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Architecture Against Gentrication Elijah Muhammad 2018 Lisa Huang, Donna Cohen
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Table of Contents Abstract......................................................................................................................pg. 1 Intro............................................................................................................................pg. 3 Architecture and Social Justice...............................................................................pg. 7 Porters.......................................................................................................................pg. 15 Analysis and Design...............................................................................................pg. 23 Conclusion...............................................................................................................pg. 47 Works Cited.............................................................................................................pg. 53
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“Gentrication†collage by Elijah Muhammad 2017
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e topic of redeveloping communities has always been an interest of mine. Growing up in Gainesville for over 15 years now has allowed me to witness the fabric of the city change and evolve before my eyes, more so on the East side of Gainesville since it is where I’ve always gone to school. Historically black neighborhoods have seemed to always go unnoticed when it comes to economic development and when they are noticed it is oen at the neighborhood’s expense. Gentrication is a phenomenon seen in neighborhoods across the country and though it gives new opportunity to many, it takes opportunity from many as well. My project looks at this issue and will attempt to nd an alternative design method to mitigate it. My task is to create an architectural connection that activates spaces that are already within the site as well as adding new spaces that complement the site. It asks the question of why is this method more valuable to the history of the area than it would be to just bulldoze it all and create new residential/retail spaces. Two buildings, e Civic Media Center on Main St and the Porters Community Center just four blocks west are two spaces that focus on serving the community they are in – the community center specically to the Porter’s neighborhood and e Civic Media Center to Gainesville as a whole – and the blocks in between these buildings are what I am intervening in as connection opportunities. My proposal is to create a series of interactive spaces that engage community involvement as they would not be able to be maintained without the community’s hands being in it. e community center block will be focused toward youth activity, the next block will be a community garden, and the next block will contain a series of art walls that allows for local artists to showcase their works and talents in both a Abstract 1
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gallery and grati/mural setting. ere will also be a series of design details that will celebrate the history of the area and act as teaching moments for those that may not fully know the history of Porters as well as African American Southern history. ese spaces will mean to act to strengthen community ties and promote collaborative work from many academic and artistic elds in Gainesville. is proposal’s purpose is to present an alternative to the common redevelopment strategy of using the land to make someone money and instead as a way to preserve a community. 2
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3 Introduction A lot of debate centers around the question of whether humans exist as a part of nature. Nature is oen talked about being an entity that humans are separate from as humans are the disruptor in the natural system. However, I see humanity as inherently being a part of nature as many systems in the human sphere behave the same as other living things in the natural system. With my project, I want to consider neighborhoods and the topic of community and the preservation of community and the need to preserve communities the same as one would want to preserve a forest or a prairie. I see neighborhoods as each with their own ecosystem and their own structure and as the conduit between the human scale and the larger urban scale. I want to question the perception of gentrication as a necessity and that it is something inevitable in the modern context. ere are many factors dealing with gentrication that I want to consider, for instance race and class and the way they intersect in respect to domestic life and real estate patterns. Using Gainesville gives an interesting opportunity to understand this phenomenon since not only is it a city that is starting to see this change rather suddenly and rapidly, it is my hometown so its change is something I have been witnessing for years. Specically, I want to look at Porters Community g. 1 on the east side of Gainesville since that is where I’m currently seeing the most change. Porters has
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4 Fig 1 (Bottom):Map of Gainesville, FL and Porters Quarters, 2018 Fig 2 (bottom right): Map of Gainesville, FL 1935 with current footprint of Porter’s Quarters high lighted. Original footprint records could not be found been a part of Gainesville’s history since the 1880s (Murray) but has unfortunately existed in the background for most of its existence. In the beginnings of my research on the neighborhood, I was trying to nd maps showing the bounds of the neighborhood to maybe get a sense of how its shape may have changed throughout the decades, however this proved to be very dicult as many of the early maps of Gainesville I was able to nd dated in the 1890s, 1910s, 1920s did not show Porters Quarters on the map, despite historical research claiming Porter’s was in existence during these decades. Even re insurance maps commissioned by Sanborn Maps, supposedly cataloging the entire city, would seem to skip right over Porters up until the 1920s g. 2 . is oversight of Porters is representative of a much larger problem, a problem that continues to manifest itself today. Unfortunately, it can only be assumed why this was a practice in the 19th and early 20th century. But being closer to today’s issue makes it easier to assess why there are similar problems today. Porters being a historically Black neighborhood puts it in a category many do not see as worthy of preservation. ere have been some historic acts
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5 Fig 3: Florida Heritage Site Plaque located on south corner of Porter’s Community Center that have happened in Porters. For instance, e Shady Grove Primitive Baptist Church on SW 5th St rst organized in 1894, making it almost as old as Porters, and acted as the meeting place for the local chapter of the NAACP in the 50s and 60s in planning the integration of public schools in Gainesville (Murray). Also, where the Porter’s Community Center currently stands, was once known as “e Ballpark†and was “the center of recreational activities in Gainesville for more than 60 years†g. 2 where Gainesville’s Oak Hall baseball team played against other teams in the south east for the latter part of the 1800s and early 1900s, Gainesville’s African American baseball team, e Central City Giants, played there and UF’s rst football games were played there as well (“Florida Historical Marker Interactive Mapâ€). However, this history seems to be too little known and evidently not enough preserve the community. is is where I feel the role of the architect comes in. Architectural design can be the catalyst in constructing bodies that give a new identity to a place but it is hard to nd the process acted out in an eective manner. My initial plan was to begin the groundwork by conducting a series of interviews with residents and the purpose was to create a conversation between the designer and the resident. is part of the process was going to be dire in that it would then shape the way the rest of my research of go, what aspects I would decide to focus on and if I would end up designing something with their wants and desires in mind or would this project be more about creating a process of understanding renter/tenant/resident-architect relationships. I began research with this in mind, but ended up not carrying this out how I wanted to for a few reasons, one being that it is a lot more dicult going out by yourself to knock on doors and get people to trust you enough to entertain your hypothetical questions on neighborhood
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6 development, another being the amount of time I would have needed to carry these interviews out the way I would have wanted was signicantly more than the time I had considering I would need enough time to do the rest of the project so I tried to get some friends to help me conduct the interviews, that didn’t pan out. I also tried to make some calls to some people in the neighborhood that I was familiar with or someone I knew was familiar with; I never got my calls returned, so I ended up having to choose another route out of necessity. is beginning research was done 100% in house instead of on the eld like I wanted, but I ended up realizing somethings that I very possibly might have ended up overlooking otherwise.
