Relocating the Rail Yards: Remediating and Re-Investing within the City Limits
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Thesis Statement The relocation of rail yards and rail infrastructure within the cityscape to beyond the city limits provides a safer environment for existing neighborhoods while releasing land for further urban development. These post industrial zones provide the opportunity to remediate, reconnect neighborhoods, re-invest within the existing urban fabric, reduce the phenomenon of sprawl, and address the social economic issues of the place, pay tribute to the railway’s historical significance, and introduce needed contemporary programs, thus revitalizing the city, and promoting further urban growth. Description of Project Intended to Test the Thesis Statement The Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) is a historic Canadian Class I rail carrier that was founded in 1881. Its 22, 500km of rails vein all across Canada and into the United States, connecting and serving major cities such as Montreal, Vancouver, Minneapolis, New York City, and Chicago. The railway was instrumental in the settlement and development within the western regions of Canada and has become one of the largest and most powerful companies. Winnipeg was one of the fastest growing cities in North America around the turn of the 20th Century. It became known as the Chicago of the North and by 1911 had become the third largest city in Canada. During this time, more than two dozen rail lines converged near the Exchange District carrying goods to many businesses. The city, was stunted in growth by the construction of the Panama Canal in 1914, but continued to grow, and expand beyond the city’s original limits engulfing the Canadian Pacific Rail Yards. The disaster of 2013 Lac-Megantic derailment in Quebec, a freight train carrying crude oil left forty two people dead, and destroyed thirty buildings in the town center. This event and many similar events involving trains forces one to rethink how safe it is for these locomotives to run through neighborhoods. This was hardly the first incident where a freight train had derailed and it will probably not be the last. With goods such as styrene, toluene, propane, caustic soda and chlorine being transported, it is not worth the risk to continue to allow trains through the city. Winnipeg provides an opportunity of testing the grounds of urban renewal within the city by the relocation of the rail lines. The city is on the rise, and a present day economic renaissance is in motion. Winnipeg has captured the attention of the world, and strives to become a major design capital. It has the potential of becoming a big city of the future and is on the precipice of something great. The 1911 optimism has returned and innovation and values to dream big have given designers the opportunity to shape a more malleable city, without being constrained to the sheer amount of existing infrastructure. The project proposal is to provide an urban development master plan in which the rail yard within a city, such as Winnipeg, could be relocated outside the city limits. This move would continue to allow the circulation of goods by rail while releasing usable and developable space within the existing cityscape. The design of the new released space will be determined by identifying the needs of this particular location while being sensitive towards existing social constructs, underlying tones of heritage, how it may benefit the existing and future neighborhood, circulation and contribute within the larger scheme of the city. It is my intention to then design towards an architectural scale, a building or set of buildings that will embody the concept of the site and perform as a catalyst for change. The question that I would like to pose is: can the relocation of industrial infrastructure, like the Canadian Pacific railways provided the much needed space to re-invest within the existing boundaries of the cityscape? Could these new spaces address the issues of housing, education, and health care? Should the new development pay tribute to existing phenomenology of the place, or redefine itself as a completely new entity? Methodological Processes/ Outline of Research/ Design Experiments I intend to research existing patterns of urban growth and decay as depicted in larger cities. These patterns may include: satellite cities, a metropolis, the decline of the city core, the shucking off of neighborhoods to name a few. I plan to study the projection of city growth and demographics within Winnipeg over the duration of 100 years. The data collected from these findings may determine the possible programs or needed infrastructure on site and in the larger context of the city. By identifying where the existing rail way infrastructure is located within the city, this will reveal possible sites for innovation. I will then study the current design strategy proposed by the city of Winnipeg for land use and urban development. After selecting an appropriate site dictated by existing rail infrastructure, I intend to map existing circulation and grid systems, the historical value and social issues regarding the area in hope that this may help shape the physical design on an architectural scale. The information collected from the projection of the city, and demographics of the area will dictate what sort of infrastructure and programming may be incorporated within the site (social housing, community centers, green space etc). Issues that may influence the design are questions of monumentality, should the new design space pay homage to the rail yards, could this be achieved through design of the building, the choice of materials, or the form of urban landscape within the new space? It is my intention to ultimately focus and design one building or a group of buildings that embodies the concept of the new space which will act as a catalyst for social programming and provide a clear stance to reinvest within the existing cityscape. BIBLIOGRAPHY 1. Allen, Stan. Landform Building: Architecture’s New Terrain. Princeton: Lars Muller Publishers 2. Architecture and Disjunction, by Bernard Tschumi, The MIT Press 3. Asensio Cerver, F. Landscape Architecture: The World of Environmental Design 02. Barcelona: Atrium International, 1996. 4. Bunschoten, Raoul, Takuro Hoshino, and Helene Binet. Urban Flotsam. Rotterdam: 010 Publishers, 2001. 5. City of Winnipeg. Our Winnnipeg It’s Our City, It’s Our Plan, It’s Our Time. Winnipeg: City of Winnipeg 2011. 6. Mohsen Mostafavi, Landscaoe Urbanism A Manual for the Machinic Lanscape, (Spain: AA Publications, 2003), 66-120. 7. Spens, M., intro. Landscape Transformed. London: Academy Editions, 1996. 8. The Third Industrial Revolution: How Lateral Power is Transforming Energy, the Economy and the world, by Jeremy Ruskin, 2013 |