Introduction

PROBLEMS

What is the 21st century urban third place? Typically, the third place (the place that follows home and work as a term coined by sociologist Ray Oldenburg in 1989 in his book The Great Good Place) fulfills our human needs for socialization, brings our communities together, and allows us to flourish as a society. These are spaces we choose to occupy and revisit again and again. In an urban context, third places and public realms are often interchangeable.

Outside of the urban core, big-box stores, retail chains, and auto-oriented districts that prioritize consumerism detach us from our context, culture, and community. A result of Euclidean zoning, the separation of uses creates spaces that lack vibrancy, exacerbate sprawl, limit housing supply, and intensify spatial inequity. For this studio, students are asked to address these issues and reimagine existing autooriented urban retail properties along the Delaware Riverfront. In doing so, they will reconsider the public realm and its role as the third place through three lenses: performance, resilience, and culture.

Now more than ever, the collection and application of data to optimize, enhance quality, and improve adaptability through smart city principles allows for the absorption, recovery, and preparation for future uncertainty. Urban resilience is the capacity of individuals, communities, institutions, businesses, and systems within a city to survive, adapt, and thrive regardless of the kinds of chronic stresses and acute shocks they experience. Resilient cities promote sustainable development, well-being, and inclusive growth that celebrates our collective social behaviors, norms, and habits. Through each of these lenses, the studio will address relationships between policy, planning, design, and the need for social and environmental equity. INVESTIGATION

Central to the investigation will be a redesign of the Boulevard, integration of a SEPTA Transit Hub, and how planned multi-site redevelopment of both public and private land can create a vibrant third place for the riverfront district. The studio will envision a high performing and resilient public realm that is culturally representative of Philadelphia. This will require a rethinking of current systems which may include, but are not limited to, transportation systems (trails, streets, transit, and highways), open space and natural systems (parks, plazas, and stormwater infrastructure), and community systems (housing, commerce, civic uses, and community). This studio is intended for interdisciplinary study, providing opportunities to explore urban ecologies, stormwater infrastructure, wetland restoration, land economics, future mixed-use development and incorporation of industrial legacies, new forms of mixed-use architectural typologies, and renewable energy and other sustainable technologies.

Ultimately, the studio will aim to address the following questions:

What is the strategy for resiliency?

What are the scenarios we can predict?

How can the public realm address the shifting behaviors of a post-pandemic society?

How will the public realm respond to the next shock to society?

How will the riverfront remain an asset accessible to all Philadelphians?

What makes the public realm equitable?

Pier 68 Park