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Architecture and Social Justice Gentrication – [jen-truh--key-shuh n] noun 1.the buying and renovation of houses and stores in deteriorated urban neighborhoods by upperor middle-income families or individuals, raising property values but oen displacing low-income families and small businesses. 2.the process of conforming to an upperor middle-class lifestyle, or of making a product, activity, etc., appealing to those with more auent tastes: the gentrication of fashion. (“Gentricationâ€) 7 For about the past 5 or 10 years I had heard about gentrication increasingly as an issue that tends to creep up on neighborhoods yet by the time people noticed it, it’s already too late. I had been somewhat oblivious to it going on until I got to college and even then, for my rst couple years in school it was something I saw as an inevitable eect of change. I noticed small shis growing up in Gainesville, shis that could easily be perceived as insignicant until you look back and see so many that they’ve added up to total restructuring of your surroundings. is could be a result of my distance from the issue, since I did not grow up in any of the neighborhoods that it has been taking place in. It is something that I have viewed from the outside looking in and as much as I would want to claim this struggle as my own, as something that I am experiencing on a personal level, that is not my truth. Understanding this disconnect is what makes the research phase so important, not only of the area but of the phenomenon itself and how it develops in other cities that may be in dierent stages. For instance, one of the better-known cities exhibiting is New York City. Gentrication is causing a major shi in the demographic make up of areas in Brooklyn along Bushwick Ave, the neighborhoods of Crown Heights, Brownsville, Flatbush and Redhook as well as in Uptown Manhattan in Harlem and in e Bronx though not as much. g. 4 New
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8 Fig 4: Map of New York City Gentrication (New York City Gentrifaction Maps and Data) York’s Global City status sets the area up in an interesting climate that seems to expedite this process and has been since the late 90s. New York being the destination for a lot of aspiring professionals makes these areas in Brooklyn, Harlem and e Bronx more attractive since it allowed for aordable housing in an expensive, unpredictable work area. However, as soon as this trend is noticed, land lords take advantage of the increasing demand of housing so in these respective areas, which causes a rise in rents and property values. is change has been so abrupt that for some young individuals, the neighborhood they grew up in the early 2000s isn’t the same one they live in today. Other places have been going through the same, such as Chicago in the past recent years, the San Fransisco/Oakland/Bay Area has been witnessing some of the most dramatic hikes in rent costs due to gentrication.(Renzulli) An interesting example I looked at was Wynwood in Miami. Within the past 5 or so years, Wynwood has completely revamped into an Art district that currently attracts individuals from all over the world during events such as Art Basel. However, this new economic ux has not been the best for its residents, now mostly former residents. e gentrication of Wynwood is unique in the way that it was 100%deliberately done by real
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9 estate developers, and it represents a clear disregard to the existing community in my opinion. Watching this documentary conrmed many theories that people have when it comes to gentrication. One part of the documentary that I found very telling was the comparative scene of how the developer thought he was perceived by the residents next to the footage of how the residents realistically felt about the development going on around them. e disconnect and the obvious lack of dialogue between the two parties but I think that lack of dialogue is necessary for developers to maximize prot. If that dialogue were to happen and be the residents opinions seriously considered, its sure that a good amount of that development would not have happened, thus a good amount of the money made o the area would not have been made. And once the land is bought, there’s little that the residents can do to combat it because they aren’t the owners of the properties. At one point, a developer told a story of him kicking the tenants of a building out the day he planned to tear it down and watched them watch their home get destroyed now with no home to go to. I nd it unfortunate that this kind of treatment is considered ok and this is the kind of thing I want to combat. is process of gentrication happened rapidly versus the gentrication of SOHO that was also the redevelopment of the area into an art district but the dierence is SOHO was fronted with the artists in control, not the developers. In the case of, SOHO, I feel its more understandable especially since it took place over the course of over a decade while Wynwood was within a couple years when residents had been there since the 60s. I think the biggest takeaway is the need of dialogue and if that dialogue isn’t there then it's deliberately not wanted and the gentrication is for a sole purpose of making money. (Hinton) is is a good example of why this kind of research is important. is disconnect we experience as contracted designers puts us at a disadvantage when it comes to eectively doing our job which I believe doesn’t stop at just the design of a building, but the design of the community surrounding as well. As an architect, one who will eectively change the make-up of any area we are to intervene in, design in, renovate, rebuild, we take on the responsibility of being a part of its course in history that can seldom be undone, so with that, we must try as hard as we can to understand these areas and what these changes will mean for them in the long run. I wanted to consider other methods of research not on
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10 this topic but on related topics. Social justice and the inclusion of civil rights in Architecture is something I had not been exposed to prior to this even though it is an easy consideration to make as an architect but unfortunately it is also easy to ignore. Dana McKinney of Harvard GSD had a similar Master’s thesis in 2017 on aordable housing and urban planning. “I want to focus on the design, development, and management of aordable housing. As the wealth gap in America continues to grow, housing’s aordability will lessen, particularly within cities. An education in planning provides an invaluable toolbox in dealing with these concerns, while maintaining a more comprehensive study of the urban systems themselves.†(Pazzanese) Motivated by issues of aordability in the city and the responsibility of architects being the voice of city, there is a necessity to understanding the city not just as a built environment but as a moving, living and growing environment that needs to be sustained and maintained like any living ecosystem. Interesting enough, I feel the focus on urban planning being more important than the “design†of space. e relation of one community in tandem with another community is the issue I am trying to look at and zeroing in on it through the lens of architectural design seems to be uncharted territory. McKinney’s master’s thesis was straightforward in that it chose an issue that was rst presented as having the ability to be inuenced by design. Her thesis was on â€sensible and sensitive†design alternative to prison that would help break the cycle of incarceration & poverty.