The Runoff Dilemma: Paved and Sealed

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 at 5:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Addressing Route 117 in Rhode Island several issue of water arose; point and non-point pollution, old industrial site pollution, accesses and acknowledgment of the waters edge. What most interested me is how it would be possible to look at existing infrastructure and organization of the urban fabric and rework it so that the development on the waters edge acknowledges it existence and provide a multi use of space. Through physically exploration and data research The Shaw’s at 320 Warwick Avenue, Warwick, Rhode Island has been chosen as the site to explore these opportunities.

Through exploration of this site and current technologies I would like to provide a space that works as a system to cleanse the water runoff of the site and that surrounding it, bridge a connection to water in the urban and natural environment, and open the edges of the site to allow for mixed use of space.

Posted by at 6:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Where does the water go when it rains? Typically rainwater is collected in gutter systems of a building where it is released at street level free to pollute the community and eventually water bodies near by. The water wasted is a wasted opportunity for something better. Crossroads Rhode Island Crisis Management moved into its new home in the old YMCA Building at 160 Broad st in 2004. Retrofitted to serve the organizations needs, most of the original structure from 1906 remains. The YMCA still inhabits and uses part of the site for its purposes. On a daily basis the clients of Crossroads come into contact with those of the Y: two different communties of people co-existing.
Across the street from Crossroads is an old Boy Scouts center no longer in use, the building is for lease. The land available provides and opportunity for use. The goal is to design physical and metaphorical connections. The rain water will be drained across the street and incorporated into a public space, where the water is filtered and used for public amenities as well as aesthectic features.

Posted by at 8:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Contamination does not happen in a straight line. Sometimes, especially in the event of Occupessatuxet Cove, pollutants can seep in from several angles. Though effective, often times treatment of water happens at point locations.

Wildlife also requires a faceted buffer strategy in order to thrive. Birds have a history of utilizing the cove and its wetlands as it is a convenient node in the Atlantic Flyway on both the north and south routes, being inland but still near the coast. The cove's important role is threatened by the surrounding human traffic (planes, cars, trains, boats, etc.) and the stress it projects onto the wildlife.

Occupessatuxet Cove has long felt the presence of humans; our occupation of this region will not likely cease. In order to secure its survival as an important hub for waterfowl and drainage of runoff to the sea, a border must be instated. This border however, will be soft: it will allow for viewing of the cove, and slowly filter out pollutants from contributing ponds. The key for its success is in part to educate people through interaction of the process it takes to undo harsh effects of our presence while allowing viewing of the product of this filter: the birds and thriving wetland.

Posted by at 4:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The section of Route 117 stretching from Providence to Route 2 in Warwick has 25 gas stations. Of these 25 gas stations 16 of them are Lust sites. Lust sites are categorized by the DEM to have leaking underground storage tanks, be it in the past or present. Many engineers, law makers and cities have worked hard to help stabilize this problem. In Rhode Island many steps have been made to stop underground pollutants from getting in to the water but what about the above ground pollutants. Above ground pollutants can be anything from leaking cars to gasoline that drips when removing the nozzle from your car. When rain hits these surfaces the pollutants are washed into the gutters mixing them with the runoff and eventually bringing them into the ground polluting soils in their path.
I am proposing a gas station that collects and filters these pollutants while making the user aware. This can occur through the use of new technologies, organization of parts, and purposeful moves through a series of layers that work together making one large collective system. This gas station will be made from a kit of parts that can be placed anywhere, a universal green gas station.

Posted by at 4:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The highly industrialized Pawtuxet River has lost a great deal of its floodzone as well as created a highly polluted edge along the Western portion of the river. The Scituate Reservoir in Northwestern Rhode Island is the drinking water supply for Providence and drains into the polluted western section of the Pawtuxet River. My site is a flood plain which has been industrilized in the past. A flood in the 1960's wiped out the few houses and roads in the area and in the past 50 years the roads have been abanodoned asking for a critical assessment of the risidual space created by the cut of the raiload, the building of RT 117 and an old farm road. The space straddles the river and presently contains a public nursery on the Northern side of the river. The new program of the space builds on the past ecological function of the site, enriches the site with new ecological program, allows agriculture to become an important feature of the space, as well as creates a new type of agriculture by building a space on site for the bioremediation of local contaminated soils. The site is an educational space for the community which contains a nework of paths. Each path describes the ecological function of the space one occupies by the way it is constructed and interacts with the land it is built in. On a larger scale the space begins to make connections between Pawtuxet Village and Roger Williams Park as well as the continues to address human involvement within the river cooridor by passive use of the space. This cooridor begins to make another connection between the Naragansett Bay, a body of salt water used for transportation, and The Scituate Resevour, a body of fresh water used for supplying The City of Providence with drinking water. Finally, the integration between designed floodzones, ecologically specific spaces such as wetlands, meadows and upland forrests, spaces for contained bioremeditaion and the appropriate inustry is crucial for a sustainable economy, healthy rivers, appropriate flood zones and human understanding of the importance of these systems and our involvement in them.

Posted by at 10:00 AM | Permalink