Cleveland Metroparks: 2020 Urban Design Charrette

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:

2020 CUDC Community Design Charrette - Final Presentation from ksuCUDC

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!

Design Charrette: PARKS IN A PANDEMIC

Every year, the CUDC conducts a community design charrette with graduate students from Kent State's College of Architecture and Environmental Design. The charrette is a three or four day workshop with a public sector partner to generate fresh design ideas in response to a local challenge. Typically, the charrette takes place in a community outside of Cleveland, but we can't travel this year due to COVID-19.  Instead, this year's charrette will be held in Cleveland, in partnership with the Cleveland Metroparks, exploring opportunities for retrofitting public spaces to allow for social distance.

The charrette will take place from Friday, October 2nd through Sunday, October 4th with a final evening presentation on Monday, October 5th. Focusing on Brookside Reservation, located along Big Creek between the Brooklyn Centre, Stockyards, and Old Brooklyn neighborhoods, the students will generate small- and large-scale ideas and work with neighborhood partners to reimagine local park spaces.

Brookside is adjacent to the planned Brighton Park and trail extensions to the Towpath Trail - what opportunities do these larger networks bring to address social inequities and accessibility within Cleveland? In an uncertain future, how can we (re)design public spaces to be flexible and accessible, while also accommodating necessary social distance?

During the charrette weekend, we will explore the following questions:

• Can public spaces be quickly retrofitted to allow for a wide range of scenarios?

• How can parks allow for social interactions and attract new users, while maintaining 6’ distance?

• How do pedestrians and bicyclists connect to the park system and how can the city street network facilitate these connections?

• How can parks be safe places for all city residents, especially those most in need?

• And how can we use this moment of fluctuating human use to emphasize and accommodate larger ecological functions?

Plans to connect Brookside Reservation to the larger Towpath Trail & regional park network through the new Brighton Park

The Metroparks site and its larger neighborhood connections provide an opportunity to study Cleveland’s public spaces, and generate spatial and programmatic ideas that provide flexible alternatives for future use. Visit the Brookside2020 website for details about how to participate.

Domino Park, Brooklyn, NY: social distancing circles. [img: Marcella Winograd]