(Ibid) Human behavior is something that has shown it can be inuenced by its environment. I think what I will have to do is look at what aspects of my issue can be inuenced by design, either that or shi the focus to urban design perhaps design a space focused on community gathering and not just focus on the building but the path to the building. To me this is a very interesting and unique architectural issue to address, one cognizant of the eects architecture can have on society by inuencing typology that has been seen to cause detriment to the population and aecting the eect and pinpointing those areas of society that if they are enhanced so they can mean something better for the masses. e view of society from the gaze of an architect is something far too oen misused. It is easy for architecture to become only a tool for personal gain and lack that consideration of social justice despite the inability to remove it from aecting society.
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11 Dana McKinney, an alum of the Harvard GSD noticed this trend in architecture during his studies. He wrote an article for Al Jazeera entitled Architecture Needs Social Justice and I nd this title alone so interesting because it starts o pushing this idea this relationship between social justice and architecture desperately needs to be fed. It’s not an implication that one cannot exist or even progress without the other, but that both working with each other would create a more whole and lasting eect. He speaks on the exclusivity of architecture and calls out the GSD as promoting architecture as an elitist resource, better yet a privilege and he talks about the view of architecture as a personal developed space for those that can aord the best of the best and that is how architecture evolves. is is true in the sense that buildings can’t be built without people to pay for them and the more complex a system is, the more it will cost. In a world of “innovation†and uniqueness, architecture can become a commodity, at least the architecture that wins awards. e notion of form over function can be toxic because function tends to be at a at rate, form raises the price.(McKinney) Social justice can change the landscape of architecture these days. Social justice will inevitably get rid of the elitism in architecture because oen those in need of social justice the most are not privileged individuals. It would be interesting to see how the exchange would work and what can be gained from such an exchange. “Architecture and the other design professions could take a hint from urban planning, which takes into account not just the form of urban spaces, but also nance strategies, historical research and community engagement.†(Ibid) e consideration of outside elds dissolves the elitism of architecture. It forces architects to view the outside world and how it aects the neighborhood beyond the walls of the house. I nd this powerful because the issue I wanted to look at was this disregard to the neighborhood. An architectural intervention can behave the same as an exotic species being introduced into a fragile ecosystem and understanding these societal relationships – the relationship between a person and a house, a house and a neighborhood, a neighborhood and a city, and transversely neighborhood to neighborhood, house to house, community to community – helps us better understand what it is we are doing when we introduce new bodies into an old area. When we have a neighborhood of with a deep history, understanding how those individuals interact with each other and too their neighborhood will make us make
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12 better choices in what we put in that neighborhood and if that new introduction will disrupt the natural movement of things or enhance it.
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13 Early diagrams of the CMC when the plan for this project was just to redesign the CMC. Addressing early issues of relation to the street, scale and program. is idea was not further developed because I began to research the neighbrhood next to it, Porters, and found a history that could inspire design in a dierent way.
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Porters 15 Dr. Watson Porter, a Canadian physician, purchased a large portion of land southwest of the center of the town, had the land platted as Porter’s Addition in 1884 (recorded in 1898) and sold lots exclusively to African Americans. Encouraging the purchasers to plant gardens and cultivate crops that would enable them to become self-sucient. Porter’s Addition (Porter’s Quarters) is important to regional and local history and black history and settlement patterns as it represents a post-Reconstruction pattern of urban development by whites for blacks. Porter’s Addition wasn’t the only predominately black neighborhood in Gainesville at the time, however. 5th Ave and Pleasant Street neighborhoods north of University Avenue g. 5 , which was the home of Lincoln High School, prominent churches, businesses and oces was a more popular and higher-class neighborhood for African Americans to reside, contrasting to Porter’s being a working-class area with unpaved roads.(Murray) e history of the area seems to have been passed done mostly orally. Knowledge of what the areas looked like, the people, the practices and routines have only recently been recorded from oral histories conducted with residents that have been in the neighborhood since the 30s and 40s. Records have only gone to show so much for instance the public record of when the Shady Grove Primitive Baptist church was rst signed and plotted yet the descriptions of the area, the church being surrounded with trees, the colors of “the so yellow tone of the coquina
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16 concrete blocksâ€(Ibid) church was built with and the bell calling individuals to service every Sunday are on record today due to anecdotal evidence. ere are still individuals in Porters that have lived there most of their lives and for the most part, not much has changed. e sustainment of this area has been through the sustainment of its residents but now times are beginning to change. “I been here 62 years, and I’ve seen a lot of changes — I remember when the road was dirt. And, you know, as time went along, the university started buying up a lot of property. For the students, for apartments. And it’s like they started pushing, pushing, pushing people away. I told my brother, I’m not going anywhere! If they come in here, they gotta bring the big checkbook. Not the little checkbook. I’ve been here. I’ve seen a lot of people go, I’ve seen a lot of people come. Gator Nation? It’s all over the world, yeah. Let us live our life out here! Don’t just come in here, demolish everything, and put a park up or something. I don’t wanna see that. Right across sixth street. I remember when a lot of my Fig 5: 1935 map of Gainesville showing general location of Porters south of University Avenue (pink) and 5th Ave and Pleasant St neighborhoods North of Univ. Ave.
