Site Plan 1 Parking 2 I-35 Above
8th Street
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7th Street
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Resources
concrete
materials: Lauren Concrete; metal materials: Valmont; signage : ACE Signs; light-
6th Street
ing: Spectrum Lighting
and controlled by a joint use agreement with the City of Austin. It currently provides parking for downtown offices. And, for years, it was the urban equivalent of a broom closet; functional, but unappealing; useful, but better kept in the dark. sparked by a TXDOT grant, is essentially a makeover, but better renamed a “make under” by juror James Timberlake. It emphasizes the east-west axis, creating an alternative perception of the crossing, and highlighting, literally, the activity taking place underneath the freeway. Curved steel light bows, called stitches, cradle the freeway and create an uplifting motion that simultaneously draws the eyes upwards
Cotera Reed’s intervention,
This is a great example of architects starting to look at unused spaces in cities and figuring out what to do with them. — Juror Angie Brooks, AIA, Brooks + Scarpa, Los Angeles
and outwards. Mimicking the geometry of familiar catenaries — a string of twinkling lights across a street, a festive garland in a doorway, a soaring suspension bridge — the lights reinterpret the gesture of connection in abstraction. Architect Phil Reed says they speak to our idea of a bridge and the notion of moving underneath an object, like water under a bridge. “We worked with many different ways to express that association,” he says. “Approaching the barrier of the freeway as a symbolic landscape that separates us, we tried all kinds of models that would encourage movement through that landscape: lights fitted on chains held up by poles, straight tubes, rectangles, plates that led from one side to the other. In the end, the solution revealed itself.”
52 Texas Architect
9/10 2012
The project is encountered differently but with equal success by its audiences. Drivers on the freeway experience the sensation of support rising from underneath the freeway. Especially at night the effect is dramatic, serving to soften the strong north-south axis at its most divisive point. From underneath, the arches provide illumination for the streetscape, strengthening and brightening the east-west pathway, drawing two sides of the city together along the communal passage that was there all along. The LED lights are fully programmable, allowing the project to become an active and interactive installation to be designed by Los Angeles-based artist Cameron McNall. The lights could change color in patterns and rhythms to respond to events and holidays, be choreographed to music, and even interact with human activity going on underneath the freeway, further changing the way people engage with the structure. Jurors responded to the power of architecture to reclaim these lifeless, forgotten spaces in our cities and to ameliorate the unintended consequences that fester after decades of urban development. Eddie Jones praised “how the creativity of an architect can be used to respond to social issues as well as topographical and circulation conditions,” and provide solutions to the “critical goal of trying to connect one neighborhood to another through the difficult obstacle of a highway.” The project has spawned discussions and a re-examination of similar sites in the city with a view to building on their potential. As this humble intervention demonstrates, reconsidering use of neglected places and reimagining the way we interact with them can pay significant dividends, not only for the life of a city, but hopefully for its soul as well. Canan Yetmen is principal of CYMK Group in Austin and formerly served as publisher of Texas Architect.