5000 Botanic Ave - Adaptive Reuse Thesis Studio

CRAIG ALTORFER, ALISON EBERHARDT, BREANNA SHEELER MAY 5, 2019 ARCH-508 DESIGN 10: ADAPTIVE REUSE PROF. KATHY DOWDELL & PROF. SUZANNA BARUCCO

TABLE OF CONTENTS 2

Historical Overview

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Statement of Significance

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Site and Building Descriptions

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Character-Defining Features

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Philosophical Approach

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Adaptive Reuse

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Program Summary

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Site Design

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Building Designs

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Flooding Considerations

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Reflections

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Contributions

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Works Cited

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HISTORICAL OVERVIEW

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THOMAS JEFFERSON UNIVERSITY

Bartram’s Gardens and Kingsessing Future Planning

ADAPTIVE REUSE STUDIO

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THOMAS JEFFERSON UNIVERSITY

In 1905, Ellison W. Cooper joined with Charles Emery Tittman and Henry D. Beaston in the formation of the Penn Reduction Company (see Table LXVI - “The Collection of the Disposal of Garbage in Philadelphia, 1894 to 1909”). The company was in a lawsuit in the same year over allegedly stealing the plans of a reduction facility in Atlantic City that was run by the American Sanitary Products Company.

The process stolen from that facility is likely what allowed the Penn Reduction Company to win the city garbage contracts because it was more cost effective.

Philadelphia was one of the largest proponents of the a specific type of trash reduction called the Arnold Reduction Process. Other cities using the reduction process included New York and Baltimore.

Reduction came into popularity in the early 20th century - this is supported by the construction of the Penn Reduction Company around 1905. Before reduction, trash was simply dumped in a landfill. In the 1890’s, New York City led a sweep of sanitary reforms and turned to reduction as a solution. Landfills remained popular while reduction slowly climbed in popularity. The reason for the rise of the Arnold Process is unknown; it is most likely because trash was handled by private companies there were paid by cities. The Arnold Process produces a useable byproduct, grease and fertilizer, that could be sold by these private companies as an extra source of income. Companies could make $1,000 a day from selling grease and $600 a day from selling the tankage as fertilizer. Private companies would have marketed the Arnold Process to cities as being cleaner than incinerating trash.

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Not much is known about the Arnold Process because it was used by private companies. The exact process can be surmised from the etching of the Penn Reduction Company in 1921. Trash would have been brought to the site by barge and unloaded (12, Garbage Dump Building, and 13, Wharf). Trash would have been brought into the Digester Building (2) and loaded into large tanks, about six feet in diameter and about twenty feet tall, with the bottoms of the tanks raised off of the ground. Organic trash matter was packed into these tanks and then the tanks were filled with water. The Power House (3) would have relied on coal to heat water into steam, that would heat the tanks and ‘digest’ the trash.

Trash could be digested in about six to eight hours. The bottoms of the tanks would have opened to let the byproducts out. From there, the matter would go through several stages of drying (6) and screening (9), until the solid matter was packed for sale as fertilizer (8), and the liquid waste was packaged as grease (5).

While much isn’t known about the Arnold Reduction Process, we know that the process of heating and ‘digesting’ trash would have stunk. It was also expensive to pay for a more complicated process then simply throwing trash in a landfill or just burning it. The cost could have led the City of Philadelphia to purchase the Penn Reduction Company in 1921. In 1922, there were only twenty four reduction plants in the United States. The City of Philadelphia operated the plant using the reduction method until 1956, making the former Penn Reduction Company the last operating trash reduction plant using the Arnold process.

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STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE

THOMAS JEFFERSON UNIVERSITY

The former Penn Reduction Company at 4900 - 5001 Botanic Avenue, located in the Kingsessing neighborhood of Philadelphia, was one of few trash reduction plants in the United States using the unique Arnold Reduction Process. The Arnold Process involved packing organic trash waste into large tanks, then pressurizing the tanks using steam to ‘digest’ it. This resulted in usable byproducts, grease and fertilizer, that provided an extra source of income for the company and reduced the amount of waste discarded by the city. Philadelphia was the largest proponent of the Arnold process, which was eventually adopted by Baltimore and New York City.

