Tuesday, December 18, 2012
As noted here previously, Old North St. Louis is the pilot neighborhood for a new initiative seeking creative ideas for sustainable uses of empty land in the city. The Sustainable Land Lab competition, sponsored and led by Washington University’s Office of Sustainability and the City of St. Louis, is an open call for proposals from anyone who wishes to participate - and take responsibility for implementing their ideas. Six lots in Old North have been identified, 4 of which will be selected. Winning teams will receive $5,000 in funding to implement and maintain their projects as living laboratories, teaching tools, and regional sustainability assets for two years.
After receiving and reviewing 48 submissions, the jury for the competition announced yesterday their selections for proposals to advance to the second round of the competition. The full list of 48 concepts submitted for consideration represented a broad range of innovative and inspiring ideas, including: habitat for pollinators, carbon sequestering landscape, pop-up business incubators, modular sustainable in-fill, engaging public spaces, platforms for sharing community resources, soil remediation, designs informed by ethnohistorical sustainability practices, on-site energy production, and much more.
Below are concept summaries of the 15 submissions (listed alphabetically) moving to the next round:
Bistro Box
Site Selection: Lot 6, 1303 Montgomery
Concept & Team Summary:
The Bistro Box concept is a small business incubator that transforms surplus cargo containers into a compact restaurant and culinary destination. Young chef entrepreneurs seeking to establish a reputation apply for a 1-year fellowship residence. A consortium of established local chefs advise the young chefs and promote the concept to assure its exposure and success. At completion of the residency, chefs prepare a business plan for post residency location within the neighborhood and a new chef is engaged. The program hires and trains young people from the neighborhood in culinary skills and uses locally sourced product. Lot 6 is the preferred site for the Bistro Box where synergies can be established with the Old North Grocery Store and garden and local employment opportunities can be provided for Haven of Grace residents.
The project team includes landscape architect Jim Fetterman, architect John Burse and chef/restaurateur Ben Poremba.
Carbon Carpet
Site Selection: Lot 4. 1318-24 Warren St
Concept & Team Summary:
Plant a native grass + forb garden using 5″ deep cell plant plugs. Mimic the pattern of a Persian Rug (hard geometry, bilateral symmetry) Provide a ‘living teaching lab’ for purpose of educating about carbon sequestration.
Chess Pocket Park
Site Selection: LOT 1, 2713 North 14th Street
Concept & Team Summary:
COMMUNITY SUSTAINABILITY supported through Chess Pocket Park – outdoor community chess venue for residents with a permanent location supporting our primary community asset – its people.
CHESS IS SUSTAINABLE. “According to research, test scores improved by 17.3% for students regularly engaged in chess classes, compared with only 4.6% for children participating in other forms of enriched activities,” states 4-time World Champion Susan Polgar in an interview.
CHESS CAN BUILD A SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITY. A location for a local chess club to combine chess lessons, community chess mentors, and a system of maintaining the grounds as part of the club ethic teaches sustainable lessons about systems and materials, community values, and strategic thought.
CHESS POCKET PARK SUSTAINABILITY will be devoted to a replicable model of simplicity and community strength. Utilizing community resources, sustainable design and construction features, chess lessons from the community and the Scholastic Center of St Louis, commitment from the community and local artists to develop art on the adjacent building and to participate in garden maintenance, our balanced team can partner with community leaders to develop the concept, focus on sustainable development, construct the park and garner public financial support.
Christner
Site Selection: Lot 5, 1300 – 06 Montgomery Street
Concept & Team Summary:
LAND LAB Proposal
Lessons from the Past
CONCEPT
Eight hundred years ago the Mississippian culture thrived as one of the most advanced civilizations of its time. The culture was centered at Cahokia, across the Mississippi River from what we know to be St. Louis today. The culture established settlements throughout the region. At the homestead level, the Cahokians relied on strong kinship networks to provide for all basic human needs in what today would be called a model of sustainable living.
Today, much of sustainable design solutions and engineering strategies that address modern human needs tend to take a high-technology route. Our proposal is to demonstrate a pre-Columbian baseline to re-discover practices that supported life for thousands of years. The site will demonstrate practices and technologies that evolved over millennia to explore what we might have forgotten and to seek potential clues for sustainable urban redevelopment.
