(one of the first things I got involved with or started to go to when I moved to Dayton in 1988 where those “Cityscape/Cityshape forums, which is how I became involved with this charette, as a “citizen participant” , not as a designer.

 

The city had just finished an urban design plan for Main Street and was implementing streetscape improvements, so apparently saw this as a good way of generating some interest in housing proposals.  Well, it didn’t work that way as the citizen input during this charette is what led to the interest and focus not on Main Street, but on what is now Webster Station (it wasn’t called that then) and its remnant old buildings as a possible housing site for new and loft housing…this is where that all started.

 

So the site and a loose program was given to four design teams from the four Ohio architecture schools, who produced four proposals for the area.   I was present at the presentation, which was almost sort of like a jury as the Ohio architects here on a convention did a lot of jury-style critiques of the designs.   It was a memorable evening.

 

So, years later, I receive a letter from the Dayton planning department, letting me know that they published a little booklet of the designs and the design teams statements.   

 

I thought you all might be interested in this, so I scanned the graphics (not all the graphics I remember at the presentation are in the booklet) and provide the designers’ statements so you can read in their own words what they had in mind.

 

I then follow with some of my own remarks.

 

 

Starting out with the two most conceptual designs, from University of Cincinnati and Ohio State.  The more realistic Kent State and Miami designs and statements will be posted later.)

 

 

 

University of Cincinnati

Aust Rusli (Faculty Advisor)

Terry Boling

Frank Gartiner

Jim Guthrie

Joel Huffman

Ed Tingley

 

I  Introduction

 

Without some preconception of what a city should be, and without any aesthetic prejudice, Dayton, Ohio in 1988 seems to be the quintessential small Midwestern North American City…

 

Besides the usual neighborhood sentiment longing for some unidentified sense of belonging, the concern of Dayton was presented as one of character/image/identity of the city.  What perhaps was perceived as the most disturbing is the existence of the empty lots in the city, the gaps between buildings and the lone building standing “in search for some company”.  This scheme addresses this concern to rectify the gaps between buildings less as a problem to be solved, but as a condition to be offered an idea.  The scheme attempts to offer a vision that is appropriate for the American City condition of this time.

 

II  Hypotheses

 

The hypothesis adapted for this project is that the American city is always already incomplete.  Within the existing social-political –economic climate of this country, and its role in city-making, the perfect completeness of the city is an illusion.  The task, therefore is to rectify the disturbance of empty lots, the gaps between buildings, without making it comprehensively complete, which would not be (if ever) possible.

 

The American City is not a permanent, finite, and closed system.  It was born temporary and stays that way.  As a moving landscape it continually changes faster than its inhabitants (thus, for example, differing from the European city, which outlives its inhabitants).

 

Like successive waves, the American city comes ashore, each time displacing what was there and replacing it with what is new and needed.  With expediency as the only criteria, this displacement and replacement is never complete: left are the fragment of the remnants of the past and the empty sites for the future, and the extreme juxtaposition between them and the present environment.

 

If the city is not a shell to be thickened by adding layers, to be patched up by filling holes, the question is then: how to fulfill the gaps of the city without filling them up?

 

III Proposal

 

The scheme attempts to avoid the influence of the European, pre-industrial city precedents, and the imposition of an alien structure to the existing structure of the city.  Instead the scheme looks at the nature of the growth of the North American city as a way to mature.  The grid system for the North American city should be considered a genetic ‘structure’, a blueprint of the city that could be replicated at will.  Thus historical, in the founding of North American cities, the grid system has quickly settled in the forest clearing, near the river at the foot of a mountain, near a mine/petroleum field, to establish itself as the structure of the city.

 

Similarly, a “genetic structure’ for Dayton-a system of site and massing organization at the city block scale equivalent to the grid system at the regional scale- is therefore chosen

 

This genetic structure block is a “perfect approximation”.  It contains all the genetic information of the city which satisfies all the essential qualifications of the Mid-Western North American city of Dayton.

 

Thus the block between Patterson Boulevard and First Street posses the properties of being:

1. incomplete: not a fabric of a full perimeter block massing; instead it contains an empty lot and a partially set back and partially punctured street wall.

2. extremely juxtaposed by incongruous building types, sizes at different scale, sting and use

3. the “island of resistance”, the site of significant survivals which were never intended to be monuments.

 

Like the grid system at the regional scale, this genetic structure block at the city scale is replicated infinitely over the available site.  That is, the site of the then charette program is as well as the empty lots in the city, the gaps between the buildings in Dayton.