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17 mother’s friend’s and some ladies that had been related to her, on my mother’s side, they stayed down there before they even put the pond in. ere used to be a bunch of houses. Straight down this road here, there used to be a lady who’d run a beauty salon. ings just change. ey’re not thinking about the people who live here. I know it’s all about the dollar, but come on now.†Michael McKnight, life time resident of Porter’s Quarters (“Voices of Portersâ€) is quote sums the what gentrication can mean to many residents. Porter’s is situated in between the University of Florida and Downtown which makes it an attractive area for investors. Depot Park, just directly south east of Porters and south of Downtown has undergone construction for the past 10 or 15 years but only opened ocially within the last 2 and subsequently attracted individuals from all over Gainesville to use. e Cade Science Museum has been under construction for little over year and opens the summer of 2018, just south of Depot Park. Apartment complexes and new residences continue to start construction and open south, west and North of Porter’s and the original size of the community has shrunk in acreage as well as population. A neighborhood which started out humble yet strong in community values and cooperation has had residents bought out and seen each thread in the fabric of the neighborhood slowly plucked. Residents have been victim to rising rents, despite living in conditions not worth the cost and as a result have been forced to move out of the neighborhood to nd more aordable alternatives.(Ibid) Homeowners are being oered much less than what their homes are worth for investors to come in and use build on their land and the regard to what this community means to its residents is unseen. Porter’s Quarters has been a part of Gainesville’s history but it has been a history untold and it has led to it being viewed as expendable. Designers that plan on making an impact on society must pay attention to these stories to create responsible design. Issues such as gentrication are hard to tackle, especially through architecture. Attempts are underway but there’s not much information on how eective they have been since only recently has it been an issue people are starting to tackle. Sarasota, FL has undergone new development city-wide within the past 10 years and a part of that has been the Revitalization of the Janie Poe aordable housing projects. A 2004 article prior to the city
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18 knowing what to do with the units described them as “mold-ridden†and “cockroach-infested.â€(Bobick) e city redeveloped the area in phases since they could not nd enough investors to revitalize it all at once. Phases 1-3 have been completed as of 2016 g.6-9 totaling a new 226 low and mixed income units among the 3 complexes. Tax credits, federal housing funds, impact fee waivers and donations from nonprot organizations. (Ibid) So far, the reactions have been positive and they have not seen gentrication due to all units being a part of the Housing Authority and only take Section 8 eligible families. is is a large project not necessarily exclusive to the architectural eld being that much of its eectiveness comes from government subsidization and all the legislative limits/ benets that come with that. A young project in DC is underway ad tackling gentrication as we speak. A recent competition, whose design was only picked mid-2017, for the 11th St Bridge Park g. 10-12 located on the Potomac River is making use of Land Trusts to keep housing aordable in the areas it is aecting. e park’s purpose is to very literally bridge two sides of the city, one being rather auent, the other the opposite. e park will have a mixture of recreational, entertainment and educational areas to it and it is meant to be traveled by foot.(11th Street Bridge Park) However, residents were concerned that this would cause an issue, and the new infrastructure would attract too many new eyes to the Anacostia and drive its current residents out, basically nullifying the bridge’s whole purpose. e Director of the Bridge Park Project instituted a series of meetings with the area’s residents who came to suggest having a community land trust “Land Trusts typically have tripartite structures where Fig 6-9 (descending): Janie Poe Phase I, II, III, and demolition of old project building (“Janie’s Garden Phase I & II.â€) (Bobick) (Weekly Briefs)
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19 one-third of the board is made of neighborhood residents, onethird are residents of land trust properties, and one-third are experts in the eld.â€(Perry-Brown) What this does is it subsidizes the cost of the land stabilizes the rents by not giving the opportunity for the values to spike and become too much of a burden for the residents to be able to manage themselves. At a scale as large as this, this kind of intervention in the housing market is necessary to not aect the surroundings in unwanted ways. It challenges the notion that these adverse eects that happen due to new development are out of the hands of the developers and it’s just the cost of progress. ese two examples, however successful they may be, go beyond the reach of just design, which basically makes it so I cannot dive too far into the world of land trusts, government subsidizing, or even urban planning since it is not necessarily my eld of study. However, what I will take away from these case studies is this: the neighborhood must stand at the forefront of the design, what the neighborhood needs and what it doesn’t need and making sure that the use of these new development is specic to the residents. Porter’s Quarters stood out to be a good place to study the history holds many untold stories. While researching this it brought my attention to the Community Center and the Civic Media Center (CMC) g. 13 I had knowledge of Fig 10-12 : Winning proposal for 11th St Bridge Park in Washington, D.C. (11th Street Bridge Park)
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20 bout prior to beginning this study and had gone to events in both buildings on multiple occasions. Volunteer work I had bene a part of in the past is what brought me to understanding somewhat the roles these institutions play in the community. Since I am not from this neighborhood, an extensive amount of research will need to be done to conduct this project responsibly. Also, the program of these new interventions has to be specic to the community. e Community Center is straight forward; they provide a space for extracurricular activities for the children in the neighborhood as well as functions as a community organizing space. ey have been the setting for town halls and educational lectures, both of which I have attended before. e CMC oers a similar service, but they also house literature for educational purposes, acts as a performance venue for local acts and sometimes as a gallery space for small scale local artists. ese two buildings are a short 5-minute walk from one another and along that path are vacant buildings and unused and run-down spaces. What I design will serve two functions: it will be a multi-block/ street concept that will bridge the two community buildings to create new Community Zone to serve Porter’s Quarters and it will hopefully give a sense of identity to the community that sustains it past this sudden rush of gentrication by becoming a symbol of Porter’s Quarters. Ideally, these spaces will not be able to function without being maintained by the neighborhood residents and the neighborhood residents will see the most benets from these spaces by constant use of these spaces. Fig. 13: Blocks on the proposed site with exsting buildings highlighted in red, Community Center (le) and CMC (right) in black.
