Becoming An Urban Planner

In unit 3 of Urban Planning, we focused a lot on the “flow” of a city, and how that can affect our society today and the people living in it. We watched three TED Talks on how today’s urban environment is not worth fighting for, is boring, needs to be retrofitted, and how it has led to segregation. For the action project we had to pick a block in a town/city and choose what flaws it has and how we can improve it. I chose a block right by my school. This is very industrial and bland looking, and I want to see how I can make it better. Something I liked about this was getting to choose a block anywhere in the city because it gives the class so much freedom. Something that was challenging was getting the volume for the buildings and doing the 3D model, only because it was very time consuming to get it perfect. Hope you enjoy!

                                                                                                                             

The area I have chosen is around the intersection of Concord and Throop. This is a very industrial area, which houses the Fleet and Facility Management (2FM). They fix Chicago city vehicles and have architects for city building in this area. I would say that there aren’t any strengths in this area. The weaknesses are that it barely has any nature, and there are a lot of big blank walls and skinny roads, with skinny sidewalks. To make this area better I would put some art on these walls to make it more welcoming, even if it is a city space. I would add more green by putting green roofs on the ceilings so that during the summer workers don’t get too hot. Also, I would make the sidewalks bigger, and put plants around them.

The shape of the area I would like to fix up is a trapezoid, the bases are 553.73 ft and 906.14 ft, and the height is 1,045.38 ft, meaning that the area is 754,675.11 ft squared. Below is a picture of the space from google maps. I have labeled what I think is wrong with it.

NVA. "Google Maps Design" (2016) 

But what should be done? Well on the roofs I would put solar panels and green roofs to get more energy and make sure the building doesn’t use extra. I would put art on the walls to make it look very welcoming, and widen the sidewalks, then add more greenery. Below is a scale drawing of my new design plans.

NVA. "2D New Design" (2016).

I was inspired a lot by James Kunstler, Ellen Dunham-Jones, and Majora Carter who all three gave TED talks on how they could/would change the urban planning we have now, and make it better. James inspired me by showing how blank walls can make an area look very bad and “not worth fighting for”. Ellen helped with showing how walkability in an area is so important for people, and it can affect how a space feels. Majora showed me cool roofs and green roofs which are good for energy saving and they look very nice as well.

My new designs will change a lot about the flow with this small area, but how? Well for transportation it makes walking nicer and gives the pedestrian more space to move. It will change the buildings by adding some nice art and adding green roofs and solar panels. Once the green roofs and solar panels are installed it will change the electricity/gas usage and save money, for when it is winter the heat/cool can stay in so they don’t waste electricity/gas. When the solar panels are up, since the building’s roof has a triangular point it will catch more sun, giving the building more energy. Lastly for infrastructure, the roads will be a bit slimmer but vehicles will still have room to move with both sides of traffic being able to move at the same time.

Now to get to the 3D aspect of it, the two main buildings of the area are the Fleet Department building, and the old fire house. So I got the volumes from people who worked there and they said that the Fleet Building was 24,296,300 ft cubed, all I need was the height. So I got the area from google maps which was 388,439.61 ft squared, then I just divided that to get my height which is 62.54 ft. For the old fire house they said the volume was 60,000 ft cubed, so using google maps I found that the area was 1,981.21 ft squared and when I divided those two numbers I got 30.28 ft as my height. Below is a 3D model of my design, made with Tinkercad.

A main problem I had was just doing the sketch and finding out the volumes. I overcame the sketch by trying my best, and asking for help from the teacher. I overcame the volumes, because I was able to find them out from the people working there, but I needed to show the area and height as well; so what I did was use those volumes, find the area on Google Maps, and then divide the numbers to get the height. What I learned from both is that you can always find a way through something, you just need to work hard and not give up. I wouldn’t want to do anything differently, I am very happy with the designs I have created.