I will be posting to this weblog throughout the year-long design period to document my design process, ideas and more. Check back often to see how I'm doing, and add comments to the entries if you'd like.

Archive for September, 2009

Newer Entries »

Preliminary: Program Options

September 14th, 2009 by Alex Fortney | Posted in General Posts, Program | Comments Off

I am currently considering several programs for my thesis project. All of the programs are industrial, or academic institutions focused on renewing industry and the environment. These are the types of projects which will reinvigorate Milwaukee’s industrial and technology sector and provide a ‘catalyst’ project which will ideally encourage future development.

The three programs can be successfully implemented on any of the three sites, but some sites lend themselves better to a particular project.

The three programs are fairly flexible and will be modified over the duration of the project to more accurately reflect the needs of Milwaukee’s industrial and technology community.

School of Freshwater Sciences

The first program combines the WATER Institute with the UWM School of Freshwater Sciences. The WATER (Wisconsin Aquatic Technology and Environmental Research) Institute is currently located on Greenfield Avenue, less than a block from the Solvay site. The School of Freshwater Sciences is a brand new program which encompasses what the WATER does and expands the school. As a result, the University is looking for new locations for the school. One of the current proposals places the school at the former Pieces of Eight restaurant location on Michigan Avenue between the Milwaukee Art Museum and the Discovery World center. The site is nice, but not suited for a large building as it would block the lake views and compete with the two other iconic buildings. My three proposed sites are much better suited for the program.

The School of Freshwater Sciences would require a building capable of holding 200 students, 50 faculty and 50 researchers within classrooms, lounge spaces, faculty offices, laboratories, a library/research center, computer lab and other general academic spaces. Additionally, given the unique program the school will have a dock to hold its ship, the 71’ Neeskay, a fleet of small watercraft, tanks to hold aquatic animals and research projects, and a fully equipped machine shop for constructing instruments and devices. Obviously the direct connection to the water is critical.

The program is probably best adapted to fit the Solvay site given the proximity to the existing building, but the Reed Street site would also work equally well. Because of the need for connection to a waterway, the Washington Street would not really work since it is essentially land-locked.

Environmental Remediation Company

The second program under consideration is a facility for an environmental remediation company. Environmental remediation is the process cleaning up contaminants in soil, air and water, something Milwaukee is certainly in need of. There are several companies in business doing environmental remediation, and Milwaukee could very easily support another as demand for redeveloping ‘brownfields’ increases as does the goal of making ‘green’ buildings: LEED credits are awarded for using contaminated sites.

An environmental remediation company would need a very large facility to house equipment for aerating soil, filtering water, and digesting or decomposing organic chemicals. The facility would also probably need a large leach field for imported soils. There are two primary techniques for clean-up, ex-situ and in-situ. Ex-situ methods involve excavation of affected soils and subsequent treatment at the surface, In-situ methods seek to treat the contamination without removing the soils. The environmental remediation company would serve as a base for a fleet of mobile trucks to go to remote sites to perform in-situ remediation. The facility would also take in contaminated soils and water and process it.

Any of the three sites would be suited for the environmental remediation program. Solvay is clearly the most contaminated and may be ideal as a ‘testing ground’ for new techniques and long-term experiments on its heavily contaminated soil and adjacent waterway. All three sites have easy access to railways for the importing of soil and water in hoppers and tankers, or by truck from the highways. Solvay and Reed Street are adjacent to waterways, and Washington Street is near enough to water that pipes of cleaned water can be discharged into the river.
The facility itself will require space for large tanks, hoppers for holding soil, beds to oxidize soils, and a system to contain any toxins released from the soil from being released into the air. The facility will also have offices, research laboratories, incubators for breeding specialized bacterial, greenhouses for raising ‘scrubbing’ plants and decontamination areas for workers and trucks.

Industrial Design School and Workshop

The third program option I am considering is an industrial design school and workshop. Given Milwaukee’s history of manufacturing, it would be beneficial to bring more industrial design activities back to the city. MIAD (Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design) and MSOE (Milwaukee School of Engineering) as well as UWM offer components of industrial design, but these options are somewhat limited compared to what UW-Madison and other institutions offer. The industrial design school would offer students classes in design and a workshop to produce student projects, but also would operate a business. In an economic climate where higher education institutions struggle to work within limited budgets, turning a profit would be a great way of subsidizing the school’s income.

The design school and workshop would be a full campus with housing and amenities for students in addition to classroom and work space. The school would support about 500 students and 50 faculty and staff positions. Students could live in the dormitories or off-campus. Parking would be provided for commuting students, as well as access to public transportation options. The faculty would have classrooms, workshops, lecture theatres, gallery, faculty offices, business offices and production facilities. There would be a wide variety of tools used, such as plasma cutters for sheet materials, rapid prototyping for development models, a foundry for metal castings, woodworking tools, ceramics and many others. Sustainability would be emphasized and the campus itself ideally would be ‘green.’

Any of the sites would work perfectly for the industrial design school as all have access to various forms of public transportation, are relatively nearby to residential areas for housing, and have large areas for parking and green-space. Reed Street additionally has the advantage of visibility from the city and freeway, and Washington Street will benefit from its proximity to industry and has the opportunity for interesting topographic solutions thanks to the split level roadway and rail bed.


