The Runoff Dilemma: Paved and Sealed: Reconnecting Water Bodies

Innovation Studio 2006 - RISD - Fall 2006
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. LOG IN

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Reconnecting Water Bodies

My site is Apponaug Village, once the most powerful mill town in Warwick, now mostly suburban housing and traffic jams where route 117 and route 1 meet. The proximity to fresh water and Narragansett Bay was the reason for the villages existence, the link between the two bodies is hidden from the road even burried underground in places. My project creates a recreational corridor following this brook. The path not only provides a recreational amenity for the village, but it provides an understanding of the hydrology and ecology of the village, and physically and emotionally reconnects residents to the water.

Posted by on October 23, 2006 5:20 AM | Permalink

Comments

Amy,

Your response to John's assignment is well thought out and graphically pleasing. You seem to be moving forward in your own understanding of what you are trying to accomplish.

Be careful when you make statements like "Apponoug sense of village community has deteriorated." To date, I have seen no research to support this claim. You may restate the issue by taking away the personal response and examining the project objectively. Again, you are not "restoring" an historic identity, but hightlighting one historic moment, that of the power and strength of the mill. I think it will be important to work through this idea of rememberance and education in your intervention at the mill. How will the villagers become reaquainted with their past? Also you will need to work on the qualities of this new identity you speak of. What is Apponoug now? How does it view its future?

Posted by: Jonathan Harris | October 30, 2006 2:15 AM