Spring 12 Link

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA SCHOOL OF DESIGN SPRING 2012

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STUDENT NEWSLETTER OF PENNPLANNING

U niv e rs ity o f Pe nnsylva n i a

Play Ball

by JESSE BLITZSTEIN (MCP ’13)

An interdisciplinary team of PennDesign students received an Honorable Mention in this year’s ULI competition (article on Page 3). Above, a rendering from their plan, [IN]FILTRATE.

First Year Workshop Works with Philadelphia City Planning Commission

by ARIANA ZENO (MCP ’13) PennDesign’s first year workshop continues its relationship with the Philadelphia City Planning Commission this year by supporting the Commission’s District Planning Process. Last year, as the City of Philadelphia embarked on its newest comprehensive plan since 1940, Spring Workshop students formulated plans for eight designated districts. This year, while the goal of working within the Philadelphia City Planning Commission’s “Philadelphia 2035, the Comprehensive Plan” process remains the same, students are concentrating on smaller geographies. Students have honed in on six to eight census tracts within a district rather than taking on an entire planning district which lead instructor Adjunct Assistant Professor Harris Steinberg notes “is a big change from last year.”

Cities, counties, and states dole out billions of dollars every year in financial support and incentives to businesses and property owners around the country, yet few of those government commitments are subject to as much scrutiny and debate as those involving major professional sports teams. As part of Penn’s 2011-2012 theme “Year of Games,” members of the Penn Planning community have participated in two different event series that involved the hot-button issue of building professional sports stadiums, arenas, and ballparks in America.

In December, Penn IUR hosted a panel discussion of prominent baseball owners, executives, and stakeholders to discuss the topic of “Ballparks as Urban Anchors.” The evening event, moderated

by Professor Eugenie Birch, preceded a day of closed-door discussions between academics and practitioners that further expounded on the topic.

Caggiano belongs to a cohort of PennPlanning alumni who are now practitioners in the field. Fellow returning instructors Laureen Boles (‘04), Martha Cross (‘03), Andrew Dobinksy (‘05), Donald Maley (‘09), David Vodila (‘05), and Melinda Watts (‘06), in addition to firsttime instructor Matthew Honea (‘06), provide invaluable expertise and experience to guide students through the planning process. “Most of my classmates would not even recognize workshop in its current form,” says Caggiano.

In January, Penn’s Annenberg Center showcased “In the Footprint: The Battle over Atlantic Yards,” a play about the controversial Brooklyn development that will be home to the NBA’s soon-to-be Brooklyn Nets in their currently-underconstruction arena, the Barclays Center. The play served as the backdrop to two community forums (“Megaprojects: Can We Balance Individual and Social Goods?”) hosted by PennDesign which included participation from School of Design Dean Marilyn J. Taylor, PennPraxis Executive Director Harris Steinberg, Assistant Professor Laura WolfPowers, and Adjunct Professor Harris Sokoloff, with moderation by Department Chair John Landis.

Both the play and subsequent forums were well attended by Penn Planning students.

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Steinberg views Philadelphia as a large planning laboratory with a myriad of sites to study based on their potential to provide students with a range of types of neighborhoods, from stable to transitional and from active manufacturing to potential historic districts. “The smaller geographic boundaries have allowed students to really delve into the neighborhood dynamics in a way that we couldn’t last year,” reflects returning workshop instructor Christine Caggiano (MCP ‘09).

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never attract another paying tenant. Planners are caught between a rock and a hard place in these communities. Kelo-style governmentsponsored redevelopment is too politically unpopular (not to mention increasingly unaffordable), while waiting for the private market to redevelop or repurpose these uses opens the window for blight. Local planners need to find bottom-up tools for incrementally repurposing older suburbs. Somebody should do today for older suburban communities what Jane Jacobs did fifty years ago for older urban neighborhoods with The Death and Life of Great American Cities.

Professor John Landis.

Think Big or Go Home

by JOHN LANDIS There’s a saying that comes from Southern California’s surfing culture: Go big or go home.

Stated less colorfully, this means “ take on the big challenges or stop whining.” What are the big challenges facing today’s generation of global planners? I have been fortunate enough over the last year to touch down in cities on every continent but Antarctica, and been able to observe some of the globe’s biggest urban planning challenges. Here, in no particular order, are five of the biggest: • Right-sizing Shrinking North American and European Cities: American Rustbelt cities aren’t the only ones losing people and jobs.

