Infrastructure Adaptation

This topical project focused on four transportation infrastructures as keystones for urban design. The project aggregated built port, river, rail, and road infrastructure reuse and co-use projects in order to understand the outsized social, environmental, and economic impacts that these linear systems have had relative to their acreage. We are in a moment when densification and urban livability is important for reduced energy use, yet public funding for urban amenities like parks and alternative transportation in the U.S. is paltry. A review of 400 international projects with varied funding mechanisms and partnerships demonstrate creative uses for urban land that leverage co-benefits like climate change adaptation, carbon mitigation, strengthening community bonds, increased health outcomes, no-carbon transportation, urban cooling, low-impact stormwater management, and community development by pairing natural and nature-based solutions (NNBS) with transportation corridors. In addition, the project distilled the five main strategies employed, ways cities have built from the project to the network, and documents lessons learned about greening, gentrification, displacement, and community process. The project was funded in part by the Landscape Architecture Foundation and extends SWA’s work on infrastructure.

RESEARCH TEAM

Principal Investigator: Anya Domlesky, Director of Research, SWA
Emily Schlickman, Associate, SWA
Jonah Susskind, Research Associate, SWA
Gerdo Aquino, CEO, SWA
Ying-yu Hung, Managing Principal, SWA
Esther (Xuezhen) Xie, XL Lab intern, SWA
Haoyu Zhao, XL Lab intern, SWA
Hillary DeWildt, , XL Lab intern, SWA
Louisa Kennett, XL Lab intern, SWA
Maria Ulloa, XL Lab intern, SWA
Slide Kelly, XL Lab intern, SWA
Xinlei Gu, XL Lab intern, SWA
Sydnie (Xinyi) Zhang, XL Lab intern, SWA
Kapp Singer, intern, SWA
Amanda Ton, Landscape Designer, SWA
Michael Siu, SWA
Yaxin Cao, Landscape Designer, SWA
Elvis Wong, Associate, SWA

THANKS TO

The Landscape Architecture Foundation (LAF)
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Grants for Arts Projects
BSA Space
Catherine Nagel, City Parks Alliance
Anne Olson, Buffalo Bayou Partnership
Asima Jansveld, The High Line Network
Marie Law Adams and Dan Adams, Landing Studio
Yuxiang Luo, James Lima JLP+D
Ben Helphand, Friends of Bloomingdale Trail
Meghan Injaychock, Atlanta Beltline, Inc
Lynnette Reid, Atlanta Beltline, Inc
Philip Hiatt Haigh, Circuit Trail Conservancy
Michelle Woods, City of Chicago
Marc Boutin, MBAC
Rahid Cornejo, Bergen Arches Preservation Coalition
Terry Savage, formerly National Park Service
Rebecca Popowsky, OLIN
Adam Novack, Waterfront Toronto
Vince Tam, HNTB
Lucinda Sanders, OLIN
Laura Solano, MVVA
Candace Damon, HR&A
Christopher Ng-Hardy, Sasaki
Matt Arn, USDA Forest Service
Bill Browning, Terrapin Bright Green
Kona Gray, ASLA
Meg Calkins, NC State University
Kimberly Garza, Atlas Lab
James LaGro, Jr., University of Wisconsin-Madison
Harriett Jameson Brooks, City of Nashville
Jennifer Reut, Landscape Architecture Magazine
John Davis, Ohio State University
Alma Du Solier, Nick Jabs, Gary Sorge, Samantha Solano and the rest of the LAF Board of Directors
All survey respondents
Brad Howe, SCAPE
Aaron Hernandez, Reed Hilderbrand
David Buckley Borden, University of Oregon and Oregon State University
Amy Whitesides, Harvard University
Forbes Lipschitz, Ohio State University
Danika Cooper, University of California, Berkeley
Michele Richmond, Weber Thompson
Cali Pfaff, Design Workshop
Tom Balsley, SWA/Balsley
Drew Watkins, Natalia Beard, Joe Runco, Chuck McDaniel, Scott McCready, Shuyi Chang, Xiao Zheng, Hui-Li Lee, René Bihan, Peiwen Yu, Daniel Cunningham, Kerri da Silva, Masako Ikegami, Kristen Taylor, Jeremy Klemic, Todd Strawn, SWA

FEATURED

The Landscape Architecture Foundation Innovation + Leadership Symposium
Infrastructure, Rescripted: The Public Realm on a Mass Scale

Urban Land Magazine
Infrastructure Adaptation: A Robust City-Building Tool

ASLA Conference on Landscape Architecture
Landscape Architects in the Expanded Field: Lessons from Working with Infrastructure

ACSA Annual Meeting, Disrupters on the Edge
“Infrastructure, America’s De Facto Urban Design”

AIA/ACSA Intersections Research Conference
“Infrastructure Corridors: Leveraging Linear Systems for Public Life”

Fábos Conference on Landscape and Greenway Planning
Alias Greenway: What’s in a Name?

National Planning Conference
“Growing Your City Open Space First”

The Urban Land Institute (ULI) Spring Meeting
“Infrastructure Adaptation: Opportunity Space for Multi-benefit Public Use”

The Ohio State University, Knowlton School Baumer Lecture Series
Public Works: Infrastructure Rescripted for Life

Cornell University, College of Architecture, Art, and Planning

City Parks Alliance Greater Greener Conference. Park Lab
“Opportunity Time: Windows for Funding Public Space Creation”

High Line Network Symposium: Forward Spaces
“Infrastructure Investment & Social Inequity”

American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting
“Post-industrial to Post-infrastructural: Networks Over Parcels for Impactful Urban Change”

University of Toronto, John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design, Department of Architecture

SWA’s 10 Point Approach to Infrastructure

FINDINGS

Infrastructure Adaptation book (forthcoming)

Infrastructure Adaptation