DEMONSTRATION
We propose a modern agricultural and sustainable living model, the premises for our approach rooted in regional history, the Mississippians and their ancestors, as well as modern permaculture practices. Using concepts of permaculture, the site would demonstrate the interdependent relationships that work efficiently and sustainably in nature and that worked for previous civilizations, from the soil to the birds, to humans.
LESSONS
The Land Lab concepts would serve as a model for not just urban homesteaders but for the community: a more sustainable agricultural model predicated on community relationships, biodiversity and natural, sustainable principles.
Team Lead: Christner Dan Jay Principal in Charge Laurel Harrington Director of Landscape Architecture Emily Wray Architect
Team Partner: Missouri Botanical Garden Deborah Chollet Frank
Team Resources: Ethno Botany: Missouri Botanical Garden; Habitat and Structures: Cahokia Mounds Historic Site; Data Mapping: Laurie Harmon, PhD, University of Wisconsin, La Crosse; Sustainability: Mary Ann Lazarus
CORE – Community Oriented Retail Enterprise
Site Selection: Lot 2, 2709 North 14th Street
Concept & Team Summary:
CORE is the Community Oriented Retail Enterprise. An economic opportunity for neighborhood residents to set up a light manufacturing and retail enterprise in a movable, temporary, green building that adds to residents understanding of the entrepreneurial cycle, from design to production and sales while keeping local dollars at home and pulling in revenue from outside the region. when it accomplishes its mission CORE moves on acting as an incubator till fledgling businesses can move into permanent structures.
HYY
Site Selection: Lot 4, 1318-1324 Warren Street
Concept & Team Summary:
Activating Capacities
We seek to develop design prototypes for parcel 4 which can be projected into a larger vision for re-modeling energy and water infrastructures at neighborhood and city scales. We seek to design an infrastructure that expands the term “land value” away from limiting monetary references and towards natural resource, environmental quality, social sustainability, livability and aesthetic concerns as well.
In North St. Louis, the urban geography is described by logics reliant on segregated, centralized energy production and distribution. This creates a fragmented landscape of charged and unequal zones dependent on a polluting and limited resource. Yet solar, wind and cellulosic energy are three types of renewable sources inherent to the Midwest and St. Louis region. Not only can these sources be harnessed for energy, but they can be used to remediate, bring community safety and public delight. Our project seeks to activate and build capacities on the site: Energy capacities, land and landscape system capacities, and community capacities.
Solar power (unlike conventional coal-fueled power) is capable of being stored and shared laterally. We ask, how can the development of sites and cities grow from a new, open-sourced (but ecologically complete) configuration of exchange and distribution?
LauLab
Site Selection: Lot 5, 1300-06 Montgomery Street
Concept & Team Summary:
Shrinking cities can play a positive role in helping to reverse the damage of urban sprawl. Vacant properties can restore urban ecosystems by linking to a productive event chain that increases biodiversity and lowers carbon emissions by producing energy, recycling water, filling food deserts, promoting local business, and improving public health.
We have chosen to transform the existing greenfield in Lot #5 into a productive landscape and a public space. The intention is to share knowledge and strategies with local residents about how to cultivate and maintain a food producing garden while having a place to gather. Families, groups, and individuals will be encouraged to take responsibility over small garden areas.
In our proposed design, a grid is imposed to the lot, subdividing the site into zones. These areas are not only defined in plan but in section; the change in elevation helps determine its use. We have designed five concrete pavers that incrementally increase in porosity in response to different uses: walking, biking, playing/leisure, planting, etc. Open areas will be planted with various vegetables and plants for the residents’ consumption and sale. We also propose to build a light structure to provide shade for a produce stand and storage.
NEXtUS
Site Selection: Lot 5, 1300-06 Montgomery Street
Concept & Team Summary:
Access to information, education and people can be leveraged to increase life opportunities. Areas of vacant land separate people and limit gathering opportunities essential to building community, exchanging knowledge, and networking.