Many European cities are losing population as well. How might these “shrinking cities” be proactively right-sized to reinvigorate viable neighborhoods while at the same time speeding the conversion of nonviable residential and commercial locations to other uses, including parklands and even wildlands? The practice of planning started as a means of managing industrial and population growth, and it has never adequately diversified its theoretical basis or toolsets to deal with population loss and urban-repurposing.

• Repurposing and Reinvigorating Older American Suburbs: More than 25% of American households live in suburban communities developed between 1945 and 1970. While the urban fabric of many of these communities is still attractive, many of the homes in these communities are either too small or too old to meet modern day housing demands. Likewise, many of the vacant retail spaces in these communities—often in old strip centers—will 2

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• Technology-based CO2 Emissions Reductions: Time to face the music: There isn’t going to be a carbon tax. Or a national greenhouse gas reduction plan. Here in the U.S., or in China, or in India—the only three counties that really matter. Nor are we going to be able to adequately adapt our way out of a one meter rise in sea levels or a eight degree increase in temperatures. We must start to cut carbon emissions now. Not reduce the rate of increase, but cut. And the only way to do that is through an international Manhattan project to expand natural gas production for electricity production to fuel electric vehicles, while at the same time cutting domestic and building-based CO2 emissions throughout the world by 50%.

Engineers and entrepreneurs will do most of the heavy lifting, but society will also need planners to help integrate these technological innovations into urban settlement patterns.

• Reinserting the Public Realm into Rapidly Growing Asian Cities: Been to Beijing lately? Or Bangalore? Or Bangkok? Or Shenzhen? These fast-growing Asian cities have numerous and new high-rise buildings, new roads and transit systems, and some even have new planned green spaces. What they lack, almost without exception, is a local public realm for day-to-day social and human interaction. The planning and development of local public realms is falling further and further behind rapid private and infrastructure investments. This is creating urban forms of vast private accumulation but little in the way of public pleasure or meaning.

Whereas urban planners in North America and Europe are rediscovering the importance of a pedestrian and human-scale urban places, city builders in China seem to see such places as somehow un-modern. More and better urban design of the public realm is needed in every city, but no more so than in Asian megacities.

• Smartphones and Slums: Everybody in the developing world it seems has a cell phone. And an increasing number also have Internet-based smartphones. The diffusion of multi-channel (voice + text+ Internet) communication devices throughout the developing world, especially

among young people, offers the potential to open up a vast network of small-scale and paperless entrepreneurs who can deliver goods and services without the need for office buildings or warehouses or other permanent structures. This opens up the possibility of slums becoming true “spaces of flows,” (to use Manuel Castells’ wonderful term). Can this type of communications potential be converted into more traditional forms of private investment or economic development? And if so how?

These are the questions today’s community development specialists in Latin America, in Africa, and even in America, should be seeking to answer.

These are but a few of the big challenges and opportunities facing today’s planning practitioners and students. The thing about globalization is that there are no such things anymore as local solutions to local problems.

All local solutions can also be solutions to global problems. For planning, it’s time to think big or go home.

(Workshop continued from Page 1)

She believes that having students work on variations on a theme and watching how they conceptualize the planning process in teams has made for a much richer learning experience for both the students and the instructors.

First-year student Lindsey Gael agrees, “Workshop has been both incredibly challenging and rewarding. I have learned a lot of management and communication skills, how to clarify what is expected in terms of design and content, and how to really know my skills, as well as, others.” Gael is also pleased with the decision to work in neighborhoods rather than planning districts as she finds it easier to “listen really closely to the community’s perspective and interests.”

Fellow first-year student Sara Brandt-Vorel is “really appreciating the experience to work on such a large group project which mimics the type of work found in a professional setting.”

The workshop’s goal is to aid the Planning Commission in its development of district plans, but Honea hopes for even more—“ I want you all to LOVE Philadelphia by the time you finish this program and maybe you’ll want to stay and help make it better.”

For more information on Philadelphia’s 2035 comprehensive plan, visit http://phila2035.org/.

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(Play Ball continued from Page 1)

Opinions on the role of sports facilities in cities, and conversely the role cities should play in financing the construction of such facilities, varies widely. Opponents of stadium, arena, and ballpark deals argue that such facilities waste taxpayer dollars, expose cities to extreme financial risk, can displace existing residents and businesses, and often fail to deliver on promised benefits. Proponents for such deals site the positive, catalytic effects a new sports facility can have on jobs, a city’s tax base, neighborhood redevelopment, civic pride, and sports-related philanthropy. While the Atlantic Yards development is an extreme example, far more complex than the average arena saga, it highlights many of these issues (and more—eminent domain, for example).

