The role of surface: catalytic surface strategies for open space in urban environments

Abstract

Effective open space is critical to the urban quality of life because it fosters environmental, social, and economic vitality. However, some designers, planners, and developers have a tendency to focus on only one of these aspects and, thus, create spaces that are monofunctional and inefficient over time. To ensure effective open spaces in cities, landscape architects must think strategically and employ design tactics that are multifunctional and perform environmentally, socially, and economically. My objective was to provide landscape architects with a framework that ensured effective open spaces through the manipulation of the urban surface. In this report, I explored how the urban surface could be used to create multifunctional, flexible, and adaptive solutions that informed and directed (re)development so that urban spaces had lasting value. A thorough literature review that explored concepts from Jane Jacobs, Alex Wall, and Ying-Yu Hung was used to create a theoretical framework that consisted of various tactics. The tactics were aesthetic, programmatic, contextual, and/or performative in nature, and the aggregation of these tactics in the urban surface catalyzed environmental, social, and economic vitality in urban open spaces. My methodology was iterative, cycling periods of research, design, and analysis in both group and individual settings. The theoretical framework was used to evaluate and inform design decisions, and the design decisions refined and validated the theoretical framework itself. The theoretical framework was first applied to two precedent studies through a series of diagrammatic mapping exercises. Then, the theoretical framework was applied to two collaborative, multidisciplinary redevelopment projects. The first project was the redevelopment of the Village Plaza shopping center in Manhattan, Kansas (MHK Project), and the second project was the revitalization of Downtown East in Minneapolis, Minnesota for the annual Gerald D. Hines Student Urban Design Competition, sponsored by the Urban Land Institute (ULI Competition). Both of these projects were evaluated and refined using the same diagrammatic mapping exercises. The effectiveness of using the theoretical framework as a guide for designing successful open spaces was validated with my team’s victory in the finalist round of the ULI Competition. The tactics in the theoretical framework offered pragmatic and multiscalar strategies that I incorporated into the open spaces that my team and I designed. Ultimately, I discovered that the role of surface was to accommodate, organize, structure, and facilitate the dynamic processes necessary for environmental, social, and economic vitality, which enhanced the urban quality of life and created an indisputable sense of place.