NEXtUS! is a location-specific knowledge and community-building gateway built around five primary components:
• Technology Hearth
• Gathering Place
• Shade and Energy Structure
• Active Learning Area
• Site Amenities
The Technology Hearth is a durable electronic portal to virtual educational and informational content selected for potential interest, meaning and effect in a given area. “What’s NEXt? During non-programmed periods, the Tech Hearth is opened to future NEXtUS! Tech Hearths and web nodes for cultural exploration – “Who’s NEXt?”
The Gathering Place surrounds the Technology Hearth and provides seating, leaning and standing areas for program guests and discussion events.
The Shade and Energy Structure protects the gathering area and provides energy for the Technology Hearth.
The Active Learning Area attracts younger ages, and supports those wishing to partake in TH program events. Recycled tires and berms are organized to produce an active learning and play experience.
Site Amenities enhance the NEXtUS! location and leverage natural systems to manage rainwater, heat island, and create a defined sense of place.
Who’s NEXt? US!
R & B
Site Selection: Lot 1, 2713 N. 14th street
Concept & Team Summary:
We propose a modular, mobile resource center for materials and knowledge for neighborhood residents, property owners, businesses, employees and volunteers. This resource center is based on standard shipping containers (10’, 20’ and 40’ lengths) that are dropped into any accessible location and can be camouflaged to blend in. Using a central location where resources can be shared is much more sustainable model than individual ownership of such items, whether one is talking about tools (for residential construction, gardening, vehicle repair, information technology), infra-structure (bicycles, cars, WiFi, emergency generators), or know-how (instructional literature, lessons-learned, training, exhibits, meetings). This concept supports the triple bottom-line of economic, environmental and societal benefits.
Economic:
Resources are made available that stimulate investment in “the neighborhood”. Money is not spent on resources that are used infrequently (tillers? Snow blowers?).
Environmental:
Reducing consumption by sharing instead of hoarding has far-reaching environmental benefits reaching all the way back up the supply chain. Promote the dissemination of sustainable practices at the local level.
Societal:
Humans interacting by sharing knowledge and resources is fundamental to improving the human condition. Our concept proposes to do this within the context of sustainable neighborhood development.
Renewing Roots Urban Farm
Site Selection: Lot 6, 1303 Montgomery Street
Concept & Team Summary:
Renewing Roots Urban Farms is a scalable urban agriculture network that proposes to transform blighted lots into cost efficient models of sustainability.This proposal outlines a project that can be economically viable within the 24 month demonstration period and allows for rapid expansion. Implementation will allow us to meet increasing demand for local produce, provide education and employment, and lay an economic framework for social and environmental responsibility. Recognition by the Land Lab will foster public involvement as we refine emerging methods to find the most efficient process for decentralized farming in North St. Louis City. Our team consists of an engineer, a biologist, a renewable energy educator, a chef and IT Manager and a real estate developer whose synergistic vision will gain momentum and increase collaborative opportunities.
ShiftUP
Site Selection: Lot 3, 2613 N. 14th Street
Concept & Team Summary:
Old North St. Louis is a neighborhood rich in potential, but limited in access to resources. To increase accessibility for neighborhood residents, connect Old North to the larger St. Louis area, and build on the growing bike culture in the City, we propose the establishment of shiftUP at 2613 N. 14th St. (Lot 3). shiftUP would be a community space to rent, maintain, and learn about bicycles.
As a bike hub, shiftUP would encourage bikers from other parts of St. Louis to visit Old North and interact with the community. Direct benefits to Old North residents include free rentals, increased access to resources, improvements in health, and community education. Bike rentals to visitors would generate income for financial sustainability. shiftUP has the potential to pioneer a community-based bike share model that could be replicated in communities both within the city of St. Louis and nationwide. shiftUP is what St. Louis needs now to grow as a sustainable, environmentally-friendly, and connected community. shiftUP is designed by a committed team with unique perspectives and skills in community development and design: Laura Halfmann, MSW; naomi warren, JD/MSW; Ross Welch, M. Arch; and Kate Wilson, PhD Candidate in Mechanical Engineering at Washington University.