The “Year of Games” theme at Penn has served to spark intelligent conversations amongst students, academics and practitioners about the relationship cities should have with stadiums, arenas, and ballparks. While sports and games may seem fun and trivial, debates about the construction of new sports facilities are quite serious, and new controversies arise yearly. The city of Sacramento, in danger of losing its NBA franchise, the Kings –much like Seattle lost the Supersonics and New Jersey will lose the Nets – approved a deal in March to help finance a new arena. As similar deals, debates, and developments continue to evolve around the country, current and future Penn Planners will no doubt continue to contribute to the dialogue on sports facilities in urban America.

Caggiano (MCP ‘09) meets with her first-year workshop group in the Fisher Fine Arts building.

PennDesign Students Win Honorable Mention at ULI Competition

By KATIE OLSON (MCP ’12) An interdisciplinary team of PennDesign students earned an Honorable Mention at the 2012 Urban Land Institute/Gerald D. Hines Student Urban Design Competition. Eric De Feo (MAR ‘12), David Dobkin (MCP ‘12), Anne Leslie (MCP ‘12), Michael Ruane (MCP ‘12), and Eduardo Santamaria Ruvalcaba (MLA/ MAR ‘14) received the award for their project, [IN]FILTRATE. The ULI/Hines competition is an annual urban design and development challenge in which student teams have two weeks to create a comprehensive scheme for a large-scale site. Teams must comprise at least three disciplines, and solutions are to include drawings, site plans, tables, and marketfeasible financial data.

In the Footprint explores the controvery surrounding the largest development in Brooklyn’s history. Please visit: http://www.thecivilians.org/current/in_the_ footprint.html#1

The 2012 competition site is the northwest corner of downtown Houston, where the Buffalo Bayou, a rail line, and major highways cut a post office distribution center off from downtown. PennDesign’s [IN]FILTRATE project focuses on connecting the site across the river to downtown, creating a new mixed-use, pedestrian-friendly, downtown district, and solving environmental issues both unique to the site and experienced across the globe.

According to team members, this new form of development could serve as a potential catalyst for Houston’s future development as an energy sustainable metropolis.

The highlight of the design, which ULI/Hines judges called “superior,” is the strategy for dealing with water in the various ways it interacts with the site. A central waterway with strategic infiltrating basins and wetlands weaves through the site, managing both graywater and stormwater, while creating a cooling outdoor environment in the Texas heat. The infrastructure shapes the buildings and public spaces around it while providing distinctive instances to interact with the water.

The waterway’s route through the site guides residents from a new Amtrak station, through the mixed use development, to a floodable waterfront park, ideal for events overlooking the city skyline.

Says PennDesign team member Anne Leslie, “[IN]FILTRATE exemplifies what a new, responsible waterfront could look like in Houston.” Congratulations on behalf of the students, faculty and staff at PennDesign!

Spring 2012 University of Pennsylvania School of Design

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FACULT Y RESEARCH Philadelphia’s Seventh Ward: The Board Game

by ARIANA ZENO (MCP ‘13) Assistant Professor Amy Hillier’s interdisciplinary work weaves history, discussions of race and class, education, and city planning together in the form of an innovative board game. “The Ward: Race and Class in Philadelphia’s Seventh Ward,” based on W.E.B Du Bois’ seminal research published in The Philadelphia Negro in the late 1800s, helps students analyze a social and historical time period. Hillier notes, “I started the Mapping Du Bois project in 2004 because I wanted to demonstrate what you could do with historical GIS.” Miniature replications of Du Bois’ hand drawn maps that predate technological advances like GIS color-code the diverse elements of African American society –combining spatial and social analysis.

Currently high school students around the city are testing the board game and its associated curriculum. As project director for Mapping the Du Bois Philadelphia Negro, Hillier and her team of researchers have also produced a short-documentary about the old Seventh Ward to accompany the game.

To view the documentary, visit www.vimeo.com/legacyofcourage

Professor Amy Hillier’s new board game walks players through Philadelphia’s Seventh Ward at the turn of the 20th century.

PennDesign Participates in $129 Million Federal Grant Award

by ARIANA ZENO (MCP ’13) In August 2010, the Greater Philadelphia Innovation Cluster for EnergyEfficient Buildings (GPIC) was awarded more than $129 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Energy. The third of a triad of energy innovation hubs nation-wide, GPIC represents the Federal Government’s investment in science and its desire to spur innovation in technology and energy. The GPIC Consortium consists of 10-12 universities, including Pennsylvania State University as hub lead, and four to five major corporations, who are charged with developing new ways to improve the energy efficiency of existing buildings.

W.E.B. Du Bois mapped the ward by hand In 1896.

