Moving towards a sustainable future, the way we live, work, and play are going to change. demand for instant services will become a mainstay, autonomous vehicles will reduce parking and traffic loads in our cities. people will be flooding to cities creating a need for high density, not just in terms of living, but with access to the shifting list of essentials of everyday urban life. Addressing Philadelphia through future infrastructural solutions;
simplifying connections within the city and reclaims lost land from heavily imposed systems. Pushing Vine street expressway and Interstate-95 underground removes 3.5 miles of undevelopable infrastructure from the surface. This land is ripe for development as it is falsely dynamic. It is the largest, most static divider coursing within the city. As these sites are freed, it becomes evident that, especially at their intersection, they have the ability to host a new economy, population, environment and infrastructure.
simplifying connections within the city and reclaims lost land from heavily imposed systems. Pushing Vine street expressway and Interstate-95 underground removes 3.5 miles of undevelopable infrastructure from the surface. This land is ripe for development as it is falsely dynamic. It is the largest, most static divider coursing within the city. As these sites are freed, it becomes evident that, especially at their intersection, they have the ability to host a new economy, population, environment and infrastructure.
The capping of the vine street expressway, extending from the Schuylkill River to the Delaware River, allows for the connection of Independence Hall to the Museum of Art and further to the Fairmount Park System, the largest urban park system in the united states. The sectional displacement of soil along this long transect, caused by burying the highways, creates hills in the form of a new park along vine street. The rolling topography is organized by a meandering pedestrian path and intersected by a stream lined elevated bicycle path. This means where the most current infrastructure must be rerouted underground, there are large amounts of soil displaced above ground intersecting with the bike path, at a regulated height of 30 feet from the Reading Viaduct. These new spliced displacements are fertile for growth and development. The new land has a prime location within a newly developed district to host a rotating tourist population and a permanent/semi-permanent residence population looking to work in close proximity to their home within the city. People need food to live and an influx of a new growing population supports the need to develop urban farming. Addressing several population types, a market and restaurant system is embedded within the spliced and displaced hills as well as food and plant laboratories.