The City of Philadelphia paid the Penn Reduction Company and others to pick up organic trash from the plant’s construction in 1905, until 1921 when the city bought the Penn Reduction Company. The plant continued to be run by the City of Philadelphia as a trash reduction plant until 1959. It was the last trash reduction plant running in the county that used the Arnold process. Three buildings survive from a dense site of thirteen buildings when the plant was fully operational. These buildings, and particularly the Digester building with its surviving structure showing the digester tank locations, tell the story of this important period of Philadelphia’s treatment of trash.

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SITE AND BUILDING DESCRIPTIONS

The plant was opened in 1905 as the Penn Reduction Company. The site originally featured thirteen buildings that made up the plant. Only three remain today, one complete from the beginning, one built onto, and one that was added onto the foundation of a demolished structure at an unknown date.

From looking at Philadelphia atlases, we know that the company was in use some time until 1942, when it was transferred to the city of Philadelphia. The plant remained in use as the last reduction plant in the country until the late fifties.

The Office building originally operated as the dryer building, where organic waste was dried to use as fertilizer. Not much is known about the original extents of the building, however, upon analysis of the facades and roofs, and general shape of the form, we believe there have been some additions over time. The building is mostly used now for storage and offices. The main construction material used is brick and CMU for additions. Along the western and eastern façade we noticed closed up windows, evident by the break in the brick patterns.

The Warehouse Building is, from what we can tell, not an original structure to the plant. Historic photographs and atlases both lead to the belief that the building was erected on a portion of a demolished structure’s foundation. The original footprint is smaller than that of the current one. The current building is mostly open volume with a large room to the rear, and divided space on the first floor for office rooms. There are two floors to the main volumetric space, the ground floor being a story tall, and the second floor being roughly one- and one-half stories tall. Along the second floor space on the entire east and south facades are large windows from floor to ceiling.

The Digester Building is the most intact and most beautifully preserved building on the 5001 Botanic Avenue site. The building was historically created to be used to digest the trash that would come into the plant. The basic process involved fitting the building with massive tanks. We hypothesize that the tanks stretched from the supports of the top floor (as evidence of the circular shaped concrete holes and supporting structure around them) all the way to the ground. These tanks were filled with water and the organic trash to digest them. Since the tanks have been removed, the building appears much more open and filled with light. During operation, however, the center of the building would be tightly packed and alive. What is left of the building are the main vertical supports, many horizontal supports for the tanks, an empty upper floor with holes, and a catwalk roughly thirteen feet above the ground floor that would act as a service for the mid areas of the tanks.

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CHARACTER DEFINING FEATURES

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THOMAS JEFFERSON UNIVERSITY

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OFFICE BUILDING

Change in Fenestrations

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Remaining Equipment

Large Opening

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CHARACTER DEFINING FEATURES

THOMAS JEFFERSON UNIVERSITY

DIGESTER BUILDING

Exterior Profile

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Massing and Volume

Unique Structure

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WAREHOUSE BUILDING

Structural Rhythm

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Windows and Natural Light

Massing and Volume

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PHILOSOPHICAL APPROACH

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The site of the new 5000 Botanic Avenue Beautification and Enrichment Strategy is formulated in thinking about public access to the new center, a link to numerous proposals of a greater Schuylkill trail system, and the cleaning and enjoyment of the Schuylkill River itself.

PEN N PARK

The former Penn Reduction Company at 4900 - 5001 Botanic Avenue was a dense, industrial site on the Schuylkill River. Today, three of the thirteen buildings involved with the Arnold Reduction Process used on site are extant. As a group, our philosophical approach to our adaptive reuse design would be organized into three ideas: history, sustainability, and community.

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The history of the site as a trash reduction process is important to acknowledge, especially because this site was the last operating trash reduction facility using the Arnold Process in the United States. The portions of the buildings that tell the story of the reduction process are important to preserve, especially the steel framing of the digesting tanks in the Digester Building. It is also important to acknowledge the buildings that are not there, the Incinerator being an important example because it would have heated the steam used to digest the trash in the Digester building. Today, the extant buildings form a ‘U’ shape around a ‘courtyard’ bordered by the river that would have been populated with other buildings all involved with the trash reduction process. The density of the site has been lost, but it is a feeling that we hope our design exemplifies in an attempt to tell the complete story of the process and give an idea of how many buildings it took to support the facility. Each building is unique in its structure and the step of the trash reduction process that happened in that space, it would be ideal to make the programming the happens in the building function as if it is a part of one process again. While the industrial process and the architecture that supports it is significant, its past was an industrial one and the complexity of its environmental concerns must be addressed.