NEW FACULTY BOOKS JONATHAN BARNETT City Design: Modernist, Traditional, Green and Systems Perspectives. January 2011

by ARIANA ZENO (MCP ’13) Professor of Practice Jonathan Barnett published his most recent book City Design: Modernist, Traditional, Green and Systems Perspectives in January of 2011. In City Design, Barnett describes the history of four distinguishable – although not mutually exclusive – ways of approaching city design. In a final chapter he suggests the situations for which each city design perspective is appropriate and how the different approaches might work together. Barnett’s intention in City Design is to illustrate that “there is more than one way to design a city.” The book is currently being adopted as a text for courses in urban studies, architecture, landscape architecture, and planning.

For more publications, please visit the faculty’s page on the PennDesign web site: www.design.upenn.edu/city-regional-planning 4

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Assistant Professor David Hsu works as an investigator for GPIC. His work explores the energy efficiency “gap” — why people don’t invest as much as they seemingly should in making buildings more efficient — particularly in light of what they would gain from less energy use and carbon emissions. He believes that a combination of various hurdles like custom, the structure of the real estate industry, and deficiencies in information, upfront capital, lender knowledge and general willingness to make long-term investments all contribute to this gap.

Located on the 1,200-acre Philadelphia Navy Yard with its own electric distribution grid, GPIC is uniquely situated to test energy-efficient building system technology development and integration at a variety of levels. In addition to the new technologies tested, GPIC is also exploring policies and business models that could better deliver energy efficiency.

Hsu focuses on policy, markets, and behaviors—analyzing building energy data to understand how different buildings and people use energy. He utilizes data from five major cities in the U.S. that collect energy data and helps them to use social science techniques to model how energy use varies throughout different buildings and neighborhoods as a result of technical, economic, and social factors. Hsu believes, “you can describe buildings as you do people, and then design better policies specific to different groups of buildings.”

THE PENN COMMUNIT Y Penn Alum Heads Philadelphia’s Zoning Code Reform

by NATALIE SHIEH, MCP ‘09 “Philadelphia 2040: A City of Neighborhoods,” was the theme of my second-year studio at PennPlanning. The question of “what’s a neighborhood?” puzzled us early in our planning process. A neighborhood is of course a physical place, but beyond that it is a collection of perceptions about an area that taken together equal an identifiable place. After (more than) a few false starts, we discovered that our role as planners was to shape the built environment so that neighborhoods have the basic building blocks to achieve success. Our studio’s vision was to build a city of neighborhoods, each distinguished from the next by their unique histories and cultures, but all with ample access to quality housing, jobs, transit, and open space.

Today, as Program Manager of Philadelphia’s zoning reform project, my job is to develop a new and improved zoning code for the city. Zoning is planning’s most basic and oldest tool for affecting the built environment.

Philadelphia’s original 1933 code, like other Euclidean-era zoning codes, aimed to separate incompatible land uses. Since then, the City has made over 1,000 piecemeal amendments to the 1933 zoning code and, as a result, has produced a confusing set of zoning laws that do not reflect current attitudes towards land use. The deficiencies in the zoning code sparked a 2007 voter referendum to reform the zoning code.

The City undertook a massive public outreach effort engaging 3,400 participants to learn how a new zoning code can better serve Philadelphia. What I learned most from the process was that every Philadelphian deeply loves their neighborhood whether that neighborhood has a traditional main street, is in the heart of Center City, or is more suburban in character. My personal goal has been to craft a set of zoning classifications that can build successful neighborhoods, in whatever form they may take.

The new code was recently signed into law on December 22, 2012. It has zoning classifications that reflect the Philadelphia of today, ranging from the traditional row home neighborhood to the pedestrian-oriented commercial corridor to the auto-oriented shopping center. The new code also has zoning classifications that represent the Philadelphia

Penn MCP Alum Natalie Shieh, LEED AP BD+C, is Program Manager of the New Zoning Code in the Mayor’s Office of Economic Development.

of the future, such as districts that accommodate urban agriculture or live-work districts. In the following years, I look forward to seeing the new zoning code put to work and contribute to the ongoing enhancement of our City of Neighborhoods.

APA Mentors Give Advice, Talk Transit with Penn Students

by KATIE OLSON (MCP ’12) The fourth year of the APA - Pennsylvania Southeast Chapter (APAPASE) Mentoring Program kicked off with a fall reception at the Philadelphia offices of Wallace, Roberts & Todd. In February, student and mentor pairs attended a lecture by Enrique Penalosa, the former Mayor of Bogota, Columbia. Conversation centered around Mr. Penalosa’s achievement of an innovative Bus Rapid Transit system in the city.