Preliminary: Site Options

September 14th, 2009 by Alex Fortney | Posted in General Posts, Reed Street Yards, Solvay Coke and Gas, Washington Street Interlocking | Comments Off

Milwaukee has a countless places where the fabric has been disrupted. I have selected three potential sites for my thesis project. They are located around the 5th Ward and Walker’s Point. I selected this region because it was one of the major historic industrial areas, but it has been overlooked for gentrification. Other major historic industrial areas in Milwaukee include the 3rd Ward, and the Menomonee Valley. The 3rd Ward underwent major revitalization in the 1990s and continues to be a popular place to redevelopment and has turned residential and commercial rather than industrial. The Menomonee Valley has undergone a slower transformation, but continues to be an industrial area being gradually redevelopment. As a result, I searched other areas and located the three sites which saw industry leave and have not returned. The three sites possess numerous characteristics which will make them strong and successful. All have ready access to roads, railways and water. Transportation is the key to industry, and originally manufacturing developed along waterways and railway corridors to take advantage of the means of moving goods.

Solvay Coke and Gas Company

The first site is the former Solvay Coke and Gas Company. The site is located along Kinnikinnick Avenue flanked by the harbor to the east, the river to the south and the Amtrak rail corridor to the west. The only access is on Greenfield Avenue. Originally named Milwaukee Coke and Gas, it was incorporated in 1902. Solvay supplied Milwaukee with gas for gas lights and produced coke for steel production. At its peak, Solvay operated as many as 200 coke ovens 24 hours a day turning millions of tons of coal into coke and gas. A portion of the site was also used for tanning. The plant was shuttered in 1983 and mostly demolished between 2003 and 2005. The office building, machine shop and other small structures remain, but the building containing the coke ovens has been reduced to a pile of rubble with only the two partially demolished smokestacks remaining.

As can be expected with a heavy industrial and tanning use, the site is heaving contaminated with mercury, arsenic, cyanide and cancer-causing polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons. The contamination is spread over the entire site and the silt along the Kinnikinnick River has buried contaminates and has a ‘no anchor’ rule as to not stir it up. A Superfund Alternative Site, the ‘brownfield’ will require enormous clean-up before it is able to be reused.

The site exchanged hands a number of times in the 1990s and 2000s with the intent to turn the site into residential use, the most recent proposal had 14, 20 story towers valued at $1.5 billion. Seemingly with each new owner, more of the site was removed, but nothing is replaced. 2004 saw the removal of the main gas facility, which was done negligently and haphazardly and resulted in the release of asbestos into the environment and left within the rubble on the site, earning a $275,000 fine. The current owner, Golden Marina Causeway, LLC, seems disinterested in doing anything with the site and is tax delinquent. Recently, the city ordered one of the buildings to be razed as it was a place for vagrants to do drugs. For all intents and purposes, the site is abandoned and given the current economic situation it is unlikely to be redeveloped for residential use.

I propose to maintain the industrial context with a project which preserves the remaining office building and perhaps the smokestack and reinvents the site for a new purpose. The site would also make connections to the south side across the Kinnikinnick River, to the west across or under the railway corridor, and to the east with a new harbor area.

Reed Street Yards

The second site is located along the Menomonee River canals adjacent to the new Harley-Davidson Museum. The former Reed Street Yards is a completely vacant site formerly used as a railway freight yard for over a hundred years. The site is flanked by recent redevelopments in the 5th Ward along the east and south sides, by the Menomonee River and Harley-Davidson Museum on the north, and the 6th Street Viaduct on the west.
The Reed Street Yard site was also slated for various redevelopment projects but nothing has taken shape. Unlike Solvay, there is little to no site contamination, no buildings to demolish and few other challenges to immediate development with the site. Given the nearby residential and commercial, the industrial use for the site would have to be noiseless and not produce any other ill effects which would disturb the neighbors. The Reed Street Yards enjoy connections to existing roadways, proximity to new development, as well as a rail corridor and waterway. Connections to the Harley plot across the river are likely, as well as improving access to the 6th Street viaduct.

Washington Street Interlocking

The third site is more ambiguous than the other two. It is roughly called the Washington Street Interlock and encompasses the area bound by South Water Street on the east, the Amtrak railway on the west, Florida Street on the north and Washington Street on the south. The site formerly was the location of a major crossroads of rail lines from the Milwaukee Road and the Chicago and Northwestern rail lines. The C&N entered from the south-east and exited the north-west in the 3rd Ward, and the Milwaukee Road entered from the south and exited to the north-east to downtown and the Menomonee Valley. The area between this triangular form was used as a yard, called the Florida Yards terminating at Florida Street. The area saw very heavy rail traffic for over 100 years as it was the primary route to Chicago. Today it has been broken up into a number of different uses. The railway corridor, formerly the Milwaukee Road is now operated by the Soo and carries Amtrak traffic to the Milwaukee Intermodal Station and freight to the Menomonee Valley. The former C&N line is abandoned. The north branch now is the parking lot for Summerfest and the Italian Community center and the rest of the line north was ripped up to become a bike trail running past the Art Museum north through the East Side. The south branch passes by the Solvay site and exits into Bay View.

The site is now used for light industrial by J Marchese Fruits and Usinger Sausage. Seemingly abandoned warehouses exist on the north end and marina buildings along the river. Of the three sites, the Washington Street Interlocking has the most existing buildings and infrastructure and is closest to existing industrial developments in the 5th Ward.


Preliminary: Thesis Claim

September 14th, 2009 by Alex Fortney | Posted in General Posts, Thesis | Comments Off

Milwaukee is in desperate need of a strong industrial base. Producing highly innovative technologies in the city will encourage job growth and reverse the exodus to business parks in the suburbs. Milwaukee has the potential to be a leader in ecological and environmental technologies, education and design. My three program proposals takes these potentials and focuses on rehabilitation, renewal, research, preservation and innovation. To advertise Milwaukee’s new innovative spirit we will require a signature building with a unique program to draw international attention. The best way to bring notoriety and investment to Milwaukee in the 21st century is with an exemplar project in a formerly prosperous, but presently distressed part of the city to serve as an icon and a catalyst for future growth.


Newer Entries »