The second tenant of our design is focused on sustainability. The trash reduction process was actually one of the most clean trash disposal processes in history, partially because its byproducts, grease and fertilizer, could be reused. However, the trash had to be digested by steam, which meant that water was collected from most likely the river and heated. The primary strategy for heating the water was coal, an unsustainable energy source, which would have covered the site in soot. Burning the coal and heating/digesting the trash would have reeked and lowered the air quality around the site.

If the soil on site is found to be contaminated, it would have to either stay on site or be dumped in a secure location, but that would simply move the problem, not solve it. Our design strategy should minimize disturbing the ground, and plant vegetation that could hold some of the soil in place. If possible, our design should address environmental remediation strategies for the future. Some conditions, like the floodplain, cannot be remediated, but our scheme should address it, like wet floodproofing or raising the occupied floors of the buildings up and out of the way of the projected water elevation. These buildings and the people that inhabit them are vital to the process of learning and engagement on the site, as well as the future and sustainability of the architecture itself.

The last goal of our adaptive reuse proposal is focused on the community, specifically the Kingsessing neighborhood and Bartram’s Garden. The community is largely residential, with industrial buildings populating the waterfront. Bartram’s Garden is one of the few green public park spaces with access to the river. Our design should give back this prime waterfront location back to nature and the community. While the site is different in zoning and program than the rest of its neighborhood, it is still part of the vernacular architectural fabric and the three building’s unique construction should be celebrated. Most of the buildings should be given to the community with accessible community programming and flexible spaces that can suit their changing needs. The site’s programming should be focused on arts, culture, health and wellness, and education. Boat building, part of the programming of our site, encompasses all three of our design goals. Boats were important in transporting materials to and from the site, and were largely important in the development of the Schuylkill River. Boat building starts the conversation with residents about sustainability and environmental stewardship and connects people to the river. The river is a defining feature of the neighborhood and its culture and history should be celebrated as much as the architecture.

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ADAPTIVE REUSE PROPOSAL

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THOMAS JEFFERSON UNIVERSITY

Bartram’s Gardens and Kingsessing Future Planning

ADAPTIVE REUSE STUDIO

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PROGRAM SUMMARY

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THOMAS JEFFERSON UNIVERSITY

Bartram’s Gardens and Kingsessing Future Planning 10

ADAPTIVE REUSE STUDIO

Office Building Bicycle Rental (577 sf) Visitor’s Center (435 sf) Boat Building (1395 sf) Office (2,590 sf) Office Kitchen (306 sf) Exhibit Space (1,408 sf) Circulation (859 sf) Bathrooms (458 sf) Storage (709 sf) Roof Deck

Digester Building Makerspace (1,483 sf) Classrooms* (2,280 sf) Boat Rental (520 sf) Play Room (976 sf) Meeting Space (1,498 sf) Computer Nooks (1,979 sf) Recording Studios (995 sf) Coffee Shop (340 sf) Library (1,793 sf) Art Studios (1,862 sf) Flex Space (3,550 sf) Circulation (2,077 sf) Bathrooms (1,244 sf) Boat Storage (941 sf) Mechanical (340 sf)

Warehouse Building Storage (380 sf) Bathrooms (259 sf) Meeting Space (782 sf) Fellowship Hall (1,390 sf) Catering Kitchen (954 sf) Yoga Studio (1,217 sf) Locker Rooms (565 sf) Physical Therapy (746 sf) Dance Studio (1,160 sf) Exercise Space (990 sf) Flex Space (3,077 sf) 5000 Botanic Ave

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SITE DESIGN

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THOMAS JEFFERSON UNIVERSITY

Bartram’s Gardens and Kingsessing Future Planning

ADAPTIVE REUSE STUDIO

ENTRY POINTS PEDESTRIANS AND BIKES STREET PARKING SERVICE / DELIVERY

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OFFICE BUILDING

THOMAS JEFFERSON UNIVERSITY

The Office Building has been retrofitted to serve modern office needs and act as the main point of entry for the community to access the community center. Much of the building was built onto overtime and has left filled openings and winding program. The new building has an entry hall, reception and information area, exhibition for the plant’s history, office spaces, main storage, observation deck, a bicycle rental facility and flood-proofed restrooms that sit on the first floor.