The Mentor Program connects professionals currently working in the planning field with city planning students at local universities.

Student/mentor matches are based on common areas of interest within planning, such as community and economic development, transportation, urban design, land use, and public/private development.

Students can also express their preference to be matched with a professional in either the public, private, or nonprofit sectors.

The mentor program provides an opportunity for Penn Planning students to discuss different career paths and receive advice. Students also use the program to network, often in pursuit of a summer internship or post-graduate job. Mentors and students meet throughout the year in both formal and informal contexts. Students can choose to shadow their mentors at work or meet over drinks to discuss resumes.

This year’s final event will be a screening of the film Urbanized, a documentary from Gary Hustwit about the design of cities and challenges facing urban areas in the 21st century.

Penn Alum Selina Zapata (MCP ‘10) and first-year student Margit Liander (MCP ‘13) attend a lecture by Enrique Penalosa at the School of Design.

A number of Penn alumni serve as mentors. To participate in next year’s program, please contact Katie Olson or Lauren Trice, the APA representatives for Penn, at planningmentorpa@gmail.com.

Spring 2012 University of Pennsylvania School of Design

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STUDIOS leadership, a transparent public outreach campaign, the institutional framework to ensure long term project momentum, and the foresight to address future capacity needs. With these in mind, the studio will spend the remainder of the semester building a transportation investment strategy that will provide critical upgrades, increased capacity, congestion relief, decreased travel time, and increased economic growth and equity in the Northeast megaregion.

Port of Rio de Janerio

By DAVE MUNSON (MCP ’12)

Photo of the High Speed Rail Studio in London. Photo coutesy of Brooke Fotheringham (MCP ‘12).

Independent Policy Evaluations

Northeast Megaregion

In lieu of a traditional planning studio, PennPlanning offers students the opportunity to conduct an independent assessment or evaluation of a policy, project, plan, or program of their own choosing. Currently five Masters students and one Doctoral student, led by Professor John Landis, are pursuing independent studios. They meet weekly to review each other’s research, analysis and evaluation methods, best practices, and to present their own analysis and results. Students’ research includes:

This year’s Northeast Megaregion Planning Studio builds upon two years of previous studio work that has included a high-speed rail plan for the Northeast Corridor and the economic case for its implementation.

Led by School of Design Dean Marilyn Jordan Taylor and Professor of Practice Bob Yaro, the goal of this year’s studio is to prepare a strategic transportation investment plan for moving these plans forward and increasing the competitiveness of the Northeast megaregion.

• An analysis of inclusionary zoning ordinances in California and their effect on housing production; • An evaluation of equity reforms to education funding and their possible impacts on closing gaps in standardized test scores and high school completion rates; • An evaluation of Philadelphia’s Give Respect, Get Respect educational campaign to encourage street safety by making drivers, cyclists and pedestrians more aware and mindful of each other; • A critical review of the body of academic literature concerning the relationship between urban sprawl and obesity and other ills; • An evaluation of a Pennsylvania program that offers real estate tax credits as incentives to make residences more accessible to persons with disabilities; and • An evaluation of the Early Periodic Screening, Diagnosis and Treatment program (EPSDT) as a model for reversing the trend of childhood obesity.

The high-speed rail network is an integral piece of the global competitiveness strategy for the Northeast corridor. This studio has considered transportation investment strategies similar to those used to transform London and the Southeast of England into increasingly global and dynamic markets. To learn first-hand about these strategies, the studio travelled to London to meet with scholars and public officials, whose expertise and hindsight shed new light on how transportation investments, and high-speed rail in particular, help to build a region’s competitive advantage.

by TIM PONTI (MCP ’12)

by BROOKE FOTHERINGHAM (MCP ‘12)

The fundamental takeaway from trip to London is that transportation investments drive economic competitiveness. The Northeast megaregion needs a strategic transportation investment plan in order to increase its competitiveness into the mid-twentyfirst century. This strategic plan must include bold

Photo of the Port of Rio de Janeiro Studio. Photo coutesy of Dave Munson (MCP ‘12).

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The Port of Rio de Janeiro Studio, led by Professor of Practice Evan Rose, investigates the efficiency of existing operations at the port and proposes new, more appropriate uses. The port, located just north of Rio de Janeiro’s Centro district, has been a major economic driver in the city for centuries, dealing in everything from agricultural products and slaves to electronics and automobiles. New private port developments in the region, however, present challenges to the Port of Rio’s efficiency. New ports at Itaguaí and Açu have the potential to displace Rio in moving bulk solid and liquid goods. Rio still remains strong, however, in container and roll-on/roll-off goods, to the point where these uses need to expand.