 

Throughout the given site and the city, each of these clones of the Patterson Block is modified by their corresponding local imperfections, circumstantial resistance such a the existing buildings, building programs, etc, that gives each clone its character, the image and identity specific to their site and use.

 

Like one of the many waves of the North American city growth, this cloning system washes the given building site and the empty lots in the city blocks, incompletely, with one genetic structure.  The wave of this genetic structure posits the given site and the city with a housing scheme, a shopping strip, an urban park, and a number of city facilities: phone booths, police kiosks, newspaper stands, bus shelters, etc.  Subsequently this intervention will be washed away, imperfectly, by the next wave of intervention, which comprises of another genetic structure. One example casts its shadow of the Wright Brothers bi-plane on Dayton’s datum line, in the form of the day footpath and the night-lighting system.

 

 

(Some blow-ups of the study area)

 

 

 

 

 

(so here we see the waves (eddies? ripples?) of change washing across Dayton, eroding the city and leaving their own residue.  Or so I’m reading this.  But what is generating the alternative form crossing the street grid?  I love the design teams statement, the way they look a the city, but does this aesthetic intention necessarily result in the form we see here?  One sees a bit of Liebskind in his Micromegas period, or Zaha’s work, or maybe even Michael Sorkin.   Decon was still pretty fresh in 1988.   I think this is read as a purley conceptual proposal, as a way of thinking about the city, and in the way it is perhaps the most humble or pragmatic attitude of the four, though the form here is really extreme )

 

Ohio State University

Jacqueline Gargus (Faculty Advisor)

Marcia Baschnagel

Steven Bohlen

Juan Elejabeitia

Ernie Nepmechio

Gary Sebach

 

 

I  General Strategy

 

Assigned the task of inserting new housing in the warehouse district of Dayton, our first interest was to try to understand the structure of Dayton beyond the immediate limits of the site.  In this way we hoped that our intervention would not merely address the highly localized concerns of a few city blocks, but rather provide a strategy for knitting Dayton’s frayed urban fabric back together again.  Furthermore, by gaining an understanding of Dayton’s urban and industrial history, we hoped to connect meaningful references and images particular to Dayton.  In doing so we hoped to make an intervention that could truly recharge the neighborhood and make it possible to see and use all of Dayton in new ways.

 

II Analysis

 

A. Currrent Problems

1. Streets (especially Patterson Boulevard) are too wide to provide the proper sense of density and animation along their edges.  Because of this, tbey make the city seem more desolate than it really is.

2. The river, which could be one of Dayton’s greatest ornaments is visually and physically cut off from the rest of the town.

3. Parks are scarce in downtown Dayton.  In addition there is no clear relationship of the park system from the south of town to the center.

4. Connections are tenuous amongst the active parts of Dayton, such as Courthouse Square, the Convetnion Center, the Oregon District, etc.  The discontinuity amongst these busy parts of the city reduces the overall vitality of the town and improvishes the experience of the city as a whole.

5. Parking lots proliferate.

 

B. Historical Palmpsest

 

1. Coopers Green Central Park, 1805.

At one time of Dayton’s foundation in 1805 Cooper envisioned the city structured around a green central square.  Dayton does not have a clearcenter today.  Its ostensible center, Courthouse Square, is too full of buildings to act as a powerfull, central organizing figure in the city.

2. The Old Canal

In 1840 a canal was built to circumvent the bend in the Miami River and facilitate the growth of industry in Dayton.   Although the canal has long since fallen into disuse, its imprint is now marked by Patterson Boulevard.  The street follows the depression of the old canal in a diagonal course, contrasting with the north-south grid of the city.  While the old canal provided a direct link between the river and the city, and the fairgrounds south of the city, Patterson Boulevard acts more as a barrier, limiting growth of the city to the east.

 

3. Dayton’s Industrial Heritage.  The city of the Wright Brothers, Dayton emerged at the turn of the century as a major industrial center in the Midwest. Fine industrial buildings of that vintage are still organized east of Patterson Boulevard, although many of them have been abandoned as industries have moved their old urban loci to new suburban sites.

 

As a result of the burgeoning of industry in Dayton during a relatively brief period of time, the architectural character of the Old Warehouse District is amongst the strongest and most cohesive of all the built environments of Dayton.

 

While there is presently very little residential use in the area, many of these older buildings could be converted into loft apartments.  With the proper density of residential use and a little commercial activity (neighborhood groceries, drug stores, laundries, etc) the Warehouse District could easily become an attractive and viable new neighborhood.  The proximity of the area to downtown and its architectural fabric of old buildings historically significant to Dayton’s industrial past would help to imbed subsequent interventions in the area into the life and history of the city.

