Rhode Island School of Design
Department of Landscape Architecture & Industrial Design
Fall 2006
Critics: Jonathan Harris jonathanlyle@gmail.com & John Hartmann jh.risd@gmail.com
Studio Hours: Tuesdays and Thursdays 9:40 – 11:10 am & 1:10 – 5:40 pm
Office Hours: Tuesdays from 11:10 am - 12:10 pm by appointment
COURSE SYLLABUS
Innovation Studio 2006 - The Runoff Dilemma: Paved and Sealed
INTRODUCTION
Providence’s history as a port and mill town is inextricably linked with water. Because of urban development and deindustrialization, increased pollution, and denial of water's role in urban life, the river was paved over. In the nineteen nineties, the river was again discovered and now used as a symbol and as a centerpiece of urban recreation.
The studio is examining different development conditions along RI Route 117 from Providence’s urban core, through the ethnically diverse neighborhood of South Providence, to the historic ocean resort town on Conimicut, and the mall/strip mall conditions in Warwick. Along Route 117 we will examine ways of finding site, locating need, and suggesting alternative ways to use and appreciate water. On the route south from Providence’s core to the intersection of Route 2, we will examine site densities, planning, the relationship to nature, and infrastructural solutions along its course. Students will propose nodal or systemic approaches to the issues facing these communities and sites. Each project’s scope will range from municipal infrastructure to material innovation. The emphasis will be on the reconciliation of development with ecological sustainability.
The issues facing cities due to rainwater are many and widespread - from the flooding of streets, to the washout of roads, to the overwhelming of sewer systems and the inundation of polluted effluent into our waters. This condition of runoff is increasing at an accelerated rate because absorptive surfaces are depleted as land is developed. The studio will investigate new material technology and innovation as an integral component to the design. In this studio, the skills of industrial design, architecture, and landscape architecture will be combined to form multi-disciplinary teams. The students will operate in groups to generate one cohesive idea comprised of the integration of their individual interventions.
PEDAGOGICAL OBJECTIVES
Seeking to go beyond the inherited distinctions between the disciplines of architecture, landscape architecture, industrial design, and civil engineering, the studio will emphasize how issues of sustainability and cross-programming can provide a stimulus for rethinking the conventional relationships. Students will be required not only to satisfy the programmatic and aesthetic issues of industrial design, architecture and landscape architecture in isolation, but also to consider the impact of planning, sustainability, structure, materiality, furniture, and fixtures. More innovative solutions are necessary beyond the current strategies available. This studio will first identify the condition and current strategies, then determine alternative innovations and deploy them. We will examine:
· Zoning codes and ordinances regarding responsibility for impervious cover and conservation of natural areas
· Transportation conditions and initiatives: road construction and patterns, vehicular emissions and pollutants, parking strategies
· Stormwater treatment practices: stormwater ponds, stormwater wetlands, infiltration practices, filtering practices, and open channels
· Effects on aquatic ecosystems (stream hydrology, geomorphology, water quality, and habitat)
· Erosion and Sediment
The course will provide preparation for independent work by establishing a way to organize analysis information, determine programming, site selection, and determined constraints. Students will work within a framework of their own goals and be in control of the project specifics. No specific program or analytical guidelines will be issued. Instead, each class will have a round-table discussion format in which decisions, alterations and actions will be discussed as a group.
· To create a studio environment fostering both collaborative and independent work
· To develop research and analytic skills and integrate them into the design process
· To develop the ability to organize site investigation criteria
· To organize and present information to audiences of varying technical knowledge
· To identify and analyze specific issues worthy of investigation
· To locate and discover a site as a vehicle for your thesis
· To think and create outside of one particular field of study
· To depart from the teacher-presents-problem-and-student-solves-the-problem mode of learning to one in which the student plays an active role in asking questions AND providing solutions.
Students are to work in a variety of scales, from the micro to the macro, examining the problems and solutions of water within the context of developed land. Students will first work individually on projects that respond to their interests, but not necessarily their categorized field. For the second project, students will work in small groups on projects that integrate differing strategies for a specific site or a selection of sites.
REFERENCES
· Careri, Francesco. Walkscapes: Walking as an Aesthetic Practice. Editorial Gustavo Gili, 2005.
· Lynch, Kevin. Image of the City. Cambridge, MA. MIT Press, 1960.
· Mumford, Lewis. The City in History: Its Origins, Its Transformations, and Its Prospects. Fort Washington, PA. Harvest Books, 1968.
· Oswalt, Philipp. Shrinking Cities: International Research. Hatje Cantz Publishers, 2006.
· Shane, David Grahame. Recombinant Urbanism; Conceptual Modeling in Architecture, Urban Design, and City Theory. Wiley-Academy, 2005.
· Sitte, Camillo. City Planning According to Artistic Principles. Random House, 1965.
· Smithson, Robert. Robert Smithson: The Collected Writings. University of California Press, 1996 (Reprint Edition).
· Waldheim, Charles. The Landscape Urbanism Reader. Princeton Architectural Press, 2006.
· Whyte, William. The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces. New York: Project for Public Spaces, 1980.
WEBSITES:
· Center for Watershed Protection - www.cwp.org
· E/The Environmental Magazine - www.emagazine.com
· Forgotten Rain LLC - www.forgottenrain.com
· Rhode Island Sea Grant – seagrant.gso.uri.edu/G_Bay/index.html
· Stormwater Manager's Resource Center - www.stormwatercenter.net/
· Urban Land Institute - www.uli.org
· Warwick’s Historic Places - www.warwickri.gov/heritage/damatoshistory/main.htm