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21 Analytiques drawn as a part of that preliminary re-design of the CMC. e drawing above illustrates a new screen facade and the entrance with a seating area integrated into the facade. e drawing to the right proposes a walkable roof for rooop events showing the screen reachin up to the roof.
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Analysis & Design 23 e primary form of analysis started by mapping the various form of the area. Knowing the focus to be on the Community Center and the Civic Media center, the rst step was to map out the best pathway between the two. e earliest maps were these two g. 14-15 with the extents stretching from 4th Ave down to Depot Ave. I originally was playing with the idea of reclaiming the area totaling 10 blocks, one of them the size of 9 of the smallest blocks, one the size of 4 and two the size of 3 each. It was helpful to do this drawing as a means of observing the language of the ground however this amount of square footage would have been to large an area to take on alone. Both maps contained overlaid drawings, one illustrating a path using the designated streets and sidewalks, one illustrating through-way paths i.e., cutting through back yards, hopping fences, etc. I decided to look at the area through both lenses due to the blocks being vacant or covered mostly in trees and me having the insight that this would not be a street only project but active spaces in the blocks as well. e most direct path, the 4 blocks between the Community Center block and the CMC block proved to be the most sensible. It emphasized the pathway and gives the opportunity for the related blocks to be easy stops along that pathway of both observation and participatory acts. ese blocks I had designated as blocks 1-6 from east to west. I continued to do mappings of the zones these blocks were designated in. I saw that
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24 Fig. 14-15 (descending): gestural diagrams illustrating boundaries, edges and pathways on the site to determine where the proposed site would be.
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25 the Blocks 1 and 2 containing the Community Center was being recognized as one zone for recreation. e community center zone is separated from the adjacent block by two houses that I decided I wouldn’t be allowed to touch. e adjacent block is an empty former towing lot and the next block that touches Main Street houses a restaurant justly named “e Warehouse†due to it being a former warehouse as well as a vacant building. North of that block is Lynch Park and the CMC on the block parallel crossing Main Street. g. 16 e issues that stood out at the beginning was creating a cohesive language that ties all the blocks together through working across block and streets. e two houses in the middle of the site have the potential to be an obstruction of the design since they can’t really be integrated without aecting something within those property lines. ere will be the challenge of connecting blocks 1 and 2 without physically connecting. Also, the separation of the park and the CMC by Main Street must be considered brings forth a similar challenge but instead of by two houses, it is by a wide and busy street. Numerous iterations where done in plan to work out ideas of the form. e intersection of 6th and Main was a worked out numerous times at dierent scales to aectively create a visual connection to the park across Main and from the park to the warehouse across 6th. e 3 buildings situated on main – e CMC, a vacant space formerly the Citizens food Co-op, and Tamal restaurant – give the opportunity for that theme of triplets to be reected at the park entrance. In plan, these lines were carried across the street to the entrance would be and this pattern of threes will be drawn out through landscaping in front of the entrance and mirror its sources across the street. Carrying these lines over also creates an inverted corner that was continued across 6th Ave into the warehouse building, “cutting†into the building and creating a window that frames the view of the entrance, the street and the CMC. Since the Community center isn’t limited in its bounds, it can be expanded and thus house more opportunities for community use. Porter’s theme of self-suciency has been a recurring one since its inception. e rst purchasers of land in Porter’s Quarters were given the land on condition that they include a space to plant a garden to promote self-suciency among the community. To this day there remains a small-scale community garden that exits
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26 west of the site. is gives me the idea to upgrade and put a garden covering the all of block 3. Gainesville has a series of art walls located throughout the city, most in downtown, that showcases the works of various local artists as well teach about Gainesville historical sites and people. g 17-29 Creating art walls in this block gives an opportunity to showcase these artists as well as creating a teaching opportunity for the Gainesville history and, in particular, that of Porter’s Quarters, through art and community collaboration. e starting driver of this design was to make the experience of walking through these blocks/ streets a memorable one. Working through designs in plan gave minimal insight on what the experiences could and should be like, so I began to work in perspective and created a series of iterations along the intersections on the site. g 30-32 It gave a sense not only of the organization and look of the spaces but also helped establish a scale to the site that is easy to lose when working in plan. I worked in various scales throughout this project, viewing the city as a whole and zooming to the neighborhood, then the site, then specic areas on the site that would need considerable attention to create a fully eshed out experience. e historical maps of Gainesville when observed show the starting language used to annotate the dierent areas of Gainesville and that I initially used to carry out some of my early diagrams. I created a diagram of the entire site utilizing dierent line-types to understand how to Fig. 16: Map showing Block numbers on the site
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27 Fig. 17-21, opposite g. 22-29 :Various art murals in Downtown Gainesville Fig. 30, next 2 pages g. 31, 32: Perspective drawings illustraing ideas for the site proposal
