[5.4] _D.C. Zoning and Industrial Core
The sites of operation within the District of Columbia rest within the Industrial core, adjacent to the railway line of the historic Baltimore and Ohio railroad, Metropolitan Branch trail and City metro line. This core follows the railway lines to Union Station at the heart of the city. The program directly around it is mostly industrious in nature with several open spaces that are currently only being utilized for industrial storage containers or billboards. This vein of the city cuts the city into two, as the low density neighborhoods of the northwest, become disjointed from those of the southeast. The sites are chosen in order to engage the area with public functions and eventually revitalize the area into that of mixed use functionality. This will enable the core to become more than a severance between the two sides of the railway arterial, but in fact become a sort of corpus callosum that unites the two sides through a dialogue and exchange of information. Also denoted in the zoning plan, the central core also lacks an abundance of green space that the rest of the city seems to contain. Even L’Enfant’s original ideal plan for the city involved having many public open squares. Bringing more open civic space to the heart of the city will alleviate the dependence on the National Mall for leisure and gathering activities and enable city residents to re-engage urban life. Using Union Station as a hinge, it is possible to drive the public energy of downtown to this region of the city. Many institutional, commercial, and public functionalities currently occupy the area adjacent the industrial core. The Catholic University of America, St. Paul’s College, Howard University, Gallaudet University, and Langley High School all currently reside within walking distance of these sites. The young population that inhabits these sites will be drawn to public exterior spaces accompanied by mixed use building typologies.
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