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Syllabus

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Project 1

Lessons

Planning

Urban Design

Form Based Codes

TOD
Open Space
Housing

Density
Culture
Micorclimates 1
Microclimates 2
Ecology
Commerce
Transportation
Space Development

This semester we will use the city of Moscow to demonstrate the planning and design of a municipal green infrastructure network of spaces and corridors. The project will include the programming, master planning and design to create a sustainable and deliberate development and conservation plan at the municipal scale.

Critical issues for the master planning phase are the relationship between urban development and several issues associated with open space, including recreation, urban agriculture and urban biological diversity. Vehicular transportation will also be a factor that will must reinforce the green infrastructure plan. Connections between municipal and regional systems for transportation, wildlife and recretion will require investigaion of current county planning and recommendations for future system elements.

Although the city has not contracted us to do this work we will charge our project with realism by using the existing physical and planned elements and respond to them.

After the planning stage students will select a focus area for design development.

Context

City context. Google, 2009

Project Purposes

Please assume the following for the purposes of the project:

1. Increase the production and consumpation of locally grown food (and food security).
2. Structure urban development through green infrastructure spaces and corridors
3. Provide a continuous network of recreational corridors connecting major municipal open spaces.
4. Integrate stormwater management and water quality improvement into the green infrastructure network.
5. Provide wildlife corridors through or around the city and connect them to regional preserves.
6. Create a plan to increase improve the sustainable use of water from the aquifer.

Project Considerations

• In the past agricultural producers around Moscow grew a much more diverse set of crops that were consumed locally. During the last 100 years locally grown and consumed food has been replaced with a few commodity products sold in the global marketplace.
• New development in the city is driven by landowners, developers and contractors with no master planning or consideration of cumulative impacts.
• Moscow is now too large to function with a single commercial center. A nodal or neighborhood center approach is now necessary.
• The Chipman trail and the Moscow-Troy trail are very popular transportation and recreation routes. Additional pedestrian/bicycle routes need to connect to this spine to serve more citizens.
• A ring road around Moscow has been proposed. This presents development, open space, spawl, and wildlife challenges that must be addressed so that this will be a benefit rather than a detriment to the city.
  

Project Responsibility

Project Resources

Project Format

Site Visit

We will make use of our ready access to the town to frequently investigate exising conditions and potential proposals. By the end of the project you should be very familiar with the districts of the city.

Learning Outcomes

• Demonstrate the ability to gather physical information about the site and region; its ecology, soils, hydrology, plant materials and all relevant natural landscape systems.
• Demonstrate the ability to gather social and economic information about the city and region and all relevant socioeconomic landscape systems.
• Demonstrate the ability to gather important historical information about the community and region.
• Demonstrate the ability to evaluate (analyze) and synthesize the above through a clearly defined design process.
• Demonstrate the ability to create a strong planning concept that reflects community cultural, social and economic needs, regional natural systems, and an understanding of important design principles, standards and theory.
• Demonstrate the ability to work as a team member as well as an individual in a productive professional manner.
• Demonstrate the ability to create a community scale master plan as well as a larger scale focus area design study.
• Demonstrate the ability to use free hand as well as digitally assisted graphics to successfully communicate the overall design process and purpose.
• Demonstrate the ability to communicate effectively in written and verbal form.

Additional Learning Outcomes

• Demonstrate the integration of technical issues into the focus design proposals through section drawings or perspectives.
• Assimilate planning and design theory through a series of readings that address community design for both rural communities and moderate density development in urban centers.

Project Evaluation for LArc 453, 455 Students