Site Entryway

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Fenestrations

Circulation

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First Floor Plan

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Second Floor Plan

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DIGESTER BUILDING

THOMAS JEFFERSON UNIVERSITY

The Digester Building has been turned into an arts and learning building which keeps the character of the open spaces and structural elements that supported the large digester tanks during the plant’s operation. The building features art studio spaces, a library, boat rental facilities, classrooms for Bartram’s Garden, a playroom, community meeting rooms, recording studio, computer nooks, and a spacious an well lit coffee stand and generous amounts of seating.

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Vertical Circulation

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THOMAS JEFFERSON UNIVERSITY

First Floor Plan

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Second Floor Plan

Third Floor Plan 5000 Botanic Ave

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WAREHOUSE BUILDING

THOMAS JEFFERSON UNIVERSITY

The warehouse building features some of the most spacious volume on the site. The main idea was to utilize the space to add extra program in some areas while maintaining the space in others. The primary use of this building is to act as a fitness, wellness, and fellowship center. The main spaces of this building include large and small community meeting spaces, a yoga studio, dance studio, fitness room, physical therapy, kitchen support spaces, locker rooms, and an outdoor plaza to transition to the outside.

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Circulation

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THOMAS JEFFERSON UNIVERSITY

First Floor Plan

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Second Floor Plan

Third Floor Plan

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FLOODING CONSIDERATIONS

THOMAS JEFFERSON UNIVERSITY

The entire site is located in a 1% floodplain, which peaks with a Base Flood Elevation of 13’6” above the waterline. Practically speaking, this translates to much of the site being under about 4’ of water. Each building and all permanent structures on site were specifically designed around this major challenge, from raising first floor levels above the BFE, to wetproofing critical rooms that could not be raised.

FEMA Floodplain Map

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Digester Building

Site Sections

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Office Building

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Warehouse Building

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REFLECTIONS

THOMAS JEFFERSON UNIVERSITY

Our approach to our adaptive reuse scheme centered on three ideas: history, sustainability, and community. The former Penn Reduction Company at 4900 - 5001 Botanic Avenue was a dense, industrial site on the Schuylkill River. Today, three of the thirteen buildings involved with the Arnold Reduction Process used on site are extant. We believe using our three ideas helped to design a pragmatic design for the site.

First, we believe we respected the history of the site and the unique buildings still on site today.

The digester building had the most surviving features of the three buildings from its trash reduction history, and our design approach to that building was minimal in order to let the structure of the building tell its story. The warehouse building is not original to the site and was added later, but a partial parapet wall indicates that it could have been expanded on an existing building. Although it wasn’t original to the site, the light quality inside the building was so beautiful that we thought we should celebrate it.

Keeping the building was more pragmatic than demolishing it, when considering that we wanted to minimize the disruption to the possibly polluted soil on site. The last building, the office and possibly the drier building, had the most evident changes in its massing and fenestrations. We interpreted that building as a ‘mutt’ and wanted to celebrate that hodge-podge aesthetic, but also assumed that we could make a large addition to the building because of its striking evolution.

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As for the site design, we wanted to bring back the dense feeling of the site by recreating their demolished building footprints. Each of the footprints is occupied by program space; an outdoor classroom, a shallow pool for wading on hot days, and a picnic area. The ramp and waterfront will be occupied by the community to enjoy the river view they could once only get from Bartram’s Garden.

Where the Bartram’s trail intersects Botanic Avenue becomes a corner ‘porch’ of the site, inviting the community to the site where they don’t necessarily need to go all the way into the interior. Active and louder spaces, like athletic courts and playgrounds, were kept in this space to separate the noise from the education-focused courtyard.

Sustainability was the second controlling idea of our design. Adaptive reuse is fundamentally a sustainable concept, but this site had unique environmental features to consider. We believe our design addressed the floodplain concerns in a pragmatic way. Each building balances its program with the most logical and cost effective strategy. We wanted to use as much area in each building as we could without sacrificing it to storage space. In the larger buildings, like the digester and warehouse, the first floor was raised to elevate it from the water. In the office building, the first floor was occupied by program that could be ‘sacrificed’; storage, bike rental, and spaces that would be temporarily occupied, such as the visitor’s center. Water was allowed to enter the two masonry buildings, the warehouse and the office, in order to equalize the hydrostatic pressure on the structure. Materials in those floodable areas were designed to be more resilient. The rest of our concerns for sustainability weren’t addressed, but if we had more time, we would have considered using more sustainable materials, systems, and site design.