The area also has a severe shortage of housing and office uses.

As investment continues to creep north from the prosperous South Zone, the port is presented with new opportunities. The areas that are currently devoted to bulk solid and liquid shipping could be repurposed for expanded container or ro/ro facilities, housing, office, or mixed use development.

The studio visited Rio over spring break for a week to document existing conditions at the site, visit with city and state officials to learn about plans for the area, and toured Morro de Providencia, a nearby favela.

Lancaster County BRT/Code

by AYSE UNVER (MCP ‘12)

The Lancaster County Bus Rapid Transit (BRT)/ Code Studio, led by Professor of Practice Jonathan Barnett, seeks to develop an alternate zoning code for Lancaster County that supports the implementation of BRT, transit oriented development, and prioritizes the protection of environmentally sensitive areas with the aim of reducing sprawl, connecting the county with transit, ameliorating air quality issues,

Photo of the Lancaster County/BRT Studio. Photo courtesy of Ayse Unver (MCP ‘12).

and guiding development in an environmentally appropriate manner.

Lancaster County, close to Philadelphia, is known for its Mennonite and Amish communities, historic boroughs and townships, and prime, non-irrigated farmland. The County is also distinct for its farmland preservation program and urban growth management techniques. Despite this, the county still struggles with sprawl and air and water quality issues.

To address these issues, the studio modeled environmental sensitivity on a watershed level and prescribed ideal BRT routes and stations, taking environmental, demographic, and economic factors into consideration. The stations and routes were strategically placed to encourage increased density and investment within preexisting urban growth areas.

The studio also developed an alternate zoning code to guide smarter urban development for the county and is exploring mapping zoning classifications in their optimum locations.

The semester will culminate in urban design strategies for several of the proposed BRT stations projects and a refined code to be presented to the Lancaster County Planning Commission.

Las Palmas de Gran Canaria

by BARRETT LANE (MCP ‘12)

Under the direction of Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture David Gouverneur, architecture, city planning, and landscape architecture students are collaborating to redesign a public housing project and its surroundings in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in Spain’s Canary Islands.

The site, Las Rehoyas, was developed in the 1950s and 1960s as part of a national public housing initiative. The building stock, however, has remained virtually unchanged since construction and has failed to attract younger generations. Current residents live in cramped apartments in deteriorating buildings with poor access to public space. Many residents are also elderly and physically impaired. Despite these weaknesses, the neighborhood boasts prime real estate with access to many amenities.

This February, PennDesign students traveled to the Canary Islands and Madrid and met with

“The City That Never Was,” landscape architecture studio. Photo courtesy of Caitlin Zacharias (MCP ‘12).

peers from the Universidad Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and the Universidad de Europea Madrid.

Together, the students visited the site and gained feedback from local stakeholders, city officials, and area residents. The students also looked at prior examples of redeveloped public housing projects within Las Palmas, and brainstormed possible initial interventions.

Additionally, students visited case study cities to meet with local city planners and organizations leading highway tear-down discussions there. In New Orleans, students met with the city’s Director of PlaceBased Planning and staff from the Regional Planning Commission to discuss possible futures for their highway. They also met with stakeholders engaged in revitalization projects along the corridor.

In March, all of the students, including their Spanish counterparts, convened in Philadelphia for a midterm progress report. The studio will conclude in Madrid in June when the three universities present their final projects and recommendations.

In the Bronx, students met with advocates from the South Bronx River Watershed Alliance for a discussion of community concerns and with planners from the NYC Department of City Planning to solicit feedback on possible alternatives for modification or removal of the Sheridan Expressway.

Rethinking Urban Freeways

by CHRISSY LEE (MCP ‘12) & EMILY LEHMAN (MCP ‘12)

The Rethinking Urban Freeways Studio, led by Nando Micale, Principal at Wallace, Roberts and Todd, and Harris Steinberg, Director of PennPraxis, examines the historic impacts of urban freeway construction.

The studio also considers recent examples of urban highway removal and the potential benefits of future removals in six North American cities: Montreal, Toronto, New Haven, New York City, Washington DC, and New Orleans.

The studio travelled to Boston to meet with planners and engineers involved in the Big Dig, including former Massachusetts Secretary of Transportation Fred Salvucci, to discuss the strategies, challenges, and lessons learned from the megaproject. Students also visited the Harvard Graduate School of Design and presented their work.

