Rebuilding

Hey everyone! This is my last Action Project for my class Urban Planning. In this unit, we’ve been watching a lot of TED Talks about urban planning, from why our current design ideas aren’t the best, to what people have done and what we can still do. We got to visit Whitney, an interior design firm and got to talk to Itay, both of whom talked to us about how they used urban planning to help them. We’ve also talked about how we can improve places, and our AP is exactly that: choosing an area to improve and making a model of that improved area. 

For my project, I wanted to focus on the street 1053 W Montrose Ave to 1399 W Montrose Ave, but even more specifically, there's an area with an empty lot that can be used to build something great.

The main purpose of this road is to connect residents to other areas in Uptown. Its strength is that the road is thought out and how connected it feels. Some weaknesses are that it’s not the safest if you’re riding a bike, the sidewalk is a bit unsafe, there’s not enough trash cans on the sidewalk, and the closest park for kids is a fair bit away.

This space needs some better bike lanes and cleaner streets. We also need to rebuild the sidewalk, as it’s currently uneven and can be very unsafe. Putting more trash cans alongside the road would allow people to have somewhere to put trash after they’re done with it. There’s also an empty lot we can use to make a park for those kids that live around the area that's open longer. 

 

According to the City Health Dashboard, Chicago has some of the best walkability of a lot of cities (77.4 to the average 41.3), and I would like to agree. However, there are a lot of streets that are kind of old and definitely need to be revamped, as they are not in the best shape. I hope that this redesign I did can help create a better infrastructure.

1053 W Montrose Ave to 1399 W Montrose Ave, AR, 2023

 

Chicago and New York and two inspirations I had in mind. Both are known for their walkability and parks, so I thought to try and emulate that in this little strip of road. 

The Before Sketch, Ar, 2023

 

The After Sketch, AR, 2023

 Model Tour, AR, 2023

For some math:

Swing pole: 110 inches (height)

5 inches (length and width)

110*5*5 = 2750 in^3

Water fountain: 42.5 in (height)

5.5 (radius)

3.1*5.5^2*42.5 = 4036.8625 in^3

SDG 11 is  about making cities more safe and sustainable, and two targets I think relate to my project are 11.2 and 11.7. 11.2 is about safe, affordable and accessible transportation for all, specifically women, children, people with disabilities and older persons. The more defined and protected bike lanes will hopefully not only protect bike riders, but also promote other modes of transit other than driving. 11.7 is about providing safe, accessible, and inclusive green spaces for the target groups listed before. The park I wish to add will not only help provide a place for kids to play after school, but also helps in spreading the idea of plays to play or work out in the surrounding area. 

 

The process of making this project was actually relatively simple. When I went to visit the place I wanted to rebuild, everything sort of came at me. My biggest piece of advice to actually try to go to the place you want to rebuild. It makes a world of difference.

One of the biggest things I got from this project is that making a model is pretty hard. Not just building it, but getting things like the scale right and trying to make it look as good as possible. If I had to do this project again, I'd definitely would try a different way of making a model, maybe something like Blender would be interesting to test out.