Sustain-ability.
Working with geospatial technologies to plan resilient cities that are designed within their carrying capacity is my passion.
Mixed use, historic preservation, landscape urbanism, and sustainable design at The Philadelphia Navy Yard.
Transit Oriented Development in the Navy Yard Historic Core, developed for MS in Geodesign and MS in Sustainable Design studios using Esri CityEngine and ArcGIS.
Choose this option in the webscene linked to the right to compare two scenarios in 3D for the master plan of The Navy Yard in Philadelphia. Developed using Esri CityEngine for MS in Geodesign and MS in Sustainable Design studios
Mixed use, historic preservation, landscape urbanism, and sustainable design at The Philadelphia Navy Yard.
#1
Measuring the success of design
With geospatial technology like Esri's ArcGIS and CityEngine, the sustainability of designs can be quantified and optimized. Parametric design enables rapid iteration output and real-time 3D visualization or analysis.
Geodesign is sustainability in practice because it uses smart technology to measure and compare building and landscape metrics. Click on the buildings in this webscene to see how I like to visualize sustainability. (Optimized for Firefox)
Using data about the site and a ranking scale of experiential factors, I generated a mapping of the quality of buildings and the spaces between them at The Navy Yard. Spaces that are more successful from an experiential perspective are one quarter of the way to being more sustainable.
Eight photos from the site were used in a charette-style event to gather data about experiences in those areas. They were used to texture a map of attitudes about the site and understand where they were positive or negative. This is another layer to help the geodesigner measure the impact of interventions in the landscape.
This is a story map I created while doing design in the Historic Core of The Navy Yard in Philadlphia. Using tabs one can zoom in to view the different levels of inventory and analysis that the design process entailed.
Using data about the site and a ranking scale of experiential factors, I generated a mapping of the quality of buildings and the spaces between them at The Navy Yard. Spaces that are more successful from an experiential perspective are one quarter of the way to being more sustainable.
#2
A holistic approach
Design happens at all scales. By observing the landscape in the biome, city, district and site contexts, interventions have a greater chance of increasing resiliency.
Recognizing that sustainability is based on many complex factors, this is why geodesign focuses on layering and intersecting data and designs with geospatial technology. Look at this story map to understand how.
The Center of Commerce is hard to access from the activity center of the district where all of the food and personnel resources are. The waterfront boardwalk is the greatest asset to The Navy Yard.
Areas of the site that are totally restricted are less of an asset to The Navy Yard Experience than then new cafeteria and public spaces at the Urban Outfitters campus with its recent renovations.
Large, open green spaces scored highly on the experience scale. Restricted areas scored slightly lower.
The Center of Commerce is hard to access from the activity center of the district where all of the food and personnel resources are. The waterfront boardwalk is the greatest asset to The Navy Yard.
#3
Visualize and understand
Conveying data to stakeholders and design the team in two dimensions impairs their understanding of how the final product is going to impact the surrounding landscape. Thinking in 3D from the start is an asset to the urban design process.
These shots are of an existing conditions study for The Navy Yard which showed where assets were on the site and emphasized the Historic Core as a valuable district with successful spaces.
Lima was described as the least sustainable city in Latin America during a 2012 study. Lack of green space and water resources were two contributing factors to that analysis and result. This thesis project is a response to the need for increased strategies for resiliency and is a prototypical intervention for the type of informal housing seen across the city.
This orienting diagram shows the landscape of the chosen site in its context. The fingers of the Andes mountains are being consumed with the growth of the urban fabric as Peruvians construct informal shantytowns on the unstable and underserved hillsides. The area in white is a neighborhood of about 300 families which is not connected to municipal services for water or sewage.
There is a cultural divide between those who live in the informal settlements on the hill and those who live below in homes of brick and steel. Neither has green space. The new program has the potential to create a mingling between these users, those who come to enjoy the ecology, and those who come to use the water services.
Lima was described as the least sustainable city in Latin America during a 2012 study. Lack of green space and water resources were two contributing factors to that analysis and result. This thesis project is a response to the need for increased strategies for resiliency and is a prototypical intervention for the type of informal housing seen across the city.
#4
Urban ecology
My work has always taken a systems approach to defining the urban ecosystem. Resources take the shape of ecological, sociocultural and infrastructural elements and waste is always minimized.
My final thesis design for a slum in Lima, Peru calls upon vernacular architecture, biomimetic systems, and economic opportunities to uplift and empower. By creating equity where it is not we ensure that growing cities do not become overloaded by unbearably wasteful populations.
To see more of this project, click here.