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Rail to Trail: 12 U.S. Park Projects Reclaiming Urban Infrastructure

10 Oct

[ By SA Rogers in Destinations & Sights & Travel. ]

A whole lot of valuable land in America’s densest urban centers is occupied by the disused and often toxic remnants of neglected infrastructure, industrial complexes and other blight that could be green space instead. Taking inspiration from New York City’s High Line, an elevated linear park along a former New York Central Railroad spur, many cities are transforming urban riverbanks, viaducts, underpasses, freeway structures and even the tops of tunnels into parks, bike paths, pedestrian routes and other public amenities.

11th Street Bridge Park, Washington DC by OMA and OLIN

An aging freeway structure over the Anacostia River in Washington D.C. is set to become the 11th Street Bridge Park, with officials announcing in October 2017 that a design by OMA + OLIN has been chosen. Each ‘lane’ of the bridge is pulled upward toward the middle, crossing each other to form an X shape; the space underneath these overhangs will host a performance area, cafe, plazas and other public functions.

Lowline, New York City, New York by James Ramsey and Daniel Barasch

Complementing New York City’s famous High Line park, a 1.45-mile greenway built on a former New York Central Railroad spur, the subterranean ‘Lowline’ has been given a green light. Set to be the world’s first underground park, it will be tucked into a former trolley terminal in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, with a design by James Ramsey and Daniel Barasch. “The transformation of an old, forgotten trolley terminal into a dynamic cultural space designed for a 21st century city is truly a New York story,” says Barasch. “We know with input from the community and the city, we can make the Lowline a unique, inspiring space that everyone can enjoy.”

The 606, Chicago, Illinois by Collins Engineering, Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, Frances Whitehead

Chicago converted its abandoned Bloomingdale Rail Line into a 2.7 mile linear park called the 606 (named for the zip code prefix shared by everyone in the city.) The greenway connects four separate neighborhoods and includes a park and trail system with elevated trails for bikers, runners and walkers as well as event spaces and lots of greenery. The project was designed by the firm Frances Whitehead, which approached it as a ‘living work of art,’ demonstrating the vital role that arts play in the fabric of the city.

The Underline, Miami, Florida by James Corner Field Operations

Down in Miami, a stretch beneath an elevated rail line could become ‘The Underline,’ a new public park by James Corner Field Operations, one of the studios behind the High Line in NYC. The 10-mile-long park and urban trail would sit beneath the city’s MetroRail, following an existing bike path called the M-Path, but widening it and adding a parallel pedestrian path that winds through various ecosystems of native plants and habitats for birds and butterflies. Spaces for arts and recreation would be scattered along the way, like pop-up structures and a bike tune-up station.

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Rail To Trail 12 U S Park Projects Reclaiming Urban Infrastructure

[ By SA Rogers in Destinations & Sights & Travel. ]

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10 Subterranean Museums Reclaiming Abandoned Mines, Tunnels, Cellars & Docks

18 Jul

[ By SA Rogers in Destinations & Sights & Travel. ]

Disused subterranean spaces like former mines, quarries, tunnels, bunkers and catacombs can offer just the right combination of spaciousness, moodiness, natural drama and a sense of gravity to house museums and other places of learning. Often making use of raw, rocky walls, cavernous proportions and the temperature-regulating insulation of the earth, these underground museums give us opportunities to explore spaces that are typically closed to the public.

TIRPITZ Museum in Denmark by BIG

Tucked into the sandy shorelines of Blåvand, Denmark, TIRPITZ Museum by Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) transforms a former German WWII bunker into a cultural complex housing a venue, exhibits and galleries. “The heavy hermetic object is countered by the inviting lightness and openness of the new museum,” say the architects. “The galleries are integrated into the dunes like an open oasis in the sand – a sharp contrast to the nazi fortress’ concrete monolith.”

Salina Turda Salt Mines Turned Museum, Romania

A cavernous salt mine deep beneath Transylvania, built in the 17th century, is now the world’s largest salt mining history museum. The alien-like quality of the unusual timber structures built within it, along with the suspended tube lights, augment the sense of being in an otherworldly place. These structures offer recreational attractions like a mini golf course, bowling lanes and a ferris wheel. The museum is completely free of allergens and most bacteria and maintains 80% humidity naturally.

Centre for International Light in an Old Storage Cellar, Germany

The world’s one and only light art museum resides beneath the German city of Unna in former brewery storage cellars, hosting site-specific exhibitions by artists like Olafur Eliasson, James Turrell and Joseph Kosuth. The Centre for International Light Art is definitely a hidden gem, attracting just 25,000 visitors per year, partially due to the fact that local laws require limited capacity tours for safety reasons in case of the need for evacuation.

