Architecture Commons^™

Re-Live Downtown Pine Bluff, Community Design Center

Project Reports

Once a prosperous cultural urban center in the Mississippi River delta, but now the nation’s second fastest shrinking city, Pine Bluff (population: 42,700) is Arkansas’ Detroit. Indeed, a study of black wealth conducted by famed sociologist W. E. B. Du Bois in 1899 found that Pine Bluff had the fourth highest rate of black wealth in the nation behind Charleston, Richmond, and New York City. The school’s community design center prepared a downtown revitalization plan, Re-Live Downtown Pine Bluff, a housing-first initiative focused on building neighborhoods around downtown “centers of strength”. While the revitalization approach is triaged around a …

Center For Farm And Food System Entrepreneurship, Community Design Center

Project Reports

The average age of the American farmer is 58. Since communities are not reproducing the next generation of farmers, universities are establishing training centers to model new concepts and technologies in farming. The Farmers Training Center is both an immersive program in the rhythms of farm life and a public facility for hosting gatherings that celebrate value-added food products. Part of the University of Arkansas’ farm operations near campus, the center is the public face of agriculture where farmers and the public meet. Student farmers learn by farming, from organic vegetable production in fields and greenhouses, to machine repair, marketing, …

Willow Heights Livability Improvement Plan, Community Design Center

Project Reports

Willow Heights is a 43-year old public housing complex owned by the Fayetteville Housing Authority (FHA) within the federal public housing portfolio administered by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The school’s design center was commissioned by a local foundation to study an alternative to the FHA’s plan to sell the downtown Willow Heights complex to a developer of high-income housing, necessitating relocation of low-income residents to another complex outside of downtown. Using equity as a driver of decision making, the studio introduced scenario planning to organize reluctant stakeholders in considering transformations to the five-acre complex.

New Beginnings Homeless Transition Village, Community Design Center

Project Reports

More than three million Americans experience homelessness annually. Emergency shelter capacity is limited while local governments are unable to provide even temporary housing. Informal housing involving interim self-help solutions are now popular adaptive actions for obtaining shelter despite nonconformance with city codes. Unfortunately, most informal solutions have resulted in objectionable tent cities and squatter campgrounds where the local response has simply been to move the problem around. Our homeless transition village plan prototypes a shelter-first solution using a kit-of-parts that can be replicated in other communities. Village design reconciles key gaps between informal building practices and formal sector regulations, creating …

The Freeman Performing Arts Center, Community Design Center

Project Reports

The Freeman Performing Arts Center marks the threshold between prairie and civic life. This small agricultural community of 1,300 has an outsized Anabaptist music tradition recognized nationally. The 37,000 sf hall-type building unifies a miscellaneous collection of public buildings and landscapes at the southwest corner of the town’s one-mile grid. The center’s massing projects an ascending system of familiar gable roofs, which absorb the fly tower into a composition reflective of pragmatic building forms. The principal face of the building is a translucent curtain wall that illuminates interior massing—a beacon on the prairie. A thru-Porch celebrates transitions between the prairie’s …

Ralph Bunche Agape Neighborhood Vision Plan, Community Design Center

Project Reports

The Ralphe Bunche Neighborhood Vision Plan provides a general design framework to spur reinvestment in this 100-year old historic African-American neighborhood in Benton, AR. The plan aggregates attainable housing (under $100,000/unit) around two neighborhood parks―one existing, and one proposed. Since the city cannot afford comprehensive street and drainage improvements to accommodate redevelopment, the proposal retrofits streets and open space with Low Impact Development (LID) landscapes to remediate urban stormwater runoff. Housing unit types between 1,000 and 1,750 square feet are amassed around these LID landscapes and amenitized with screened rooms, balconies, terraces, and multiple-height living spaces.

Macarthur Park Master Plan, Community Design Center

Project Reports

Like waterfronts and transit stops, parks leverage value in urban areas. While much recent attention has been given to the signature mega-park, the value of the small-scale neighborhood park in reinventing the city has been overlooked. Once connecting neighborhoods of differing character, and sponsoring more than 80 residential structures along its edges, the historic MacArthur Park at the edge of downtown Little Rock is radically underutilized as an urban neighborhood asset. Severed from its neighborhoods along two edges by interstate construction in the 1960s, this moribund 40-acre municipal park is left with only 16 residential structures along its frontage. The …

Porchscapes: Between Neighborhood Watershed And Home, Community Design Center

Project Reports

Located on the Ozark Plateau, this 43-unit housing development is a LEED-ND (Neighborhood Development) pilot project to be built for $60/sf plus $2.3 million in infrastructure costs. The studio objective is to design a demonstration project that combines affordability with best environmental practices as designated by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). Porchscapes is a pioneering Low Impact Development (LID) project funded under the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Section 319 Program for Nonpoint Source Pollution. LID manages stormwater runoff through ecological engineering technologies. A contiguous network of rainwater gardens, bioswales, infiltration trenches, sediment filter strips, green streets, and wet meadows …

