Archinect - News

Studio Gang, SCAPE complete work on transformative $61 million Tom Lee Park in Memphis

2023-11-06T15:35:00-05:00

Studio Gang and SCAPE have shared new photos following the completion of work on their $61 million Tom Lee Park redevelopment project in Memphis, Tennessee.

The 31-acre riverfront space puts Memphis squarely in league with a host of contemporary restorative urban green space projects slated for other major American cities, including San Francisco's new Presidio Tunnel Tops and the partially completed Freshkills Park in Staten Island.

Its ecological restoration work and accessibility to the residents of one of the city’s most impoverished neighborhoods make it an instant industry standard-bearer. The project creates a connection between downtown and the Mississippi River, also providing new ADA-approved access at three different points for the first time.

Image © Tom Harris

Studio head Jeanne Gang says: “Insights and input from the Memphis community were essential to this project from the very beginning, to make sure the park’s programming reflects how Memphians from across the city ...

Studio Gang and SCAPE partner for Memphis riverfront park

2020-05-27T16:33:00-04:00

A proposal for the Memphis River Parks Partnership's Studio Gang- and SCAPE-designed waterfront park in Memphis has taken a step forward as the firms present their latest visions for the 30-acre project site.

Site plan.

Following years of design and community engagement, the semi-final design of Tom Lee Park includes a collection of discretely programmed landscaped areas designed alternately to accommodate human needs alongside those of the mighty Mississippi River.

The park's central gathering areas.

The northernmost section of the park connects to Memphis's Beale Street and to a forthcoming downtown art museum, while central portions are geared more toward neighboring community use.

An interior view of the Civic Canopy.

Here, a "Civic Canopy" offers a large, flat expanse for public gatherings and events. A central forested overlook provides shade as well as a promontory from which to see the river and the city in an adjacent area .

View of the nature overlook zone at the southern ...

Activating vacant land: a conversation about Detroit's potential and challenges

2018-07-13T15:34:00-04:00

Maurice Cox grew up in Brooklyn, a borough whose name has since become a global shorthand for gentrification. An urban designer, architectural educator, and former mayor of the City of Charlottesville, VA, in 2015 Cox became head of the planning department of Detroit, where he hopes to prevent the forces that have reshaped his childhood home from taking over the Motor City. [...] Cox is using design to catalyze growth that’s incremental and closely in line with the city’s strong sense of self.

Urban Omnibus presents an insightful conversation between Maurice Cox, Director of Planning and Development for the City of Detroit, and Marc Norman, founder of the consulting firm “Ideas and Action” and Associate Professor of Practice at UMich's Taubman School of Architecture and Urban Planning. Discussed issues range from tactical preservation, vacant land as asset, smooth growth, gentrification, and preserving Black spaces:

Detroit still has capacity for a population of 1.8 million, and we’re at less than 700,000. So part of our challenge is, how to prevent buildings turning into blight, to the point of having to demolish them?

On the other hand, if it does make sense to tear some things down, what do we put in their place? The architect’s mindset is often that the only thing that can replace a structure is another structure. But in Detroit, that makes no sense financially; it makes no sense in terms of the population. So we have to turn to other disciplines for an answer.

That’s...

62-acre site along Chicago River to be developed with potential for Amazon's HQ2

2018-05-14T15:13:00-04:00

A hardscrabble half-mile stretch along the Chicago River's South Branch would become a vibrant neighborhood of cutting-edge architecture, parks and a riverwalk in the plans a developer unveiled Thursday for the last big piece of empty land near downtown. Developer Related Midwest plans a transformation of the vacant, relatively isolated 62-acre site into a vibrant neighborhood of homes, restaurants, cultural institutions and businesses...

The currently undeveloped site along Chicago's river has been named "The 78", declaring its scale large enough to add to the city's official number of 77 neighborhoods. The site is also rumored to be a contender for Amazon's HQ2 if the city is chosen, which would require reworking current plans.

Current 62-acre riverfront site in Chicago. Image: Mark Segal/Related Midwest.

Plans for the massive development include 13 million square feet of building space for residential, office, educational and other uses. 12 acres would be dedicated to parkland or public riverwalk with a performance venue. Related Midwest stated that affordable housing was an important part of its housing development.

Rendering of the education hub and riverwalk. Image: Related Midwest.

The new site would also extend three existing city streets through the property to create through routes for bikes. A metro stop would be added to the Red Line, as well as potentially adding a Water Taxi stop.

...

Studio Gang releases design for Memphis Riverfront Concept

2017-07-18T19:19:00-04:00

Shaped from survey responses from over 4,500 Memphians at multiple public events, The Memphis Riverfront Concept proposes to transform six miles and five distinct zones of the historic and culturally significant part of the city.

Many of the Concept’s proposed uses, from an iconic adventure playground to a special outlook where people can listen to live music at sunset, come directly from community members’ suggestions.

With hopes of increasing the riverfront’s use, vibrancy, and economic potential, the project seeks to foster civic pride, restore natural conditions and the native ecology, and connect various assets along the river.

The Concept focuses on showing how five zones—the Fourth Bluff, Mud Island, Tom Lee Park, MLK Park, and Greenbelt Park—can leverage their particular strengths to become distinctive places offering activities and experiences that appeal to people of all generations, incomes, races, and backgrounds.

Elevating visitors above the river in Greenbelt Park,...

Aerial cable cars proposed for Chicago

2016-05-05T21:03:00-04:00

London Eye designers Marks Barfield Architects and Davis Brody Bond have created a new aerial cable car for Chicago. The plans, which are being sponsored by Lou Raizin and Laurence Geller CBE, have yet to gain approval from any official city agency, but in the meantime here are a few renderings of the gleaming cars gliding to and fro across the cityscape:

By cruising over the Navy Pier, the Chicago Lakefront, the Riverwalk running alongside the Chicago River, and downtown Chicago, the cable cars would "showcase an aerial vista of Chicago and its architectural heritage to the eyes of the world." The full video can be seen at the 26:42 mark of this much longer tourism presentation spiel: