METROPOLITAN DESIGN CENTER URBAN DESIGN FRAMEWORK for the UNIVERSITY DISTRICT Today, cities and, perhaps more precisely, cities and their specific regions are being rediscovered as magnets of creative energy and innovation. These city-regions have been able to create new and distinctive growth economies and lifestyles based on the ability to weave their reconstruction efforts, mixing together the physical with the cultural — an essential integration, shaped by the physiographic characteristics of each specific region. PHASE 1 REPORT NOVEMBER 2010 COLLEGE OF DESIGN UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA Framework Project Approach A framework is an integrated operating system linking independent sets of information...a scaffold or armature supporting the learning processes that Southeast Como Marcy Holmes facilitate the exploration of a concept (theory/hypothesis) and that develop a critical path to decision-making prior to a full operational research, design or master planning phase takes place. University To achieve complex and multifaceted vision results, Successful cities share a number of attributes, they of MN Prospect Park government officials and city planning agencies are emerge based on the ability to positively transform looking for new collaborative partnerships that function change over time, becoming a magnet for attracting outside of electoral politices. Often involving civic talent and entrepreneurship while fomenting a life Cedar Riverside organizations and academic institutions the goal is to style that values the regional ecology, green design expand the dialogue, find new solutions, re-assess technologies, values the role of the arts as agents to old questions, and be better informed with respect reinforce local place and identity, and develop a system to discovering suitable alternatives to help achieve of well informed decision-making that is built from a positive growth and beneficial development. The vibrant public vision for the future. University District Alliance organization and the Urban Design Framework Process led by the Metropolitan Understanding the community – The University District, The University District Design Center exemplifys this approach. as a subset of greater urban and ecological conditions is critical to understanding how it has come to be what The issues for the University District, and the City of it is today and will provide the foundations for the Minneapolis are, ultimately, how to build the human development of a vibant urban future. habitat so that it is in harmony with the bioclimatic regime of the region, and, how to invest in design and To begin the work we identified four questions: city building that offers the greatest levels of comfort and urban livability. 1. Can the University District be positively transformed from its’ current urban untidiness and fragmentation into a cohesive network of well integrated walkable communities? 2. What are the critical obstacles preventing the advancement of a substantive The Changing Nature of the Neighborhood Fragmentation of the urban form brought on by alternative mobility urban design framework guiding this transformative process? frameworks 3. Can the Mississippi River again perform a critical regenerative role in the transformation of the University District? 4. Is there another way to think about finding solutions to difficult urban transformations outside from, or prior to, the conventional Master Planning process? The University District Alliance This project was done in collaboration with the University District Alliance, a coalition of leaders from the University, the neighborhoods and the City of Minneapolis. The University District Partnership Alliance was formed in 2007 authorized and funded by state legislation for the creation of a “University Partnership District.” The mandate “to form an Alliance to facilitate, initiate, or manage projects that are intended to maintain the University Partnership District as a viable place to study, research, and live” runs parallel to the Alliance Goal to have a campus/ community area that is a desirable and sustainable Historical Urban Growth place to live, learn, work, do business and visit. Urban settlement oriented to riverfront with urban structure formed parallel to river terraces. 2 The geologic and fluvial history of the Mississippi River 29 30 31 32 7 Basin reminds us that the District is shaped in part by conditions that preceded the founding of the University (1851) and the City of Minneapolis (1867). 6 1 4 The principal and defining physical relationship for the 3 2 District is to the Mississippi River. Essentially every property owner in the University District is a Shoreland 21 22 23 27 Property owner! While officially the river corridor Critical 24 25 26 8 Area is designated as a 100’ swath from the Ordinary 15 9 13 14 High Water line on either side of the river, the entire 28 District is well within the Mississippi watershed and it’s 16 ecological system. 17 10 18 19 12 11 The Mississippi River is of national and continental significance - ecologically, economiclaly and culturally. 20 What once was a defining natural feature captured in stories, travel journals, paintings and etchings thru the late 1800’s was transformed and modified as a driver for industry and commerce in Minneapolis industrial riverfront. With the river as a source of livelihood, 32 Plans in 13 years progress and power was followed by population, pollution, noise, fire, abandonment and eventual The University District is composed of University of rediscovery. Today – the City is coming back to the Minnesota - Minneapolis campus and four adjacent River. The revitalization of Saint Anthony Main Street neighborhoods, Cedar-Riverside, Marcy-Holmes, (1980/2000), the Stone Arch Bridge (1995), the North Southeast Como and Prospect Park. More than 20 Loop (1995) and the Mill District (2000) have leveraged localized communities are identified within the District. proximity and identity with the riverfront as a remarkable assett. Intertwined with the identity and planning legacy of the District is the extant physical urban-scape. Shaped by As a land-grant university the University of Minnesota plays over 150 years of settlement practices, industrial and a highly visible role and commitment to the communities commercial conditions and an evolving transportation that form the University District. Each neighborhood infrastructure the 2800 acre District reads like a has its own distinctive qualities, history, infrastructures, patchwork. housing forms, and challenges. All have the capacity to accommodate growth and to transform into more vibrant, The past 15 years have been fertile for Neighborhood economically vital and sustainable communities. Planning, Master Planning and Visioning. Areas adjacent to the Central Corridor light rail and the new In this project we have studied how to restructure the University Football Stadium have received significant University District into a model sustainable community; study. Since 1997 there have been a more than 32 to better integrate and connect each neighborhood and plans, studies, initiatives and proposals for areas within the University with systems of mobility, and, to better the District. The color coded map above indicates understand and strengthen the character and vitality Community Workshop at Rapson Hall where planning efforts were focused and where they of the entire community through it’s reconnection with November 20, 2010. overlap. Color intensity correlates to areas where the Mississippi River. This research will provide the multiple studies have been focused. Many of these foundation for envisioning the transformation of this plans have not been realized. Some have resulted ‘human habitat’ in harmony with the bioclimatic regime in zoning or regulatory changes within the District. of the region. Together they present a catalogue of emergent ideals and goals in light of very specific conditions. Metropolitan Design Center Team Professor Ignacio San Martin, Integration Director & Dayton Hudson Chair of Urban Design Field Marcy Schulte, Faculty Research Fellow, Work Social Objectives Architecture & Urban Design Human Health Landscape Peter Crandall, Research Assistant, MArch, Geographical Community Needs Transportation University Needs Watershed Architecture Hydrological Parks & Recreation Corridors Michelle Barness, Research Assistant, MLA, University Master Plan Topographical Network Landscape Architecture Aerial Photos Vegetation Geology • Analysis In Collaboration With THE ALLIANCE • Resolve Conflicts A UNIVERSITY DISTRICT PartnersHIP U.S.G.S. • Establish Choices Prepare Base Design Intervention Data Analysis Ecological Framework Existing Conditions Report Alternative Framework Richard Poppele, Prospect Park East River Road Improvement Association Opportunities & Urban Research Richard Gilyard, Prospect Park East River Road Background Findings Constraints Analysis Ecological Alternatives Data Gathering Urban Design Framework Improvement Association Jan Morlock, Director Office of University Relations Working Process 3 Geophysical Conditions: Fluvial & Geologic Context Minnesota’s watery landscape is a direct result of Earlier interglacial and preglacial river channels that glaciation. The slow movement of ice, water, and the had been cut deep into the bedrock were filled with debris they carry and deposit on the landscape has glacial drift. At places these old channels had cut over many thousands of years shaped this landscape. completely through the St. Peter