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31 work with the themes of repetition throughout the blocks so the relations between them all could be understood. g. 33 I thought about being within these spaces, spending a considerable amount of time on each block and doing whatever the program describes, when moving to the next block asking the question “what aspects of the design can be easily noticed and digestible when moving to a new space?†Trying to establish an area that focuses on community involvement as well as teaching history in Gainesville, specically black history, I began to look to see if there was a material that could be used to further tie these blocks together. I spoke to Robin Poyner, a retired UF professor of Art History who specialized in African art and had some information on how African customs have been passed down through dierent means and are present throughout the diaspora. One suggestion he gave me was to make use of wrought iron. Black-smithing has been a tradition in West Africa in places such as Mali and Nigeria as a way of creating religious relics. It’s a highly specialized skill and has never been a widely known one, requiring years of training and apprenticeship. Luckily, Hawthorne-based blacksmith Yaw Owusu Shangofemi g.: 36,37 has mastered the cra as he Fig. 33: Connectivity diagram
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32 was the apprentice of the late Philip Simmons, a renowned black smith formerly based in Charleston, SC g. 34,35 where the use of iron work is much more apparent. Shangofemi craed the gate of the sensory garden in on Grove Street in Gainesville. is application to my design will be in a couple of ways, one way being in the park in the same fashion as the sensory garden with craed gated and along the sidewalks as shading posts. When I met with Poyner, he suggested we go on a car ride through Porter’s so that he could point out some interesting architectural features amongst the dierent housing types and one thing he pointed out was the distance between the edge of the street and the edge of the houses, or lack thereof. Some houses are more than others, but the reason for this spatial language, bringing the houses closer to the street is because the before automobiles, when the method of transportation was your two legs, passerby on the street would oen have conversations with people sitting on their porches so setting Fig. 34,35: Philip Simmons and his famous Heart Gate located in Charleston, SC. (Greene) Fig. 36,37: Yaw Owusu Shangofemi in his workshop in Hawthorne, FL (Witzel) and his wrought iron gate located at the Sensory Garden in Gainesville, FL
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3 33 is page: Analytical diagrams of the site, showing dierent zones and posible areas of construction and pathways Opposite page: (top) Zone map on site and surounding blocks; (bottom) early stage master plan
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35 Sectional diagrams of what exists on the site currently. ese are meant to further understand the patterns of repition on the site, what exists and how one can moe through these bodies. e drawings became gratuitious as the process furthered because I did not want to remove any buildings, but some displayed an interesting characteristic of sheltering an inner open area that I wanted to emphasize with my design.
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37 the houses far back from the road was unnecessary. Because of this, the area along the street was something that I wanted to make use of. ose that use these spaces will be walking them by foot so it’s important that these paths can be walked comfortable. ese shading posts can potentially be applied at a broader scale across all of porters as markers of neighborhood identity and can be established along street sides throughout. Conversations with Robin Poyner also pointed me out to another potential source of inspiration: Yoruba Palaces. g. 38,39 is idea came by way of thinking what all history could be taught in this setting and the theme of community and the spatial organization of these palaces are precisely for engaged community living. e families, when polygamous, have dierent sections of housing for each of the patriarch’s wives and their respective children but most active time is spent in the central courtyards. I wanted to make use of this courtyard space mainly within the community center explicitly but in more subtle ways in the other blocks. In the plan of the Community Center, renamed the Youth Center, the source inspiration is apparent with the central space framed by the rooms, and the easy to walk, open plan. Making the courtyards the largest spaces of their respective sections encourages use of outside space and activity amongst the children and the notion of coming together to carry out activities. g. 40-43 With the other blocks, I treated these same principles: open accessibility and framed Fig. 38,39: Plan drawings of Yoruba Palaces (Vlach) Fig. 40: Process Plan of Youth Center, similar to the Yoruba Palace plans
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38 spaces. e Community garden makes use of these principles with the existing buildings and the new greenhouse jetting from the west end of the south building and a series of raised garden beds to the north-east corner. e foot trac is meant to come from the north-east corner so all the higher elevation buildings are opposite that so they are all within your line of sight. e pre-existing buildings will be repurposed into a market/packaging facility to service the produce grown in the garden beds, and the two green houses with rooms for storage and display. pg45 e Art Wall block displays the same characteristic by constructing the new art walls on the perimeter of the block and placing the indented courtyard near the center. e warehouse will be repurposed into an art gallery where the local artists can display their work in a more formal setting, contrasting with the guerilla fashion of the art walls. pg46 Both the garden market and the gallery can be a means of generating revenue for the neighborhood. Each of these blocks ideally would be sustained by neighborhood participation by the fact that they are only benecial to the neighborhood, that way the sustainment of one is the sustainment of the other. Fig. 41-43: renderings of Youth Center