Paris Underground: Catacombs, Tunnels and Unofficial Arts Spaces

Perhaps one of the world’s best-known subterranean historical spaces, the Catacombs hold an estimated 6 million bodies from the Cimetieres des Saints-Innocents as well as a vast network of underground tunnels and rooms, most of which are closed to the public. In addition to officially sanctioned attractions (which also include a museum documenting the history of the French sewer system and the ancient ruins beneath Notre Dame) the tunnels and quarries hold countless works of street art and are often used as settings for informal and often illegal events – and as housing. These images were captured by photojornalist Stephen Alvarez for National Geographic.

Messner Mountain Museum Corones by Zaha Hadid, italy

Telescoping out of the summit plateau of Plan de Corones in the Italian Alps, the Messner Mountain Museum by Zaha Hadid Architects celebrates the career of climber Reinhold Messner – the first to make it to the top of Mount Everest without supplemental oxygen — and explores the sport of mountain climbing. Underground gallery spaces contain photographs of the climber’s life and adventures while the three protruding volumes offer views of the alpine landscape. Messner himself designed much of the structure.

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10 Subterranean Museums Reclaiming Abandoned Mines Tunnels Cellars Docks

[ By SA Rogers in Destinations & Sights & Travel. ]

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Underpass Art & Parks: 15 Fun Projects Reclaiming Disused Urban Space

13 Apr

[ By SA Rogers in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

Climbing walls, skate parks, art installations, theaters and even miniature marinas take advantage of the cathedral-like spaces beneath highways and bridges, revitalizing formerly disused and depressed square footage in urban areas. In cities around the world, underpasses are often fenced off, strewn with trash and generally unappreciated, but these intervention projects reclaim the space in fun and creative ways that benefit the community.

Folly for a Flyover by Assemble, England

“Starting with the idea that how spaces are imagined is often as important as their physical characteristics in determining their use, the Folly reclaimed the future of the site by re-imagining its past,” says ASSEMBLE of its ‘Folly for a Flyover’ installation beneath a disused motorway underpass in Hackney Wick. “The new ‘fairy tale’ for the site described the Folly as the home of a stubborn landlord who refused to move to make way for the motorway, which was subsequently built around him, leaving him and his pitched roof stuck between the East and Westbound lanes. The Folly hosted an extensive program of cinema, performance and play… by day the Folly hosted a cafe, events and boat trips exploring the surrounding waterways; at night, audiences congregated on the building’s steps to watch screenings, from blockbusting animation classics to early cinema accompanied by a live score.

A8ernA, Zaanstad Underpass Installation by NL Architects

Another underpass project offering access to the adjacent waterway is A8ernA by NL Architects, located on the river Zaan in the Zoog aan de Zaan village near Amsterdam. The architects describe the new highway, built on columns, as a “brutal cut in the urban tissue.” Their installation attempts to heal this cut while taking advantage of the cathedral-like space, creating an “optimistic intervention” encouraging a new type of urban life, and includes a supermarket, flower and fish shop, parking, a park and a ‘graffiti gallery.’ There’s also a skate bowl, a mini-marina, a soccer field and a small hilly park.

Underpass Park, Toronto

Toronto’s Underpass Park is not only the most extensive park to ever be built beneath an overpass in Canada, but one of the most unusual parks of its kind throughout the world. Transforming a derelict and underused space into a new urban neighborhood feature and pedestrian passageway, the park turns what was formerly a barrier between the north and south parts of the community into a connection. Murals by world-renowned graffiti artists, playgrounds, sculptural installations, sports fields and other amenities draw locals in to engage with the space on an unprecedented level.

Ballroom Luminoso Installation by JB Public Art, San Antonio

The I-35 freeway underpass in San Antonio briefly became ‘Ballroom Luminoso’ thanks to a public art installation by JB Public Art, featuring six color-changing chandeliers made of recycled bicycle parts and sprockets. After dark, the lanterns would light up, casting intricate gear-shaped shadows all over the concrete structure.

Seattle’s Fremont Troll

Frequently popping up in movies and television shows set in Seattle, the Fremont Troll is a public sculpture by four local artists set beneath a bridge in the Fremont neighborhood. The piece won a neighborhood competition in 1990 as an idea to revitalize what was, at the time, a dumping ground. The troll sculpture is clutching an actual Volkswagen Beetle.

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Underpass Art Parks 15 Fun Projects Reclaiming Disused Urban Space

[ By SA Rogers in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

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Reclaiming Urban Food Production: 12 Smart Designs for Farms & Gardens

23 Feb

[ By SA Rogers in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

urban garden main

Most urban environments aren’t lacking in sunlight – it’s a lack of square footage and healthy soil that makes it hard to use these spaces to grow food. While many a high-tech concept design has envisioned vertical skyscraper farms or entire cities built from scratch, we need low-cost solutions that can be implemented into disused urban spaces, easily assembled and moved when necessary. These smart urban farming and gardening ideas reclaim pallets, cardboard tubes, shipping containers and bicycle wheels, and many take advantage of sunny available spaces on rooftops, in abandoned buildings or along stretches of hot concrete walls.

