[historical context]

By simply looking around the city of Syracuse, it's blatantly obvious that there is an immense amount of history rooted in our great city. The beautiful historic architecture that can be found on every street downtown offers a glimpse into its thriving past--the days when the trains and trolleys ruled the streets. One can witness the ghosts of extravagant theaters and movie houses, robust department stores, elegant hotels, and significant civic buildings, as many still exist today. Some still serve their same purposes, while others have been adapted to new uses, yet sadly a good number of the most magnificent pieces of architecture have been relentlessly torn down.

In the years before the railroad lines through Syracuse were elevated (to where 690 runs today), the rail line used to run east-west along Washington St. right through the heart of the city. The Washington Street site was the home to relatively large rail yard to accommodate the adjacent train station--a beautiful romanesque building occupying the northwest corner of Fayette and Franklin. The station was tragically demolished not long after the tracks were raised above the levels of the street, and now we have only the photographs to remember its glorious past.

I wanted to capture some bit of this past, allowing it to influence my design. Dennis Connors of the OHA brought it to our attention that, although the the station has been razed, the underground connecting tunnel still exists under the site since it has remained a parking lot ever since. "It had a mosaic tile floor, an arched ceiling of Gaustavina tile and walls of white enameled brick imported from England." This was an amazing surprise to stumble across, and I want to somehow showcase this surviving bit of history.
Also, I used the notion of all the activity coming and going from the station as a starting point for my concepts, which I'll detail in my next post.

Stick with me; there is little more than a week until I pitch my design to Michael, so I think I'm going to be debuting all my fancy renderings and drawings around the same time. In the meantime, I'm going to fill in my background process and set you up to be wowed and amazed. Or so is my goal.

[creek parks]

A park is a vital component of urban livelyhood: They offer a place of gathering, a place of recreation, a place of solitude. Syracuse has a multitude of parks, from big to small, some beautiful, some in need of repair, many brimming with life in the warms weather, others completely underutilized.

Onondaga Creek, while rather inaccessable in itself, has a good number of parks along its banks. Well...a good number through the Valley and the South Side, but between there and the Inner Harbor, there is a great dirth through the most urban areas of the city. The diagram to the left tries to exemplify this [the orange pieces are the 2 building sites], hopefully well.

My design seeks to help this situation--the lack of parkland attached to the creek [and the future creekwalk]--by incorporating some greenspace both on the ground, and on the roof tops of the buildings. Might I reccomend tossing the frisbee around on the ground rather than the roof--the wind can carry those suckers pretty far.

More to come soon.

[sophisticated contemporary design]

In a recent comment, a request had been posted calling for a "sophisticated contemporary design." I wanted to give a quick response to this, noting that my design is defintely going to be something different than the existing surrounding fabric [which actually is mostly open space and parking lots]. Much thought has been put into my concepts and designs [and much more thought ensues as it evolves] in order to come up with something completely new and unique for Syracuse. It's not going to be anything like the bland, overbearing architecture of the 60s and 70s in the city; rather, it's going to be a fresh new look--or potentially even catagorized as a new style, as the way the building is used is completely different than anything in the area.

As I whet your appetite, I should mention that likely this coming week I shall be unveiling my designs as they stand now. Keep in mind, they are not the final versions and will continue to develop over the next few weeks. Our final pitches to the developer will take place right before Thanksgiving...

[urban vitality]

Urban vitality is characterized not only by visiting pedestrians roaming the streets, but also by the people who occupy the buildings--living, working, and palying within, and without, their walls. It's the people who live downtown, the people who eat there, the people who shop explore there, the people who interact and socialize there, the people who persue their latest adventures there.

Imagine yourself having just moved into a new apartment/loft downtown [unless you already live downtown, then no imagining is required]. If you could have anything at your fingertips, within walking distance of your downtown living space, what would that be? What is downtown missing [you're not allowed to say parking]? What amenities would you want & need? Your dreams and desires could be as basic as a grocery store to something as far-fetched as urban bungee-jumping. Don't hold back; with this project, anything has potential to become reality.

