WPA 2.0 Winners

[post corrected on 12.13.09]

I have been remiss in posting about the WPA 2.0 competition beyond this initial post way back when... it's been exciting to see both the professional and student awards coming together into a fabulous compilation on information on the reinvention of public infrastructure. So alas, it was time to capture at least a portion of the great ideas that came from the submittals.



Carbon T.A.P // Tunnel Algae Park
The grand prize winner of the competition was: "... the brainchild of PORT architects Andrew Moddrell and Christopher Marcinkoski of Chicago and New York. The proposal uses algae pontoons to capture mobile-source carbon-dioxide emissions along New York City’s transportation arteries and employ them in bio-fuel production, creating an urban park with structured wetlands, aquatic and avian habitat, recreation amenities, as well as high speed bike lanes and public promenades. The jury... was unanimous in its decision, citing two primary qualities: The floating, carbon-capturing bridge between Brooklyn and Manhattan would be a visible marker for the tunnel hidden below, and the periodic rotation of the parkway across the river had the power to reshape the image of the city."




:: images via Bustler

There is also a video of the winner here:



The remainder of the finalists are captured on the WPA site (provided by competition sponsor cityLAB), from this post on Bustler. The other five finalist entries are found below:

HYDRO-GENIC CITY, 2020
"Through the development of integrated, ecologically sensitive, and aesthetically compelling architecture, this proposal seeks to turn the often mechanistic infrastructural system of LA - in this case, the waterworks - into an interactive and sensory series of public nodes. As mist platforms/light rail stations, urban beaches, energy producing water treatment plants, solar-panel encased water towers, pools, and aquatic parking lots, these water-based landscapes become organizational moments for community building."




:: images via Bustler

Local Code / Real Estates
"Tapping into the Department of Public Works catalogue of San Francisco's "unaccepted streets" (those no longer maintained by the city and hence neglected and often impassable), this proposal utilizes various computer models and statistical data to determine and propose new public, park-based uses for these interstitial spaces. Over 1600 of these sites are available, a selection of which are analyzed for the proposal in terms of elevation and topography, microclimate, soil type, hydrology, population density and demographics, economics, crime, and existing networks to determine the most parametrically appropriate transformation of use."




:: images via Bustler

Coupling Infrastructures: Water Economies/Ecologies
"This proposal focuses on America’s impending water crisis, particularly in cities in the southwest where growth is high and water availability is limited, by rethinking water use, distribution, and storage. Using the Salton Sea as a model site, the proposal envisions “converting the Sea back to its recreational use while allowing multiple economic opportunities for the production of water, salt, and more efficient greenhouses.” Here “infrastructure [becomes] an extension of nature.” Island pods provide for salt harvesting, recreation, and new animal habitats."




:: images via Bustler

Border Wall as Infrastructure
“[T]here exists far more potential in a construction project that is estimated to cost up to $1,325.75 per linear foot.” Recognizing the high cost, limited effectiveness and unintended natural consequences of the new, multi-layered US/Mexico border wall (disruption of animal habitats, diversion of water runoff that has caused new flooding in nearby towns), this proposal names 30 alternatives (covering nearly the whole of the Mexican alphabet, literally from Aqueduct wall to Zen wall) that might better combat the energy crisis, risk of death from dehydration, disruption of animal habitat, loss of vegetation, negative labor relations, missing creative vision and lack of cross-cultural appreciation likely in the government sponsored version."




:: images via Bustler

1,000,000,000 Global Water Refugees
"Combining the rust belts’ loss of population with its abundance of fresh water, this proposal outlines a strategy for redensification of under-utilized post-industrial landscapes (parts of Milwaukee, Buffalo, Detroit, Chicago, and Cleveland) by relocating populations threatened by water scarcity."




:: images via Bustler

Urban Farming Video

The illustrious Will Allen, via City Farmer:

Urban Crude

One the most fascinating passages of the book 'The Infrastructural City' was the chapter on oil production that still existed in a variety of forms throughout the urban form. The fabulous Center for Land Use Interpretation (CLUI) has done some investigations, which are captured on a post in the Places portion of the Design Observer site.


:: image via Places

"Los Angeles is the most urban oil field, where the industry operates in cracks, corners, and edges, hidden behind fences, and camouflaged into architecture, pulling oil out from under our feet. . . . Los Angeles is an active laboratory for how to extract oil from a developed city, something more likely to occur as the world urbanizes. Generally considered unsightly, dirty, and smelly, the oil industry has had to develop defenses against the rising value of the land and the encroachment of housing and retail. Sound muffling technology, visual barriers, and the concentration of wells into smaller areas, using directional drilling techniques to access fields through diagonal and horizontal wells, are all technologies developed here."

One aspect beyond the mere existence of these in the city, but also interesting was the methods of hiding this infrastructure within the urban form. One of these is the Venoco Oil Field Tower, which is "...an urban drilling and work-over tower is clad in soundproof insulation, decorated during the permitting process".


:: image via Places

Or the Breitburn Energy’s Cardiff Well Site which has the "...drilling and work-over derrick is concealed within a tower which vaguely alludes to synagogue architecture."


:: image via Places

A slideshow offers many more images in typical CLUI style. It brings to mind the ideas mentioned in the recent post on Subnature, where we want the pure urbanism, but are often forced to incorporate some of the messiness of natural resources and industrialism in our cities - and what that leads us to come up with for ideas.