 

III  Proposal

 

1. The Canal

We propose that the canal be re-evoked and developed as a linear park, extending along the entire route of the old canal.  Patterson Blvd. Would be narrowed, pushed to the westernmost edge of its current location and be elevated on grade with St. Clair Street.  The rest of the area of the old canal would be depressed to make a stronger connection to the river and to segregated the new park from automobile traffic.   The resultant green corridor would make a strong connection between Deeds Point at the confluence of the Great Miami and the Mad River…and the Fairgrounds.

 

Hence just the parkway links City Hall to Fairmount Park in Philadelphia, or Olmsted’s “Emerald Necklace” of parks creates a highly varied green swath connecting all of greater Boston, the Canal Park in Dayton could link Dayton’s entire park system together as a unified whole.  Such a park along Patterson Boulevard would also serve to fill the rift between downtown and the eastern part of town while providing linkage to south of the Convention Center and the Oregon District.  Furthermore, the park system could be used as an armature to organize new development along its edges…

The park level at the mouth of the old canal could be depressed to be continuous with the rivers edge..  Hence the city would finally have a connection with the river.

 

2. Cooper’s Green Central Square. 

The present Cooper Park would be extended westwards for another block.  This gesture would permit the new Canal Park system to permeate further into the center of town, almost linking it to Courthouse Square.

 

The alley between Second and Third would be developed as an outdoor bazaar to complete toe connection of the new park system to the symbolic center of town.  In this way, Cooper’s vision of a green center square for Dayton could be re-evoked.

 

Wide streets would be scaled down and articulated with plantings to further extend the permeation of parkways and boulevards throughout the town.

 

Cafes, ice cream parlors, snack shops, and the like would be placed along the rivers edge to further enliven the area strengthen the role of the river in the life of the city.

 

2. Dayton’s Industrial Heritage: a source for new housing.

Loft apartments would be developed in some converted, rehabilitated, warehouse buildings.

 

Picturesque ruins recalling Dayton’s heroic age of industrialism would be created from the industrial buildings at the bend of Patterson Boulevard.  The ruined frames of these building would form a kind of Acropolis, commanding imposing views down the parkway and out towards the river. Smaller scale, more temporary houses and shops might grow out of the old buildings much as the medieval houses in Rome agglomerated along the edges of the ancient colossi.

 

New row housing would be organized along the new park system. Structured behind a girded, utilitarian armature, reminiscent of the structural frames of nearby loft buildings, the new housing would be capable of accepting great programmatic diversity while maintaining formal cohesion amongst the parts. Colorful infill panels or modules would provide a highly textured, variegated surface in contrast with the neutral gridded frame…By adopting the language of the enormous warehouse buildings for domestic use, the former will appear more humane and the latter less intrusively sweet.

 

Urban camouflage, painted murals, will be use to aggressively transfigure parts of the area that are otherwise too timid or out of character….

 

 

 

(The study area, blown up and colored to show the landscaping.  Many of the drawings for OSU where on canary yellow trace, with lots of prismacolor/marker work.  Quite fetching, actually)

 

 

 

 

 

 

(blowup showing some of the features mentioned in the text)

 

 

(rendering showing the Kettering Tower on axis with the expanded Cooper Park)

 

 

(I recall the faculty lead here as being really young, my age at the time…in her 20s.   Though mostly unrealistic I recall this was my favorite design.  Closing St Clair and expanding Cooper Park (into what is now a big parking lot), surrounded and surrounding it by infill buildings really seems do-able and would create a “Dave Hall Plaza” for the north side of downtown, but one that could be connected to Courthouse Square via that activated alley.   I really liked the expanded Cooper Park.

 

The reconstruction of the canal and extension of the river lowlands was a real nice touch too, sort of reminded me of Olmstead’s Fenway or the Panhandle at Golden Gate Park, extending a larger park or park system into the city via a parkway….also note the regional thinking in their design statement.    The audience pointed out that this would never work due to flood control issues, but the idea of somehow re-creating or referencing the canal stayed current in Dayton, until being incorporated into Riverscape via another citizen-input charette, run by EDAW.

 

I also sort of liked the industrial ruin concept too, leaving the old factory building structural frames as gigantic ruin/sculptures that could be infilled at will.  This really caused some consternation with the audience.   They had renderings of this but they where not included in the booklet.

 

So these where the more out-there designs of the charette.  But you can see the analyses of Dayton circa 1988 wasn’t too different for today, and the sources of some of the ideas that came into play in the late 1990s, when Webster Station started to become real.

 

Later in the week, the Miami and Kent State submissions….)

Good stuff.