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| Communities by Design Built Works: Architects Demonstrate the Value of Community Design | | > | A Civic Vision for Turnpike Air Rights Boston, Massachusetts | | > | East Baltimore Comprehensive Physical Redevelopment Plan Baltimore, MD | | > | Inner Harbor East Baltimore, MD | | > | Lafayette Courts Baltimore, MD | | > | Mid-Embarcadero San Francisco, California | | > | Landmark Lighting Master Plan Milwaukee, WI | | > | New York State Canal Recreationway Plan Albany, NY | | > | Pennsylvania Convention Center Philadelphia, Pennsylvania | | > | The Village of Park DuValle Louisville, KY | | > | Riparian Meadows, Mounds, and Rooms Warren, Arkansas | | > | UrbanRiver Visions seven communities, Massachusetts | | > | West Harlem Waterfront Park New York, New York | | > | R/UDAT Built Works | | > | R/UDAT Austin, TX | | > | R/UDAT Moose Jaw, Canada | | > | R/UDAT Salt Lake City, UT | | > | R/UDAT San Angelo | | > | R/UDAT Springfield, IL | | | |
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Project Details
Architect: Riparian Meadows, Mounds, and
Rooms
Award: Riparian Meadows, Mounds, and Rooms has
received design and sustainability awards from the AIA, the
Arkansas Chapter of the AIA, and the Holcim Foundation
Implementation Status: The project report was
delivered May 2004
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Background
Riparian Meadows, Mounds, and Rooms is a planning study for the
development of a public greenway along the City of Warren’s
Town Branch Creek. This study, a collaborative project between the
University of Arkansas Community Design
Center (UACDC) and the University of Arkansas Department of
Biological and Agricultural Engineering (BAEG), is an effort to
combine innovations in good stream design with community
development. The combined effort represents a new planning model
that leverages the individual contributions of each discipline,
yielding synergistic improvements in both ecological and urban
services. The stream as an important urban riparian corridor links
key community assets, landscapes and buildings. Therefore, Riparian
Meadows, Mounds, and Rooms collectively engages environmental,
landscape, urban and architectural design. The study was
commissioned by the Warren Townscape Committee with financial
assistance from the Potlatch corporation and was completed in May
2004.
Implementation Status
The project report was delivered May 2004. Phase 1
recommendations are currently in varying states of completion
including stream remediation and land acquisition. Local architects
and landscape architects have been contracted for services
including renovation and construction of collateral buildings and
new trails to connect them. The work is shepherded by a
public-private partnership between the city of Warren and the
Warren Townscape Committee. Funding is currently provided by the
city of Warren while the Townscape committee continues their grant
seeking efforts. Project implementation is projected to take six to
eight years.
Public Process
UACDC distributed and published in Warren newspapers a survey
querying the needs of the community and their perceived
relationship to the Town Branch Creek. After the results were
formalized, a presentation and feedback session was held with
municipal, community, and local business leaders. UACDC staff and
fourth year architecture and landscape architecture students
participating in the Warren studio led the session. Over the next
several months, the students and staff traveled to Warren for
interim and final presentations to community groups. The project
was followed closely by local newspapers and has been widely
published, exhibited, and presented across the United States. The
project has received design and sustainability awards from the AIA,
the Arkansas Chapter of the AIA, and the Holcim Foundation.
Community Impact
As the stream is improved from a polluted liability to a
recreational and ecological amenity, adjacent land valuations will
rise. The city of Warren can reinvest a substantial part of its
annual budget currently spent settling damages to private property
caused by flooding. The flood control and remediation measures
improve the stream corridor into occupiable public land, creating
new and linking existing facilities for the large annual regional
festival. Combining stormwater conveyance and treatment, habitat
reclamation, and stream remediation projects with public facilities
and neighborhood fabrics leverages current and future investments
in infrastructural and recreational development. Socially, the
greenway increases public awareness of water quality, and
encourages municipal coordination of infrastructure investments and
land-use. The improved land is transformed into a public facility
that links existing historic and cultural community assets,
promoting a sense of place and identity.
Principles for Livable Communities
Proposed “green streets” revitalize degraded
neighborhood streets and sidewalks, and a new integrated trail
network enhances mobility and choice of experience. The greenway
connects destinations, neighborhoods, and community resources to
the existing downtown center, encouraging revitalization and
investment. It facilitates the interface of multiple land uses with
the previously marginalized water system, creating a new
development asset from a former infrastructural eyesore. The
increased land value around this new asset encourages urban infill
development, which in turn benefits from reduced infrastructural
costs by accessing existing city services. The city benefits from a
more efficient use of municipal infrastructure and a slowed demand
for new infrastructure extensions for sprawling greenfield
developments outside the urban core. The preservation of a large
flood plain meadow and the creation of remediation wetlands
conserve the landscape while also creating a strong identity for
the surrounding neighborhoods. The meadow’s assembly mounds
provide refuge islands to facilitate public gatherings, rain or
shine.
Enhanced livability is but one consequence of the value of
recombinant design. As the title suggests, Riparian Meadows,
Mounds, and Rooms is less the improvement of a stream and more
an extended family of spatial conditions generated from the
riparian corridor as a community development platform.
Overall Sustainable Contribution
Healthy hydrological systems are key to healthy communities, and
ultimately healthy economies. Town Branch stream and land-use
improvements elevate local water quality, bringing the city into
compliance with the 1977 clean water act and relieving the
municipality of paying for perpetual and worsening private flood
damage. Six of the stream’s seventeen “ecological
services” are significantly enhanced, increasing the
biological and societal value of the urban stream system. The
greenway restores a habitat corridor within the city and provides
active and passive outdoor recreation and walkable links to major
community anchors. In addition, the urban land is used more
efficiently (currently a city maintenance and dumping yard) and
creates rather than removes value from the adjacent private
property.
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| Proposed Riparian System Components |
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| Existing Stream Conditions 2004 |
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| Floodplain Park- Rain or Shine: A New system of wet meadows and manicured pedestrian refuge mounds in the tradition of the nearby vegetated Mississippi River levees |
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| Flooded Ball Field: June 2004 |
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| Relocated Facilities: The new ball field facilities could show off the timber products made by the local employment force and Potlatch Corporation |
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