[emerging from a parking lot]

Sitting just west and north of armory square, two vacant lots [highlighted in orange] are currently being used for parking. Some may argue that this is exactly the use the plots should remain serving, as parking is a high-demand commodity in the downtown core. Indeed, parking is needed to allow people from the suburbs to visit and interact with the city, yet the apparent parking shortage is merely a false perception. More land downtown is actually used for parking cars than is occupied by buildings for people. The reason parking is such a big issue could be any number of sources--public transportation is underutilized as its scheduling is inconveniet while the car allows a greater range and punctuality; there is an apparent need to park as close as possible to the destination, rather than stroll for a few blocks [partly due to weather, but moreso due to the suburban strip malls that have trained us in this manner]; the actual downtown population isn't very great, so few people live within walking distance of work and amenities; most garages, while appropriately densifying parking spaces, are more pricey than their open-lot counterparts. Not all these problems can be addressed in a cure-all project, but my current design work is attempting to tackle some of these issues, among others.

Sure the project may not be able to replace all the parking it consumes, but it will add so much more benefit to the area than its cost in parking spaces. Actually two buildings [one on each site], the program [an architectural term that basically means the uses of a building] will be mixed use in nature, expanding and adding to the existing vibrancy of adjacent Armory Square. Striving to create another pocket of 24 hour vibrancy hinging on the Warehouse [highlighted in yellow], housing--both market rate, and affordable student--office space and retail space are the staples of such an endeavor. The design shall accomodate not only these uses though; any number of additional programmatic elements can be inserted and created--bowling alley, movie theater, botanical gardens, rockcliming, etc...I'm still wrestling with all the possibilities.

[zoning]

Before we were really even told what it is exactly that we are to be designing (besides the obvious fact that it's a building), we were expected to understand any and all possibilites on the sites. A classmate and I set out to city hall so we could collect the zoning information about the two parcels. The documents were far more concise than I had anticipated, at about 4 pages each. It didn't take much reading to learn that the southern site [to the right of the picture] is zoned as mixed use, allows 100% buildable area, and has a height restriction of 12 stories if certain premiums are met. The northern site [to the left of the picture] is a different story. Not specifically listed as mixed use, an obvious combination of housing, office, and retail was not regarded as the main use, at least according to the zoning department; although, it could be interpreted to allow for such. Instead of a height restriction, it has what is known as a Floor Area Ratio (FAR), and only allows 70% of the site to be built up. The FAR essentially allows a certain number of square footage (multiple times the overall site square footage) to be configured in any way possible. My diagram above shows how the height can increase as the floorplates get smaller--each piece is a 10% reduction in the overall site coverage. The other site is massed showing its 12 story maximum.

This is all a bit technical--necessities to take into account when desinging a building. Don't worry; it gets far more interesting during the actual design process.

[a reason]

If you are not yet aware of this, it will not take you long to realize--I have an immense [perhaps sometimes overboard] passion for the city of Syracuse. I was born here; I grew up here; I live here; I am being educated here. The city has provided me with a forum of interaction, a place to form a wealth of experiences. I am as equally enamored with the wonderful existing urban fabric of Syracuse as I am alarmed by its current apparent state of despair. I can sense, and see, the amazing potential that the city and region is poised on the edge of--just waiting for a little push, for some people to stir things up a bit, for the dialogue to become concrete action.

This blog can become an ongoing discussion and deliberation among all of us who wish to put our hands on the theoretical back of the city and give it that slight nudge into a context of prosperity. While still in school [studying architecture], it may sound overly ambitious that I want to become a catalyst for the ongoing revitilization of Syracuse, but I am already immersing myself in this process. I am working in a design studio at the Warehouse, conceptualizing a mixed-use development on the western edge of downtown, near Armory Square, that not only has the potential to be built, but also will help to infuse another corner of the city with a 24-hour presence. I'm becoming ever-more involved with AdaptCNY [an off-shoot of 40 Below] and their efforts to restore the splendor of the Wilson Building in the heart of downtown. Some friends and I are even formulating a creative live/work/play endeavor we look forward to undertake within the next few years, downtown.

I realize there are a lot of I's above, but I don't intend for it to remain this way. Sure I'm using this blog as a showcase for my work as it trickles onto these pages, but I want you to critique it, to propose your own ideas, to start a discussion around this all. I want you to become as much as force behind positive change as all of us participating in this dialogue strive to become. Lets become a driving force behind a new vibrancy in the city of Syracuse.