the countdown begins!

This week every group is focusing on implementing feedback from the midterm review. The editing process is well underway as team members need to make decisions about what is working, and what final challenges can be tackled in the final weeks.

Community capital

On Wednesday, Lynne Manzo, a professor from the department of Landscape Architecture, spoke to our class. She is an expert on the human experience of public housing redevelopment. Through her research she has interviewed residents at High Point, Park Lake Homes, and is currently working on a project with the Bremerton Housing Authority. Her research found that although there is a very negative perception of public housing, the sense of community and mutual support present in some public housing would be "the envy of any middle class community".

For this project we have been asked to focus on urban agriculture at Yesler Terrace. There is the possibility that this focus could diminish the focus on the social aspects of this site and even worse that we could be experimenting on the poor. On the other hand- How can sensitivity to the community push our design of the urban agriculture? After all, urban agriculture is an active component of the community at Yesler Terrace today. Lynne asked us to think about "how we can minimize the disruption to the residents" at Yesler Terrace. Hopefully, our schemes will represent opportunities to carry over the sense of community which exists and offer a place for "more healthy living" that is exciting to the residents.

For more information on the community advisory board go to:

http://www.seattlehousing.org/redevelopment/yesler-terrace/committee/

Mid Reviews 2/22/10

Everyone worked really hard and produced a lot of work for Monday's Review. Described as a "quantum leap" from where we were two weeks ago, our work described more detailed ideas about the systems operating in our projects and the forms they might take. With more research and gathered data we tried to quantify projected numbers for things like: Agriculture square footage, food production, job production, FAR and captured rain water.

REVIEWS 2/8/10

Everyone worked really hard and did a great job this week! Here are some photos from Mondays reviews.

The Final Touches

On Monday, Feb. 8th the team completed the final touches on the site model for the presentations during class.

Assembling the Model

At long last, the contextual topographic model is done! After finally retiring the CNC router, students of the BE Lab used the laser cutter to cut building sections out of wood. The sections then had to be assembled with glue, faithfully relying on Brian Park’s number referencing system.

In the photo on the right, students are meticulously assembling multi-storied buildings before finally placing them in the topographic model.

Lessons from Germany

During this week and next, our three breakout groups are continuing to refine our site and building design ideas. As we continue to draw on case studies and sustainable design site planning literature, we could learn a lot from neighborhood and building plans in Freiberg im Breisgau in southwest Germany. (Please follow link to PDF bellow)

http://www.messe-freiburg.de/servlet/PB/show/1199617_l2/GreenCity_E.pdf

Suffice it to say that this ambitious city is trying to do it all - from solar panels and green roofs to pedestrian zones and transit improvements, the philosophy of sustainability has a ubiquitous grasp on Freiburg. While most of the neighborhood and site planning concepts described in Feiberg’s “Greencity” brochure (above) is already familiar to most of us, I think it is helpful to see an entire city successfully integrate such a variety of novel ideas.

If you follow the link: http://www.messe-freiburg.de/servlet/PB/menu/1182949_l2/index.html , and click on the “Environmental Training” and “Initiatives and Citizens Commitment” headings, you’ll see the value that the city places on galvanizing neighborhoods’ commitment to the city’s vision of sustainability. Similarly, Page 21 of the brochure describes how sustainability-driven designs and structures are being used as a context for environmental education.

How wonderful would it be if the new Yesler Terrace became a classroom for sustainable design and urban agriculture? A place where K-12 students and curious citizens inside and outside the neighborhood could whiteness and perhaps critique the eco-friendly integration of various land-uses? Built Environment students can see the full value of urban spaces like those in Freiberg thanks to their understanding of integrated systems. It would be wonderful if the new Yesler Terrace could help more people to adopt a systems understanding of modern human settlement.