How can critical urban interventions create a sense of a coherent whole?
2010-2011 | west bottoms vision study
Although a point of origin for Kansas City, the West Bottoms has been subsequently abandoned as the city moved to higher ground away from the flood plane leading to its transformation into industrial zone characterized with a remarkable historic building stock. The purpose of this urban vision proposal was to reorganize the fragmented urban fabric into a coherent whole, and reconnect and better integrate the entire West Bottoms area into larger the urban context of two different city municipalities, and the downtown in particular. The project consists of a series of ‘critical interventions’ aimed at instigating catalytic change: reconnecting city to the river and its geography, rethinking and repurposing pervasive infrastructural space, bioremediating contaminated land, and in doing so creating an unconventional urban mixed-use redevelopment model that preserves and enhances the original identity of the place.
For more information on this project, please see our publications listed below.
Digital Publication
Reframing the City: A Vision for the West Bottoms
Final Project Publication
(also available for purchase in print)
Part 1 | Part 2
Process
Preliminary Project Publications
Urban Design Precedents | Analysis | Programming | Fall Design