The Humane Metropolis: People And Nature In The 21st Century, Rutherford H. Platt

University of Massachusetts Press Books

The Humane Metropolis explores the prospects for a more humane metropolis through a series of essays and case studies that consider why and how urban places can be made greener and more amenable. Its point of departure is the legacy of William H. Whyte (1917-1999), one of America's most admired urban thinkers. From his eyrie high above Manhattan in the offices of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Whyte laid the foundation for today's "smart growth" and "new urbanist" movements with books such as The Last Landscape (1968). His passion for improving the habitability of cities and suburbs is reflected in the …

The Landmarks Of Federal Hill: A Walking Tour Of Federal Hill, Joseph R. Muratore

Joseph Muratore papers: Newspaper Columns

The following are but a few of the many landmarks of Federal Hill, that are deeply rooted with the development of Federal Hill. There are many other notable landmarks on many of the side streets of Federal Hill, connecting Atwells Avenue to Broadway. However, the following are typical of the more prominent landmarks that have endured the elements of time and weather.

The Landmarks Of Federal Hill: "The Broadway-Armory Historic District" (February 28, 1980), Joseph R. Muratore

Joseph Muratore papers: Newspaper Columns

This week we continue with a series of pictures and descriptions of homes along the Broadway-Armory Historic District. These pictures are of the more elaborate and well-designed homes of the outlying district of Federal Hill. These homes indicate the pattern of growth that radiated, on which these dwellings were built. The homes, not only reflect the beauty of the houses that were erected, but also indicate the opulence of the era.

The Landmarks Of Federal Hill: "The Broadway-Armory Historic District" (February 21, 1980), Joseph R. Muratore

Joseph Muratore papers: Newspaper Columns

No abstract provided.

The Landmarks Of Federal Hill: Historical Broadway Armory, Joseph R. Muratore

Joseph Muratore papers: Newspaper Columns

As we mentioned in our previous article, we would give in further detail, the inventory of those structures which are, or have been, proposed to be registered on the National Register of Historic Places, in the Broadway-Armory Historic District. The following is a list of those homes by street names and addresses.

The Landmarks Of Federal Hill: "The Broadway Armory Historic Distinct", Joseph R. Muratore

Joseph Muratore papers: Newspaper Columns

No abstract provided.

The Landmarks Of Federal Hill: "The Development Of Federal Hill", Joseph R. Muratore

Joseph Muratore papers: Newspaper Columns

No abstract provided.

The Landmarks Of Federal Hill: "Connie Mac" Captures The Story Of Federal Hill, In Colorful Paintings (Part Ii), Joseph R. Muratore

Joseph Muratore papers: Newspaper Columns

No abstract provided.

The Landmarks Of Federal Hill: "Connie Mac" Captures The Story Of Federal Hill, In Colorful Paintings, Joseph R. Muratore

Joseph Muratore papers: Newspaper Columns

Connie MacDonald, "Connie Mac," as she has become to be known, a photographic artist from Federal Hill, has captured the Federal Hill story in her paintings.

She has painted many truly colorful and artistic scenes of people, events, occasions and landmarks so vividly that whenever they have been placed on display they have brought back memories for many old enough to remember and for many who were youngsters.

The Landmarks Of Federal Hill: How Federal Hill Was Named, Joseph R. Muratore

Joseph Muratore papers: Newspaper Columns

No abstract provided.

The Landmarks Of Federal Hill: Developmental History Of Our Lady Of Mount Caramel Church, Joseph R. Muratore

Joseph Muratore papers: Newspaper Columns

No abstract provided.

The Landmarks Of Federal Hill: Dedication Ceremony Of Monsignor Carvallaro Plaza, Joseph R. Muratore

Joseph Muratore papers: Newspaper Columns

No abstract provided.

The Landmarks Of Federal Hill: Amos Atwell, Businessman And Leader, Joseph R. Muratore

Joseph Muratore papers: Newspaper Columns

In the 1780's, most of Federal Hill was still open fields - a place for the cows to graze on, overlooking the great salt cove to the north and the east, and there were marshes to the south, (now, South Providence), and the wild open spaces were to the west.

In 1788, Amos Maine Atwell (named after a ancestory who owned the entire Province of Maine) and several other businessmen formed a syndicate (a type of corporation) to improve and develop the West side of the city of Providence.

The Landmarks Of Federal Hill: Federal Hill House "It Holds Many Meanings For Many Persons", Joseph R. Muratore

Joseph Muratore papers: Newspaper Columns

No abstract provided.

Pruitt Homes And Igoe Apartments Public Housing Complex : Final Environmental Impact Statement, United States Department Of Housing And Urban Development, St. Louis Area Office

Books and Monographs

PDF of the Pruitt Homes and Igoe Apartments Public Housing Complex: Final Environmental Impact Statement. HUD report number HUD-RO7-EIS-74-07F Pruitt Homes and Igoe Apartments Public Housing Complex : final environmental impact statement / [prepared for] St. Louis Housing Authority; prepared by St. Louis Area Office, Kansas City Regional Office, U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development.