For Climate Action
Lingyue Wang
Rethinking Infrastructure:
A Compact Community Based on Urban Landform
Defining the Problem
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As the expansion of St. Louis urban infrastructure, the highway system works as a city connector in a vast scale designed for cars, but simultaneously as a boundary in a neighborhood scale since it’s not designed for pedestrian. A lot of neighborhoods are split by this artificial boundary and isolated from their surrounding area. Those “urban islands” have very limited pedestrian access to the adjacent neighborhoods, and they are surrounded by pollution, industrial zone, noise, etc. In this research, I want to utilize a typical “urban island”, Forest Park Southeast as an example to analyze the current situation.
Forest Park South East
Forest Park southeast, a community locating adjacent to Forest Park, Wash U medical campus, Cortex and botanical garden, is an “urban island” surround by infrastructure, I-64 and I-44.
Although connected with the surrounding urban amenities and facilities, the community’s walkability and accessibility is extremely limited by the highway system and railroads. This also brings a lot of issue to the community such as noise, pollution, industrial zone, abandoned building, even crime.
Hypothesis
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Through the system dynamics model model, I treat the walkability in the community as the main factor and I found it can be the leverage point, as well as a reinforcing loop through population and safety. Meanwhile, more pedestrian can bring more local business, thus promote the local population’s growth.
However, population growth can be a double-edged sword. On one hand, more population can give the community more energy and safety, and the need for more multi mode transportations; but on the other hand, if people are still using cars as their main transportation method, more population means there will emerge more limits on the public space because we need more parking spaces , and we also have a higher need for highway. But the highway will again bring pollution and block the pedestrian connection. So at this time, the population-highway relationship can be a balancing loop for the pedestrian connection. If we don’t take any action to limit the highway and the car when population growth, the community will again be destroyed.
Dynamic System Model
(click to expand)
Key Relationships in the Dynamic System Model:
Proposing a Solution:
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The problem we need to solve isn’t traffic: it’s access. Transportation is all about access through mobility. “We want easy access to our workplaces, to our kids’ schools, to the doctor’s office and hair salon, to the theater and the church, to the shops that carry the products we want, to the bars and restaurants where we meet our friends.”[1] When we provide access through mobility, we grow ever more dependent on our cars.
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This new system is a new understanding of infrastructure - the infrastructure for pedestrian. In terms of the scale, the new infrastructure is not a vast connector for the city, for car anymore - it should be designed under a localize scale, focusing on neighborhood condition and designate for small scale transportation (walking, biking, etc.). In terms of the function, the new infrastructure is designed to enhance the idea of compact community. Urban amenity, community business & service, walkway, bike route are all included.
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[1] Steffen, Alex. 2013. Carbon Zero: Imagining Cities That Can Save the Planet. Page 38.
Diagram of Solution
Thinking about reinforcing the pedestrian connection by adding more walkway/public space, giving more method as access to the facilities and amenities in the community , and simultaneously limiting the usage of the car, as well as transforming the traditional highway system into a more environmentally friendly and more accessible system could be my proposal for this “urban island” community.
"Landform"
In my proposal, the main part—the connection bridge across the I-64 highway—should be a landform architecture integrated with pedestrian walkway, bike route, landscape and business architecture. On one hand, it can offer the community necessary facilities and amenities in a easy accessible way without car; in the other hand, it can get the community connected with the surrounding communities and places, like forest park or CWE, utilizing those valuable resources further promote the the population growth in forest park southeast community.