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47 e idea is to create programs that the community can use for its principle of self-preservation on the individual and the community level. is new urban master plan contains the programs earlier mentioned. e Youth Center expanded around the current Community Center, keeping the spaces within the community Center for recreation the same. Added on the west end of the block are a series of small rooms that can be used as practice rooms for musical lessons, surrounding a small courtyard that can be used for small performances. e open space at the south west corner can hold slightly larger performances and can also be used as a green space/play area. e entrance ways into the youth center are all open for easy access for children to come into at any time of the day and use the open court yards but all the rooms are closed spaces. e center courtyard space will primarily be for the daycare center (pre-existing) at the north of the Center. e roof is perforated allowing ltered light into the courtyard/play area. e next cluster of rooms on the right side of the center courtyard are more small rooms that can be used for practicing instruments, singing, art, what have you, along with a center space for congregation. e basketball court on the east end is the largest open space accessible to anyone wanting to use it. At the south end there are a series of large spaces that can be used as classrooms for aerschool activities, summer camps, etc. e Youth center will be a space for education, recreation and socialization. e primary materials for this building will be a light-colored CMU, glass and wood. e vertical wooden planks create a barrier around the open areas, a screen on the windows and doors and it is structural in some areas to support the signature slanted red roofs. Red is representative of the Porter’s Community logo that currently stands in from of Haisley Lynch Park. g. 45 ese roofs are supported by wooden triangular trusses and are present on the 1st4th blocks to show connectivity in the master plan along with the shading posts. Fig. 45: Porter’s sign located in the front of Lynch Park
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Conlusion 49 is part of the study is the most reective since there were a few hiccups and holdbacks during my research that I wish could be revisited, reevaluated and reassessed, however since that cannot happen, I want to consider what can come about in the future from this study and where I hope to take it. I couldn’t conduct the one on one interviews like I had originally planned due to scheduling and availability issues. e logistics of it all just weren’t conducive to being able to do as much research as I could have but I still feel that it is a necessary step to be made. Keeping communication with the people probably shouldn’t be a onetime thing. Something special about the way land trusts work is since the land is essentially run by an inclusive board of representatives, the communication between the residents and investors is continuous. Even though I couldn’t conduct the interviews, if this research could continue, it would involve the residents more than had originally been planned. Originally, I would have asked what would be the desire of the residents, if something were to be built here for the purpose of community building. Not that it is aer the fact, I would want a review conducted by residents and allow for a more hands on participation and brain storming of what could come next in the design. I like the idea of this having implications of being used throughout the neighborhood, not just of bridging the two community buildings. ese shading devices can frame walking spaces throughout the neighborhood and acta as anchors that will keep the
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50 neighborhood in place. Porter’s has seen development to its infrastructure before by way of the Gainesville Community Redevelopment Agency repaving roads and casting new sidewalks along 3rd Street that cuts through Porter’s from North to South and as seen in the Axonometric drawing and the plan, it is on the west edge of the site. However, this has not done so much as to become a marker of Porter’s more than it was just to address an infrastructural issue that is still commendable since it was not before addressed. e CRA has conducted projects throughout Gainesville g. 45 with the intentions of revitalizing dilapidated sites to create a better image of Gainesville, however when I talked to former Project Manager Sarit Sela, she explained that the process for most of these projects, especially those on the East side of Gainesville is very slow as investors are not quick to put money into low income neighborhoods where they can see little return on their investment, almost to the point of it being a pro-bono investment. e time-consuming process leaves little to be excited about. eir development is done in phases, same as the example in Sarasota, but the design process is miniscule to what it takes to get funding and approval for the projects. I gained two contacts at the CRA when I was rst introduced to them a little over 2 years ago and since then both no longer work at the CRA. Sela is now working as a City Architect for the City of Gainesville, and my other contact, Michael Kiner, a high school friend of my uncle, has been working in Tampa for the past year. Community design can be quite a burden and though the reward can be great in the end, it is a long road to get there. is thesis has the luxury of merely being conceptual and hypothetical but I am sure that if this were to really go into action, the resistance it would experience to get it to come to fruition would be immense. I believe this kind of work is practical and benecial to not just the neighborhood but to the city, but that is only because I hold this issue to heart and don’t need convincing to stay within this headspace. at is not the case with everybody and denitely not when money is involved. is is the kind of research I would wish to continue beyond academia into the professional. Design is not without consequence and this is agreed upon by most but a work needs to begin that challenges whether these consequences must be accepted. ere are many things that can be aected by design in a positive way if only those issues were