Photo of the Las Palmas Studio visiting Spain’s Canary Islands. Photo courtesy of Barrett Doherty.

The remainder of the semester will be devoted to refining removal alternatives for the six study cities and developing broader recommendations for federal highway policy and financing.

The City That Never Was

by CAITLIN ZACHARIAS (MCP ‘12)

Led by Christopher Marcinkoski, Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture, La Ciudad Que Nunca Fue, “The City That Never Was,” considers the latent productive potential of “ghost” settlements that lie at the outskirts of Madrid, Spain. A product of a federal growth model to expand the Spanish economy through speculative urbanization, these settlements now remain incomplete and largely unoccupied in the wake of the global economic downturn.

Widely ranging in scale, they include dormitory towns, tourist resorts, amusement parks, stadia, toll highways, and regional airports. Many include street grids, urban furnishing, connections to utilities, access to state-of-the-art infrastructure, and buildings, some of which remain incomplete. Spatial manifestations of economic overextension, standard urban design approaches to programming and activation are less viable for the territories. The studio seeks to rethink how these spatial products can be leveraged to create productive landscapes for the Madrid metropolitan region in terms of economic, ecological, energyrelated, industrial, and/or agricultural uses.

The studio, composed of landscape architecture, architecture and city planning students, traveled to Madrid in early February to explore the context of these settlements. Students met regularly with Javier Arpa, senior editor of the Spanish design journal A + T and explored Madrid and the ghost settlements at its periphery. Through gaining an intimate understanding of the vibrant city, students could contextualize the starkly-contrasting abandoned territories in the metropolitan periphery.

Spring 2012 University of Pennsylvania School of Design

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LINK THE

BACK

CHRISTINA CAMERON

Co-sponsor: Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in conjunction with the Civilians’ play In the Footprint: The Battle Over Atlantic Yards ‡

BILL MOGGRIDGE

TUESDAy, JANUARy 17, 7PM, MEyERSON HALL TUESDAy, JANUARy 31, 7PM, ANNENBERG CENTER, RM 511

ARCHITECTURE AND ENERGy: QUESTIONS ABOUT PERFORMANCE AND STyLE

Professor, Canada Research Chair on Built Heritage École d’Architecture, Université de Montréal WEDNESDAy, MARCH 21, 6PM

Director, Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum

Co-sponsor: Lisa Roberts and David Seltzer—Integrated Product Design Lecture Series

MONDAy, MARCH 26, 6PM

MATTHEW DAy JACKSON Visiting Artist

www.architectureandenergy.com

WEDNESDAy, MARCH 28, 6:30PM, ICA AUDITORIUM

FRIDAy, JANUARy 27, 2PM

JOHN OCHSENDORF

Co-sponsor: Greater Philadelphia Innovation Cluster (GPIC) for Energy Efficient Buildings, Pennsylvania State University

THE ARCHITECTURE OF DISCOURSE: PUBLICATION & PUBLICITy IN ARCHITECTURE AARON LEVy

Executive Director and Chief Curator, Slought Foundation

WILLIAM MENKING

Founder and Editor-in-Chief, The Architect’s Newspaper

TOM WEAVER

Editor, The AA Files, Architectural Association

& INVITED GUESTS

Co-sponsor: The Architect’s Newspaper

THURSDAy, FEBRUARy 2, 6PM

ARCHITECTURES OF THE TEXT: AN INQUIRy INTO THE HypnerotomacHia polipHili http://www.library.upenn.edu/exhibits/hypnerotomachia.html

Co-sponsors: The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, University of Pennsylvania Libraries, University of Pennsylvania School of Design, Center for Italian Studies—Italian Section, Department of the History of Art

SATURDAy, FEBRUARy 11, 10AM - 6:30PM VAN PELT-DIETRICH LIBRARy, 2ND FL

ADRIAAN GEUZE

Landscape Architect, West 8, The Netherlands MONDAy, FEBRUARy 13, 6PM

ORKAN TELHAN

Assistant Professor of Fine Arts; Emerging Design Practices, University of Pennsylvania School of Design Co-sponsor: Penn Visual Studies, School of Arts and Sciences

THURSDAy, FEBRUARy 16, 5PM, ANNENBERG CENTER, 111

PAULA SCHER Designer, Pentagram

Co-sponsor: Spiegel Resident Lecture

THURSDAy, FEBRUARy 23, 5:30PM, ICA AUDITORIUM

ENRIQUE PEÑALOSA Former Mayor of Bogotá

MONDAy, FEBRUARy 27, 6PM

NOT VITAL Visiting Artist

THURSDAy, MARCH 1, 6:30PM ICA AUDITORIUM

TIMOTHy BEATLEy

Teresa Heinz Professor of Sustainable Communities, School of Architecture, University of Virginia MONDAy, MARCH 12, 6PM

