taylor Homes, digital scan of Courtesy of Michael Maltzan Architecture. https://www.arch.columbia.edu/ drafted plan by Shaw, Metz and Associates, the Art Institute of Chicago Ryerson books/reader/137-social-transparency-projects-on-housing...... 115 & Burnham Archives: Archival Image Collection, original image altered for black Figure 068. New Carver Apartments, functional fins lining the interior courtyard. © Iwan and white representation, accessed 25 November 2017, http://digital-libraries. Baan. https://www.arch.columbia.edu/books/reader/137-social-transparency-
230 ILLUSTRATIONS OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 231 URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
ILLUSTRATIONS FIGURES: CHAPTER 3
projects-on-housing ...... 117 Figure 069. Renderings of Taylor Street Library and Apartments, Near West Side, Chicago, Courtesy of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, March 2017 ...... 120 Figure 070. Axonometric representation of a manipulated Robert Taylor Homes following a “pivot” operation, rendering from Rhino Model, by author, 11 December 2017, (William Toohey III, CC BY-NC-SA)...... 125 Figure 071. Elevation translation from plan-view testing: Landscape surfaces on and above the ground plane influence building form, by author 17 December 2017, (William Toohey III, CC BY-NC-SA)...... 151 Figure 072. TBD, by author, ___ December 2017, (William Toohey III, CC BY-NC-SA)...... 159 Figure 073. On-the-wall redlining: Almost understanding what Carol means by “framing,” photograph of portion of pinned-up process work in Crit Room A, 5 December 2017, (William Toohey III, CC BY-NC-SA)...... 169 UPDATE
232 ILLUSTRATIONS OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 233 URGENT AMALGAMATIONS WTIII
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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238 BIBLIOGRAPHY OPTIMISTIC TRAJECTORIES FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CITY 239 To Be Continued April 13, 2018 Boston, Massachusetts The research and design that unfolds in this thesis encompasses topics of the origin, influence, implementation, effect, and revision of modernism’s “tower in the park,” as originally defined in the early twentieth century by the International Congress of Modern Architecture (CIAM). Although examining precedents across North America and Europe, the South Side of Chicago is utilized as a laboratory for design testing: a Midwestern, metropolitan context in the United States that presents a variety of opportunities due to its convoluted politics, racial and social tensions, crime, and isolating planning history. As a result of the city’s ambitious “Plan for Transformation,” beginning in 2000, Chicago’s Near Side neighborhoods and beyond find themselves in a peripheral zone around the vibrant city, cloaked in vacant blocks. Decades later, vast areas of stagnant landscapes continue to rest quietly in a prolonged wake of mass-demolition: a complete erasure of neglected public housing towers. In an effort to reintroduce former tower residents, as well as invite newly-diverse audiences, an alternative method gives shape to new building typologies that integrate themselves with the city’s existing grid and form. A contemporary revision to the initial ambitions of CIAM’s tower in the park becomes an experimental model that establishes new trajectories for growing urban populations. These optimistic environments are capable of reversing the negative effects that have stigmatized numerous communities. A design process that orchestrates a collision of differences, rather than a collision of similarities, encourages unprecedented amalgamations: a new mix of people, program, place, transit, form, material, and landscape. This work finds itself at the intersection of multiple disciplines and media not often merged, including urban design, psychology, sociology, time lapse photography, dystopian science fiction, film, architecture, and landscape urbanism. Intriguing new perspectives advocate for an interconnected architecture that sets a stage for serendipity.