On October 2-5 the CUDC staff and ten Kent State CAED graduate students spent a full weekend in our own backyard, examining the Cleveland Metroparks sites of Brookside Reservation and the nearby Brighton Park and proposing design ideas for our parks & public spaces during a global pandemic.
After an outdoor site tour with the Metroparks, Western Reserve Land Conservancy, Big Creek Connects, and the City of Cleveland, the team got to work. Across the course of the weekend, the design team identified the following four goals for the project:
FLEXIBILITY: Create a toolkit of design ideas that can be deployed and reconfigured for a variety of futures
CONTINUITY: Link the Parks into a larger system, including filling “the gaps” as needed
GREENING: Extend the Parks into their neighborhoods & incorporate ecological best practices
ACCESSIBILITY: Create unique points of access, inviting exploration from a wide range of users
Brighton Park gateway concept (Kaitlyn Boniecki)
Wayfinding/public art ideas incorporating all-ages engagement (Kaitlyn Boniecki)
Neighborhood “back door” entry concept (Abby Lawless)
Brighton Park landscaping & natural play elements (Abby Lawless)
Treadway Creek Trail entry concept (Erika Chmielewski)
Wildlife Way/Old Brooklyn neighborhood connections (TyJuan Swanson-Sawyer)
The final work spanned terrain from the Cuyahoga River Valley via the Towpath Trail, the Old Brooklyn neighborhood, the newly-constructed Brighton Park, the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, and the Brookside Reservation, with particular emphasis on strengthening connections from the park system to surrounding neighborhoods. Students also included considerations for neighborhood gateways, trail design, wayfinding, four-season use, pop-up programming, stormwater management, and streetscape redesign.
Pearl Rd/Brighton Park development, incorporating complete & green streetscapes (Alan O’Connell)
Stormwater management throughout Brookside Reservation (James Sasser)
Big Creek access (James Sasser)
Birdseye of Brookside with final design ideas (Clayton O’Dell)
The student ideas are being compiled into a final toolkit, to be posted & distributed soon to our project website, so check back there for more soon. In the meantime, you can check out the final presentation here:
Thanks again to our partners at the Cleveland Metroparks for hosting a great charrette, and special thanks to Kent State CAED, Old Brooklyn CDC, NAIOP Northern Ohio, and Robert Mastriana/4M Company LLC for supporting the charrette. And kudos to our stalwart students for their strong & creative work!