The Growroom: IKEA Flat-Pack Spherical Garden

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Developed by IKEA’s external innovation hub, Space10, the Growroom is a spherical structure that makes it easy to grow lots of food in a compact space thanks to its unique design. Since shipping the structure around the world would be too expensive and negate some of the benefits of local food sourcing, IKEA decided to offer the structure as an open-source design built with plywood, a CNC milling machine and a rubber hammer.

Floating Gardens in an Abandoned Chinese Factory

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This area along the Pearl River Delta in Shenzhen was once a thriving community relying on fish ponds and water-based commerce, but most of that has since vanished in the face of rapid urbanization, leaving many abandoned structures behind. ‘Floating Fields’ occupies this space and makes it useful again as an aquaponic garden. Created for the Urbanism\Architecture Bi-City Biennale, the installation is an experiment in water-based gardening, algae cultivation, sustainable food production and water filtering in an underutilized urban environment.

Recycled Cardboard Tube Garden

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Water-resistant, recyclable cardboard tubes provide the basis for a modern pop-up garden in Sydney by Australian design studio Foolscap. The tubes were used to build the walls of a temporary outdoor recreation space, taking inspiration from the formwork used to cast concrete columns in a nearby Sydney neighborhood. In addition to an outdoor theater, food and co-working areas, ‘Wulugul Pop Up’ had its own edible garden full of native plants.

Grid Garden on Wheels

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This clever portable garden rests on reclaimed bicycle wheels and features an open gridded design so sunlight can reach tiered plants. The ‘Why not in the garden?’ installation by A4A Rivolta Savioni Studio was literally rolled out into a Milan city square to demonstrate how concrete urban spaces can be temporarily used for food production.

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Reclaiming Urban Food Production 12 Smart Designs For Farms Gardens

[ By SA Rogers in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

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Occupy Parking Spots: 15 Projects Reclaiming the Streets

18 Sep

[ By Steph in Art & Installation & Sound. ]

Parking Spot Hacks Bikes 3
In the asphalt-covered space that would normally be occupied by a single vehicle could be a bike rack, a dance floor, an outdoor cafe, a kiddie pool or a beautifully landscaped public park. Sometimes guerrilla and sometimes officially city-sanctioned, these 15 projects occupy urban parking spots for uses that are undoubtedly a lot more fun.

Bike Parking = Superior Efficiency

Parking Spot Hacks Bike 2

Ten bicycles can easily fit within a single parking spot, and many cities have started to take advantage of this fact with specially-sized bike racks. Buenos Aires installed a few car-shaped racks in parking spots throughout the city, an idea that caught the attention of Washington DC’s transit authority, and San Francisco’s 40th street parklet (seen top) was created by adjacent business Manifesto & Subrosa. They’re also occasionally unsanctioned, with citizens taking it upon themselves to occupy a spot with bikes for a day.

Car-Shaped Tents for Urban Camping

Designer Michael Rakowitz created a car-shaped tent made just for parking spaces, making it possible to camp in urban locations while (kind of) blending in. A similar tent used a car-shaped frame and a standard car cover for an even more convincing effect, offering affordable housing virtually anywhere in the city.

Sao Paulo’s Permanent Parklets

Parking Spot Hacks Sao Paulo 1

The city of Sao Paulo, Brazil has some of the world’s prettiest and most colorful parklets, which are parking spots transformed into mini public parks. While many parklets are temporary, this one is permanent, with the spot fully paved and heavy-duty urban furniture in a bright shade of red.

Noriega Street Parklet, San Francisco

Parking Spot Hacks Noriega 1

Diagonal wooden benches with built-in greenery take up three parking spots in San Francisco in this design by Matarozzi Pelsinger Design + Build. The seating was designed around the awkward shape of the available space, and the rule that it had to be at least three feet away from adjacent parking spots. Says the firm, “The acute corners are embraced as areas for planting and “chaise lounge” seating, where tight plan geometry becomes an excuse to put your feet up.”

360Photography

Posts Tagged ‘Reclaiming’

Rail to Trail: 12 U.S. Park Projects Reclaiming Urban Infrastructure

11th Street Bridge Park, Washington DC by OMA and OLIN

Lowline, New York City, New York by James Ramsey and Daniel Barasch

The 606, Chicago, Illinois by Collins Engineering, Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, Frances Whitehead

The Underline, Miami, Florida by James Corner Field Operations

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Rail To Trail 12 U S Park Projects Reclaiming Urban Infrastructure