Our last design focus was on the community of Kingsessing and Batram’s Garden. While the design program was previously determined, we believe we organized these spaces in the best way for the site. The first and most important consideration was the entry to the site. It was important to give the site a grand entry. We thought this was best through the office building, creating a visitor’s center that trail runners and bicyclists could stop by quickly without going further into the site. Creating a green feature wall on the Botanic Avenue site helps identify the site with greenery and nature and provides a corner of the site for a performance space. The warehouse building, closest to the corner, again for easy access, is more for community arts and health programs. The digester building is more for specific program like boat building, storage, co-working spaces, and recording studios. This organization of spaces creates a sense of involvement and curiosity in the site. The spaces close to the street are more easily accessible and allow people to come and go, while the digester building furthest from the street is furthest from the entry and has more specific programing that few people might access.

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CONTRIBUTIONS

THOMAS JEFFERSON UNIVERSITY

Alison Eberhardt Total Class

In Group

Site surveying and measuring Clerestory Building CAD initial Plan Precedent research Map and site development research Garbage reduction process research Office building existing conditions verifications Statement of significance Final crit presentation coordination

Initial proposal Design philosophy and character defining features Precedent Research Office building design and revit modeling Compiled and edited final crit presentation Office building drawings Edited group orthographic drawings and compiled into a set Site design sketches Design philosophy

Breanna Sheeler Total Class

In Group

Site surveying and measuring Clerestory Building Revit Model Stormwater Management research Water Quality research Precedent research

Initial proposal Design philosophy and character defining features Warehouse building space planning and design development Warehouse building raw orthographic drawings and diagrams, to be refined by Craig and Alison Site Design development and modeling Side raw plan and diagrams, to be refined by Craig and Alison Final Design Renderings for site and all three buildings Coordination of Portfolio Report

Craig Altorfer Total Class

In Group

Site surveying and measuring Site Plan Site evolution research Office Building Revit Model Sheet Printing

Initial proposal Design philosophy and character defining features Clerestory Building primary design and primary details Coordination of Innovator Expo portion of display Refined Diagram creation Raw clerestory building drawings and render views Site planning assistance

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WORKS CITED

“A Garbage Timeline.” Rotten Truth About Garbage. 1998. Accessed May 06, 2019. http://www.astc. org/exhibitions/rotten/timeline.htm.

“Contaminated Site Clean Up Issues.” CLUIN News. Accessed May 05, 2019. https://clu-in.org/ ecotools/default.cfm.

“History of the Garbage Man.” National Garbage Man Day. 2019. Accessed May 06, 2019. https:// www.garbagemanday.org/history-of-the-garbage-man/.

“Local Foods, Local Places.” EPA. October 23, 2018. Accessed May 05, 2019. https://www.epa.gov/ smartgrowth/local-foods-local-places#stories.

Morse, William Francis. Collection and Disposal of Municipal Waste. 1st ed. New York, NY: Municipal Journal and Engineer, 1908. 2012. Accessed May 5, 2019. https://books.google.com/books?id=S-MR AAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=fals Olsen, Kevin. “What Do You Do With the Garbage? New York City’s Progressive Era Sanitary Reforms and Their Impact on the Waste Management Infrastructure in Jamaica Bay.” Long Island History Journal. 2019. Accessed May 06, 2019. https://lihj.cc.stonybrook.edu/2015/articles/olsen/.

Philadelphia City Archive. PhillyHistory. 2019. Accessed May 06, 2019. https://www.phillyhistory.org/ PhotoArchive/Home.aspx. https://www.philageohistory.org/tiles/viewer/ “Remediation Technologies for Cleaning Up Contaminated Sites.” EPA. February 07, 2019. Accessed May 05, 2019. https://www.epa.gov/remedytech/remediation-technologies-cleaning-contaminatedsites.

“The Shed at Crown Center - Project.” RoehrSchmitt. Accessed May 05, 2019. https://www. roehrschmitt.com/the-shed-project.

U.S. Department of Energy Federal Energy Management Program. “Biogas .” Whole Building Design Guide. March 08, 2016. Accessed May 06, 2019. http://www.wbdg.org/resources/biogas.

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