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51 sought out then they could be solved. Gentrication is one of many though it may be the most directly related to design. Design can be used to improve school systems, mental health, physical health, etc. but all it takes is individuals ready to take on this challenge. Architects can lessen the eects of gentrication if they are willing to take a few extra steps and reach outside of the world of architecture. My concept creates an opportunity to establish a neighborhood identity and outlet for creativity for children, artists and anyone with a green thumb, but there are also apartment buildings that need to be renovated, better plumbing systems to be installed throughout the neighborhood, roong issues, infrastructural issues, accessibility issues that can all be mitigated through more responsible design and care. e cities I looked into that have these same issues could gain from adapting a similar care amongst their respective designers. Washington, D.C. nds this underway and is the best example I could nd of active change within this professional sphere. e dialogue between the people and the developers is a immensely benecial to what the architecture will mean to the people and furthers its longevity if it is something that the people had a hand in managing. Where they fall short, is the architecture lacks the display of the culture of the people. It is clearly for the people by not by the people. Wynwood has such a vast cultural history that could be better used into creating commerce for the residents of Wynwood instead of driving them out and all the money being pocketed by the new land owners. e local view on Wynwood could be more positive if that dialogue was had and even more if it gave back to the community something more than just a better look for Wynwood. What is the point of a better-looking neighborhood if the neighborhood can’t aord the neighborhood? How does investing in this area benet anyone more than the investors? e Janie Poe projects in Sarasota are ne examples in keeping the houses for the people, however the design could be stronger than what it is. Again, creating a culturally signicant architectural form will heighten its sentimental value amongst the people and create a stronger sense of place in their eyes. I think what could the best approach is a combination of all 3 of these approaches: the aordability and exclusivity of the Janie Poe houses by updating the architecture to a modern look while remaining aordable housing, the dialog between the designers and the residents that is seen in the 11th St Bridge Park leading to creating a Land trust
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52 that would not have been created had it not been for asking the question of “What do you want†to the residents, and the cultural signicance and respect to the history of a place that is seen in my project in order to strengthen the identity of an area, increase its longevity, and teaches the histories for generations to come. I know that my design would be stronger and more relevant if I was able to conduct those interviews that I originally planned for, and my project does not redesign the neighborhood, only within the bounds of its site to create a new urban space but it would be a good addition to think of how the neighborhood could by inuenced by the design. Erecting the wrought iron shading posts throughout the neighborhood is simply just a start to what the design could be if diused into the rest of the area but further addressing the surroundings could make for even more interesting designs. Culturally sustainable design is essential these days to create a better tomorrow. Design that seeks to sustain instead replace creates a landscape of history that can be read and learned from if we begin to see its value especially in urban settings. Fig. 45: Gainesville, FL CRA Project Map, 2018 (top) within vicinity to the site, (bottom right) within vicinity to downtown with red dots showing completed projects and blue showing developing proj ects, (bottom le) the jurisdiction of the CRA in gainesville
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Works Cited th Street Bridge Park.†OMA , oma.eu/projects/11th-street-bridgepark. “Aordable Housing: Meeting a Dire Need in Sarasota, Florida | HUD USER .†In dividual Development Accounts: a Vehicle for Low-Income Asset Building and Homeownership | HUD USER , www.huduser.gov/portal/pdredge/ pdr_edge_inpractice_051812.html. Bobick, Ben. “Janie’s Garden Phase III Complete.†SNN TV , 30 July 2016, www. snntv.com/2016/07/27/janies-garden-phase-iii-complete/. “e Design.†11th Street Bridge Park , 4 Sept. 2015, www.bridgepark.org/design. Dictionary.com , Dictionary.com, www.dictionary.com/browse/gentrication. Dubb, Steve. “DC Adopts Community Land Trust Approach to Avert Further Gentrication.†Non Prot News | Nonprot Quarterly , 2 Oct. 2017, non protquarterly.org/2017/10/02/dc-adopts-community-land-trust-ap proach-avert-gentrication/. Greene, Claire Y. “About Philip Simmons.†Philip Simmons Foundation , Inc. http://www.philipsimmons.us/aboutsimmons.html e Fine Print , 5 Aug. 2016, theneprintmag.org/voices-of-porters/. Florida Division of Historical Resources Website, www.heritage.com/preserva tion/markers/map/index.cfm?county=Alachua. “New York City Gentrication Maps and Data.†Governing Magazine: State and Local Government News for America’s Leaders , Governing, www.govern ing.com/gov-data/new-york-gentrication-maps-demographic-data. html. “Harvard University Graduate School of Design.†Artist Je Koons Visits GSD, Breathes New Life into World-Famous Work Harvard Graduate School of Design , www.gsd.harvard.edu/2016/01/student-qa-dana-mckin ney-mupmarch-17/. “Harvard University Graduate School of Design.†Artist Je Koons Visits GSD, Breathes New Life into World-Famous Work Harvard Graduate School of Design , www.gsd.harvard.edu/2016/07/student-portrait-dana-mckin ney-marchmup-17/. 53
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Hinton, Marva. “‘Right To Wynwood’ Documentary Now Available Online.†WLRN , wlrn.org/post/right-wynwood-documentary-now-available-on line. “Janie’s Garden Phase I & II.†Sarasota Housing Authority , sarasotahousing.org/ redevelopment.aspx?section=janie. McKinney, Dana. “OPINION: Design Desperately Needs Social Justice.†Al Jazeera America , 31 May 2015, 2:00AM, america.aljazeera.com/opin ions/2015/5/design-desperately-needs-social-justice.html. MURRAY D. LAURIE Special to the Guardian. Gainesville Sun , Gaines ville Sun, 1 Feb. 2006, www.gainesville.com/article/LK/20060202/ News/604165235/GS/. Pazzanese, Christina. “Harvard Design School Graduate Merges Architecture and Social Justice.†Harvard Gazette , Harvard Gazette, 22 May 2017, news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/04/harvard-design-school-gradu ate-merges-architecture-and-social-justice/. Renzulli, Kerri Anne. Most Expensive Cities to Be a Renter | Money.†Time , Time, 8 Apr. 2016, time.com/money/4287132/most-expensive-cities-torent/. Vlach, John M. e Afro-American Tradition in Decorative Arts: Basketry, Musical Instruments, Wood Carving, Quilting, Pottery, Boatbuilding, Blacksmith ing, Architecture, Graveyard Decoration ; Univ. of Georgia Pr., 1990. “Weekly Briefs: Building Permits, New Water Storage Tank, Newtown Cen tennial.†Cloud View: Kodak Moments Managing Disruptive Change with M&A , archive.constantcontact.com/fs131/1114998960422/ar chive/1117090064815.html. Witzel, Rob C.. “Keeping Alive the Art of the Blacksmith.†Gainesville Sun , Gainesville Sun, 26 Feb. 2006, www.gainesville.com/news/20060226/ keeping-alive-the-art-of-the-blacksmith. 54
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