NEIL PORTER

Principal, Gustafson Porter

Associate Professor of Architecture, MIT THURSDAy, MARCH 29, 6PM

WITOLD RyBCZyNSKI & MOSHE SAFDIE Meyerson Professor of Urbanism Principal, Safdie Architects TUESDAy, APRIL 3, 6:30PM

MOyRA DAVEy Visiting Artist

THURSDAy, APRIL 5, 6:30PM, ICA AUDITORIUM

IN THE TERRAIN OF WATER II terrain.design.upenn.edu

MONDAy, APRIL 9, 2-7PM

PHILIPPE RAHM

Principal, Philippe Rahm Architects Co-sponsor: Ewing Cole Lecture Fund

TUESDAy, APRIL 10, 6:30PM

DAVID N. FIXLER

Principal, Design + Preservation, EYP/AE Inc. WEDNESDAy, APRIL 11, 6PM

MARION WEISS & MICHAEL MANFREDI Graham Chair Professor of Architecture, PennDesign Principals, Weiss/Manfredi

KENNETH FRAMPTON

Ware Professor of Architecture, Columbia University

BARRy BERGDOLL

Philip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture and Design, MOMA & Professor of Architectural History, Department of Art History and Archeology, Columbia University

The Link is published by students of the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Design.

Department of City & Regional Planning University of Pennsylvania 210 South 34th Street 127 Meyerson Hall Philadelphia, PA 19104-6311 Phone: 215.898.8329 Fax: 215.898.5731 Senior Editor: Katie Olson, MCP ‘12 Junior Editor: Ariana Zeno, MCP ‘13 Contributors: Jesse Blitzstein, Barrett Doherty, Brooke Fotheringham, Barrett Lane, Chrissy Lee, Emily Lehman, Anne Leslie, Dave Munson, Tim Ponti, Natalie Shieh, Ayse Unver, Caitlin Zacharias and Professor John Landis.

Special Thanks: Kate Daniel

RICKy BURDETT Professor of Urban Studies

Director, LSE Cities and Urban Age

Global Distinguished Professor, New York University

JAMES CORNER

Professor and Chair of Landscape Architecture, PennDesign Principal, James Corner Field Operations

GARy HUSTWIT

Director and Producer, “Urbanized”

Co-sponsor: Penn Institute for Urban Research, Cinema Studies

THURSDAy, APRIL 12, 6PM

yVONNE FARRELL & SHELLEy MCNAMARA Directors, Grafton Architects Co-sponsor: Turner Lecture Fund

WEDNESDAy, APRIL 18, 6:30PM

KRZySZTOF WODICZKO

Professor in Residence of Art, Design and the Public Domain, Harvard GSD

Calling all Alumni!

THURSDAy, APRIL 19, 5PM

CONSERVING THE CITy www.design.upenn.edu/conservingthecity

FRIDAy & SATURDAy, APRIL 27 & 28

All events held at Meyerson Hall except where noted.

Continuing education credits are available. ‡ Attendance at In the Footprint, running January 18-29, is strongly encouraged. Tickets will be sold at the January 17th event. (Students $10) Call 215-898-3900 for details.

University of Pennsylvania School of Design 102 Meyerson Hall, 210 South 34th Street Philadelphia, PA 19104

www.design.upenn.edu/events

Co-sponsor: Kohn Pedersen Fox Lecture Fund

MONDAy, MARCH 19, 6:30PM

8

Contributors

URBANIZED: FILM SCREENING & CONVERSATION

THURSDAy, MARCH 15, 6PM

WORK AND WORDS: THE DIANA CENTER

Non Profit Organization U.S. Postage PAID Permit No. 2563 Philadelphia, PA 19104-6311

HALF

MEGAPROJECTS: CAN WE BALANCE INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIAL GOODS? www.annenbergcenter.org/tickets/?id=179

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA SCHOOL OF DESIGN DEPARTMENT OF CITY AND REGIONAL PLANNING 210 S. 34TH STREET 127 MEYERSON HALL PHILADELPHIA, PA 19104-6311

The LINK: News from PennPlanning

Please make sure we have your current address on file! We are missing the email addresses of many of our alumni. Since we are trying to reduce the amount of paper we send out, having a current email address is crucial to keeping you informed. Send updates to Kate Daniel at katf@design.upenn.edu or better yet, log onto http://www.alumniconnections.com/penn/ to update your info.