Reclamation: Urban Garage

reclamation REGENT ST. PARKING ADAPTIVE RE-USE

GRADUATE THESIS PROJECT K E L T O N

B E R R E T T

Reclamation is an exploration in radical adaptive re-use, pushing the limits of what canand should be re-used. Necessitated by an increasingly urbanizing population facing challenges of obesity and social isolation, and the looming challenge of achieving a sustainable society, Reclamation aims to resonate within the zeitgeist of sustainable planning and design paradigmatic shifts. It re-uses a much maligned typology of building: the parking garage. Parking structures represent a repository of untold embodied energy, the built epitomization of the abdication of urbanity to the automobile, and an interesting layer of history tied not only the automobile post-war economy, but the broad movement of Modernism that swept the western hemisphere in the decades following WWII. What shall their fate be? Ruins? Expensive replacements? Or shall we revisit, re-consider, and adapt.

Since at least the middle ages, humans have radically adapted their obsolete ediďŹ ces.

Often, these organically occurring reclamations result in the beautiful urban forms familiarized in European urban forms such as Rome’s Piazza Navona, the adaptation of the obsolete Stadium of Diocletion. Reclamation posits this argument: that we should no longer limit our building candidates for adaptive re-use, that we should embrace the spirit of radical re-inhabition, ecological and cultural resilience. Perhaps like the Romans and the Stadium of Diocletion, we can create places that help us re-urbanize, enhance community, link us to our immediate past, and frame our long term future.

the site downtown salt lake city, ut

energy solutions aren a

galivan plaza

harmons grocer city creek center

salt palace convention cntr.

public library

the site downtown DEMOGRAPHICS Residential population: ~4,961 Gender Imbalance: 2:1 men:women downtown workforce: 43,271 416 live + work downtown 1301 live + work elsewhere

projected population increase: 20,000 people by 2040 housing density: 2 units per acre vacant/underutilized land: 34%

the site downtown salt lake city, ut

city creek Regent Street

glaivan

the site |

performing arts “on regent” Block 50 lies in the center of a changing downtown. Currently under construction is a new performing arts center by Pelli Pelli Clark. as well as a large adjacent office tower.

This will act to further activate one of the most traveled thoroughfares. Taking note of this, the Salt Lake City planning department is moving to renovate Regent and Orpheum into a mixed mode inner block walk way.

Special thanks to Molly Robinson at the Salt Lake City Planning Department

the garage

regent street parking Designed by local architect Donald Panushka around 1974, this brutalist concrete parking structure lies along Regent street, incorporates Plumb Alley, and bridges over Orpheum street, making it the cross roads of some of the busiest pedestrian thoroughfares in the city. Exhibiting classic precast and site-cast concrete details, this 10 story garage embodies what modernism was, about movement, the automobile, concrete, and the abdication of the city to the needs of the automobile.

Special thanks to Kelly Kirkham for providing the original construction documents

the garage

regent street parking

a l l e y

street

p l u m b

regent

heum ave.

precedents

la villete: programming for urban vitality PROGRAM “POINTS” CIRCULATION DISPERSED PROGRAM PROGRAMATIC CONNECTION

BANDS OF PROGRAM PROGRAM ADJACENCY

PROGRAM ABBERATIONS NON-FORMULAIC PEICES

Though it may seem strange to apply the un-built vision that OMA had for La Villete to a parking garage, Koolhaas offers lessons of urban vitality that I tried to apply to the garage.

The bands of program in the garage are the housing and market pieces, dispersed with other pieces of program such as the community theater, medical clinic, and community gallery.

The programmatic connection happens where these two connected loops interface. This of course leaves the spaces of arrival from the public loop entrance, to the adjacent parking structure entrances.

precedents

markets as icons: pike’s & la boqueria

High among the inspirations for this project are the great markets of Barcelona, as well as the great market of the Northwest, Pike’s. These markets embody place.

They contribute to the local economy and forge excellent spaces for the public. Last, their “grit” seems applicable to the parking garage.

precedents

8 house: bjark ingels group

8 House articulated a precedent that urbanity can be stretched vertically, and that biking can be uniquely integrated into this scheme. Conceived as rowhouses, each unit up to the top floors can be reached without getting off one’s bicycle. With the sloped floor scenario of the parking garage, this logic can easily be borrowed and applied.

design moves harnessing the connected loops

housing loop Studio, 1 Bed, 2 Bed units

public loop Farmers market Amenities Childrens Library Medical Clinic Community Gallery

split

Parking garages built in the modernist era, almost always comprised two interlocking spirals, each with their own entrance. This garage is no exception. On each “level� there is one connection point, the interface between public and private. What urban intensities could be generated in this scenario? This question is explored through this project.

HOUS

ING l oop e ntry

GROUND FLOOR RETAL adjacent parking garage

COMMUNITY THEATER

adjacent parking garage

ORPHEUM AVE.

RAMP UP

PLUMB ALLEY

regent street

in plan

LEVELS 1 & 2

public loop entry

AQUAPONIC ROOM

in plan LEVELS 3 & 4

CHILDRENS LIBRARY HOUSING

RAMP UP

RAMP UP

adjacent parking garage

AQUAPONIC ROOM

MARKET DOUBLE SKIN GLAZING

in plan LEVELS 5 & 6

MEDICAL CLINIC

RAMP UP RAMP UP

RAMP UP

RAMP UP

in plan LEVELS 7, 8 & 9

COMMUNITY GALLERY

IN SECTION wINTER sOLSTICE ALIGNED

EQUINOX ALIGNED

sUMMER SOLSTICE ALIGNED

IN ELEVATION

IN ELEVATION

IN DETAIL + copper shading screens

Inspired by the pioneer craft that built Salt Lake, these shading devices are double layered, and ďŹ nished in Utah Kennecot copper. The geometry is derived from Mormon pioneer quilt patterns.

IN DETAIL theater walls: Gabion baskets

Walls of the theater are gabion baskets with the pioneer pattern CNC’d to form the basket.

The atrium is structured by a diagrid derived from the geometries in pioneer quilts as well.

paralam diagrid

IN perspective

Orpheum | regent intersection

double skin glazing | housing loop entry

two bedroom unit

regent street market

community gallery