Urban River Restoration and Enhancement
The Cuyahoga Valley
CUDC Quarterly, 3:2 - Summer, 2003
Joachim Tourbier, MLA
Institute for Landscape Architecture
Dresden University of Technology
The joint course on urban river restoration and enhancement for the Cuyahoga Valley was inspired by Steven Litt’s "Viewpoint" in the summer 2001 issue of the CUDC Quarterly. In this article the architecture and arts critic of The Plain Dealer reasoned that the Cuyahoga Valley should become a model project to explore new techniques for urban river restoration, flood management and soil bio-engineering, as well as environmentally sensitive ways to develop adjacent lands.
Mr. Litt pointed out that the Cuyahoga is famous around the world as the river that caught on fire, an event that helped bring about the the passage of the Clean Water Act in 1972.
I read this article on the UDC’s web site after having met Professor Charles Harker of Kent State, who visited us in Dresden last year. Subsequently, both Professor Harker and I were exploring ways to increase cooperation between the architecture schools at Kent State University and the TU Dresden. Mr. Litt’s reference to the Clean Water Act struck a special chord with me because it so happens that the European Union recently passed a comparable law known as the "Water Framework Directive." I am involved in an EU research project related to this new legislation. Through "Urban River Basin Enhancement Methods," the TU Dresden is working together with 11 institutes in five European countries. Research includes an investigation of how other cities in Europe (inlcuding Lisbon, Zurich, Vienna, Newcastle, Lyon and Hamburg) have succeeded in restoring urban rivers. We’re also looking at such North American examples as Washington and Toronto. The May workshop to define restoration and enhancement options for the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland was an attempt to apply some of what we have learned. Bringing together 11 landscape architecture students from the TU Dresden and 6 architecture students from Kent State, the workshop had four stages.
1: Investigation of Existing Conditions with Input from Local Experts
As a first step, students relied on input from local experts to learn how the catchment area of the river basin influences water quality and flow conditions, how continuous greenways could be laid out along the water’s edge and how adaptive reuse of warehouses and underutilized industrial sites could upgrade the area. Students conducted a survey and investigation of existing conditions along the Cuyahoga River to look at urban features, such as land use, transportation (including use of the river), aesthetic possibilities (including viewpoints and landmarks) and the meaning of specific sites (including historic associations). Natural features investigated included water quality, ecological value and biodiversity, streambanks and riparian vegetation, wetland sites and buried or culverted tributary streams.
2: Selection of Nodes Suitable for Restoration and Enhancement
The concept here was to identify the sites most suitable for restoration. Point treatment, rather like acupuncture, will lead to a more general healing and regeneration of the waterfront. Points of design intervention can become demonstration sites and foci of further renewal and development.
3: Restoration Measures and Design Concepts
Measures and design concepts for restoration and enhancement nodes were selected, using the Functional Site Programming Method, adaptated from William Peña: Problem Seeking – An Architectural Programming Primer. For each of the sites, a matrix was filled out, considering facts about the site, leading first to goals and objectives and problems posed, and then to performance requirements, and measures to resolve problems. The vertical bar of the matrix reflects values people hold and tend to apply in the selection of measures. The unique aspect of this method, as in the example below, is that it obligates designers to consider function and quality of experience, as well as the expressed needs of user groups.
Part of the functional site programming matrix for the ISG westside site
Five teams of architecture and landscape architecture students were formed to define measures and develop conceptual designs for the following regeneration nodes: (1) Flats West Bank, (2) Scranton Peninsula, (3) Scranton Road in Tremont, (4) Standard Oil site/Kingsbury Run, (5) Steel Mill. Consideration of the environment, culture and tradition, aesthetics, economics and other values shown in the matrix led to interesting design concepts.
An example is the recommendation for a derelict site (Team 4) near the Turning Basin of the shipping channel. Here foundations of oil tanks and the confluence of the culverted Kingsbury Run are linked to an abandoned small brick structure on Broadway. The site is turned into a wetland and nature education center. This location is also the place where Standard Oil was begun, and the brick building was the original office of John D. Rockefeller.
Other teams utilized the concept of Schlenzen, as recommended by the International Commission for the Protection of the Elbe River in Central Europe. This technique uses openings in the sheet piling that stabilizes the banks of navigable rivers to create backwaters. Filled with clean rainwater runoff from roofs, these backwaters would provide much-needed resting places for migratory fish as they pass up and down the polluted shipping channel to spawn upstream. For the Steel Mill (Team 5) a visitor center was proposed to communicate the Cleveland heritage of steel- making on the soon-to-be-sold western portion of the plant. Team 3 proposed day- lighting a buried tributary stream in Tremont. Team 2 made proposals to connect a new convention center with a mixed use regeneration process for the Scranton Road Peninsula. Team 1 took development of the Flats further, creating a strong urban fabric and dealing with the impacts of parking and storm runoff.
4: Presentation to Community Representatives
Results of the workshop were presented in a meeting with community representatives. This meeting was open, giving participants an opportunity to interact in follow-up discussions with representatives of government and community activists. The presentation was made suitable for a CD-ROM that is now in preparation for wider distribution, since this workshop was only a step in the planning process necessary to turn the "forgotten valley" from a scar in the community to an attractive asset.
The workshop was a joint summer school in which participating students of the TU Dresden received credits through Professor Tourbier. It also was accredited by the School of Architecture and Environmental Design of Kent State University. Participating instructors from Kent were Jonathan Fleming, Charles Frederick and Steve Rugare.
Left: Professor Charles Frederick describes erosion problems along the Mill Creek tributary. Right: Thanks to the generosity of Key Bank, the students attended a game at Jacobs Field.
The students documented the poetry of the Valley's industrial relics in photos and sketches. Here from the ISG West site, a tree grows from a cart once used to transport molten steel.