Sustainable Nectaring Garden
Site Selection: Lot 5, 1300-06 Montgomery Street
Concept & Team Summary:
We propose to convert the vacant lot addressed as 1300-06 Montgomery Street into a nectaring garden composed of native perennial plants that carry out extended seasonal flowering to provide local bees, butterflies and hummingbirds with the food plants that they require.
The Sunflower+ Project
Site Selection: Lot 4, 1318-24 Warren Street
Concept & Team Summary:
The Sunflower+ Project: StL proposes turning previously developed urban lots into a community asset through the planting of sunflowers. With a goal of eventually spurring redevelopment of these vacant parcels, the project will serve as an appropriate, scalable, and productive transitional solution. An experiment in the realms of phytoremediation, public art, public health, education and sustainability, the project will beautify the neighborhood and enhance the usability of the land in a low impact, low cost, and entrepreneurial manner. Using Lot #4, we propose planting a field of sunflowers with a repurposed rubble wall intervention marking the historic foundation line that would serve as a didactic tool for learning about history and sustainability. In addition to brightening the neighborhood, the sunflowers will serve the practical task of phytoremediation of the soil, while offering the potential for development of food or fuel products that could provide a source of local income. Alternative plantings will also be used to promote the remediation process year round. The Sunflower+ Project: StL is led by a multidisciplinary team with expertise in urban redevelopment, sustainability, horticulture, soils analysis, environmental air quality analysis, masonry, graphic design and communications, civil engineering and organic farming.
Urban Remediators
Site Selection: Site 2, 2709 N. 14th Street
Concept & Team Summary:
We aim to demonstrate that vacant lots can be aesthetically landscaped to provide self-maintaining public gathering spaces that not only heal the soil, but also help improve the health of the community. We would like to test the ability of bioremediation and permaculture techniques to improve the health of the urban soil by implementing an interactive living landscape that doubles as a community gathering space, and that addresses the deficiencies and contaminants present; regular monitoring of soil composition would be used as a tool for dynamically tailoring natural elements.
The project would provide a living “store front”-like demonstration area along the 14th street mall and a more intimate setting (should the residents request it) towards the back of the lot near apartment entrances. Community members would contribute not just to the design process, but also to the personality of the site through decorative elements such as sculptures, murals, or drawings on man-made site components. Our team would be successful in this undertaking because it is strongly interdisciplinary and all members are actively working on and committed to St Louis community engagement projects.
Urban Beautification Warriors
Site Selection: Lot 3, 2613 N. 14th Street
Concept & Team Summary:
PROJECT PROPOSAL: We propose that this space be transformed into a giant walk-through kaleidoscope. The area can be used for many purposes; i.e.: event space, party rental, concerts, plays, wedding venue, etc. Our goal is to use as many re-purposed items as possible. We would like to get most of them from the Old North St. Louis area.
The wood planks we would use would be passed out to neighborhood stakeholders to decorate, paint, and carve, into something unique to add to the benches and stage. This would be a way to give the neighborhood pride in their new attraction and a way to participate in building a community gathering area.
This setting could be replicated in many themes. Bicycles; candy land; city museum-like sculpture pass through; cultural themes; murals that look like you are walking through another city (Venice, New Orleans, Hollywood, NYC)… all aiming at becoming an attraction to event planners as wedding venues and photography backdrops.
Links to the full proposals and a complete listing of all of the proposals received, organized by the vacant lot they selected, can be found at the Sustainable Land Lab Competition site or by clicking HERE. Because the full submissions included a great deal more detail and images (including some with links to videos) than space would allow for us to re-post here, please follow the link above to learn more about these creative proposals. We’d love to get some feedback from Old North residents and other stakeholders - so please share your comments here (by clicking on the LEAVE A COMMENT link at the left side of the top of this post) or by sending us an email at the ONSLRG office: info@ONSL.org.
Teams representing the fifteen proposals chosen to move on to Round 2 will be required to submit additional information by January 28, 2013 and will be expected to address (in further detail) the following criteria:
- Creativity of concept, innovative solution;
- Connectivity to the City’s sustainability plan and regional context;
- Integration of diverse factors, including, but not limited to water, food, energy, waste, social justice, art, economy and community;
- Response to unique site characteristics and local community context;
- Team qualifications;
- Replicable idea; and
- Scalability of concept.
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