borderline metropolis | philadelphia | port richmond

Borderline Metropolis | Philadelphia | Port Richmond

Borderline Metropolis | Philadelphia |Port Richmond

|Trinity Team|

HUGO TRISMEGISTUS LEMES

HOANG VIET NGUYEN

YELIZAVETA LISA NESTEROVA

ARCH 4101 - FALL 2010_______________________________________________________________INSTRUCTORS:

VAL WARKECLAUDIA CLEMENTEFRANCESCO ISIDORI


Philadelphias Railroads: Penns AntithesisWilliam Penn designed Philadelphia with the Hippodami-an, Roman castrum plan in mind. This gridded plan, sup-posed to off er large square open landscaped spaces for its inhabitants, started to become quickly fragmented as people settled along the waterfronts, and as industrializa-tion, and particularly the advent of the railroads, initiated the subdivision of the city into organic parcels.

Railroad competitioon led to increasing demand for space along the rivers and the docks, causing chaotic pat-terns and borders to emerge.

Stations sprouted throughout the city as railroad com-panies, specially Reading and Pennsylvania, competed for power in a way that resembled the architectural feud amongst medieval families of towns like San Gimigniano. Reading and Pennsylvannia built lavish grand central sta-tions located almost adjancent to each other, and equally vied for the control of the docks. The progression and consequences of this capitalist greed can be best seen in historic maps of Philadelphia. Upon studying these maps one begins to see that the railroads caused phenomena that together can be understood as a collective antithesis to the original conception of Philadelphia.

TIMELINE - 19th CENTURY


19th CENTURY MODELS

19th CENTURY FRAGMENTATION


19th CENTURY RAILROAD COMPANIES


TIMELINE -20th CENTURY

20th CENTTURY - 1903


20th CENTURY - 1924

20th CENTURY - COMPETITION


20th CENTURY DETAIL

19th + 20th CENTURY

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21st c. DERIVE - PSYCHOGEOGRAPHY

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Cornering

Urban suburb

PORT RICHMOND STUDIES

Stripped Urban Agriculture


Swatches

Swatches

LOW TIDE HIGH TIDE


New Plan

Waterfront

Interwinedresidential

uninterputedcity grid

Separated

defines block

commercial

Interwined NorthSeparated South

Commercail andResidentialconditions

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Through Streets- Cut into Corridor

Continuation of Grid- interrupted by corridor

Rail Corridor


Initial Diagrams


Lisa NesterovaInitial Proposal

Sectional Render


Siite Diagrams

Sections through the Site

Final Project Proposal


HIGH TIDE LOW TIDE


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Green Roofs

HIGH TIDE LOW TIDE


Site Photos


URBAN VOIDS ETYMOLOGY

VietFound Artifacts

HORIZONTAL SPINE VERTICAL SPINE CLUSTERING PERMEATING

URBAN VOIDS ETYMOLOGY

CORNERING MAZE CHUNK CENTRALISING


STRATEGY

URBAN VOID INTERPRETATION INTERPOLATION BY EXCAVATION

INTERPOLATION BY EXCAVATION

SITE PLAN


SECTIONS

SECTION THROUGH TUNNEL

SECTION THROUGH COURTYARDS

SITE SECTION

COURTYARD VIEW


HugoProposing Paradise

PremiseIn the long existence of humanity, at least before the demotratization of a derived capitalist form (Las Vegas et al.) the idea of paradise has always been exclusive, only for a certain number of people, an elite chosen or fortunate group of deities, of royals, and even of assassins (as we learn from the legends concerning the Hashashin, for example).

Port Richmond has been everything except paradise. It has seen the voracious and greedy expansion of the railroads and coal docks, and the interventions of the shipping industry for two centuries. And more recently, it has been left in disrepair, serving as a perfect representa-tive and refl ection of the distopic local neighborhood in Philadelphia.

Despite the fi rst impressions, Port Richmond is still very much active. CSX trains run through the site daily, and the young use the area for diversion and delinquent behavior. The environment, however, lacks such aspects as vibrance, soul, harmony, and happiness.

An urban intervention for the area would have to be a dramatic one in order for it to aff ect the immediate sur-roundings. It would have to be an idea having a similar caliber to that of the second man as noted by Edmund Bacon, and architecturally represented at the Piazza An-unziatta. In other words, it would have to be a proposal that could essentially transcend and, in a few genera-tions, enhance the area programatically, aesthetically, and fi nancially.

It is interesting to note that William Penn symbolically named his experiment after a biblical city which would be spared during the apocalypse. The current conditions of the city are far from utopic, and one could argue that there are many reasons to save the marble and glass city, and the cradle of American Independence from self-destruction. Perhaps one possibility, at least for the Port Richmond waterfront, would be to bring in some form of paradisical intervention.

Left: Eden as depicted in the fi rst or left panel of Boschs The Garden of Earthly Delights Triptych

MERGING OF AXES

PORT RICHMOND

Border TalkThe entire research and form creation during this se-mester has focused on metropolitan borders, divisions, fragmentation, and a plethora of emergent phenomena.

As an extension to the railroad studies, I decided to focus on the docks of Port Richmond - for many years dominat-ed and expanded by the coal industry and the Reading railroad company.

Architecture Derived from Existing Axes and Ruins

Axes created by the docks and the streets, of diff ereing angles, confl ict at interstate 95. The design intervention tries to merge these confl icting axes by their extension into one another. These paths, while linking the docks to the public realm, also enclose the area through natural green walls and public pathways (the idea of the enclo-sure linking back to that of the enclosed paradise, and at the same time also to the idealized democratization of public space ingrained int he city of Philadelphia since its conception by William Penn).

The architecture is derived from the existing architecture of the ruins, featuring repetitious, industrial modular sequences such as covered pergolas.

The progams ar e mostly recreational, athletic facilities - featuring saunas, sporting courts, pools, gyms, restau-rants, and gardens.

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Richmond St &

Somerset St

Richmond St &

Cambria St

Richmond St &

Ann St


DERIVATION OF ARCHIITECTURE

AXON: 1/128 = 1-0

SECTION: 1/128 = 10


PORT RICHMOND DOCK CONCEPT


SHADOW PLAN

SHADOWS THROUGH THE SOLSTICES

MODELS

SITE MODEL


MODELS

PIER 3 MODEL

RENDERINGS

SITE PERSPECTIVE


RENDERINGS

MAIN DERIVATED AXIS: PERGOLA AND RUNNELS

RENDERINGS

MAIN DERIVATED AXIS: TOWARDS DELAWARE RIVER COURSE


Fall_10_TRINITY(1-33)Fall_10_TRINITY(34-43)Fall_10_TRINITY(44)Fall_10_TRINITY(45-63)

borderline metropolis | philadelphia | port richmond

Documents

historic maps of philadelphia

railroad competitioon

railroad companies

gridded plan

roman castrum plan

century20th centtury

penns antithesiswilliam

medieval families of