prelim. diagram

Got kind of bored with research earlier this week and did a small diagram (only a progress). Basically, my research and thoughts up to this point have led me to the thought that the physical size of downtown is just too large for what is actually there, so a more focused effort of development must be looked at. Primarily, I am looking at the river as a unifying theme (so far). The diagrams intent is to look at the east side of the river as being the core of downtown.

Research Paper

I will be posting a short paper on the initial research for C-bus - looking at some basic info. from past masterplans (specifially the Ponte Plans) which deal with pedestrian experience and circulation. Additionally, I am still tring to contact MSI for some info on the campus green proposals.

Scavenger Hunt

The scavenger hunt is being sent out on Monday morning to ten of my friends (five male - five female). The intent is to get a general opinion from individuals uninvolved in the thesis process and find out what there opinions are on the urban and suburban environments. The individuals selected all have varing careers, lawyer, police officer, minister to stay at home mom, all of which have no architectural background the one requirement agreed upon by both Herb and Denise. The brief attached below describes the intent of the "scavenger hunt" and the basic boundary set up for downtown C-bus.

Research Info.

This is more or less going to be a progress post for the research component of Columbus and past masterplanning (some images and brief amount of text). Most of the time was spent looking for material on past masterplans of Columbus, which surprisingly, there is a lot of past plans that were done. Some of the more plans I am going to spend time looking at this next week are the Ponte Plans (by Vincent Ponte - who did Montreal's Plans), the 1992 Comprehensive Plan and the 190(?) beautification plan. I also did find some recent work on the streetscapes of downtown, which address pedestrian issues.
Naturally, the city spent the money to do the research and after briefly looking at the proposals, nothing has been implemented.
The Ponte Plans and the Comprehensive Plan of '92, look like they will be the most useful of the plans, they address issues that I am interested in exploring (i.e. circulation, retail, districts, residential, etc.). I am also going to try and meet up with Michael sometime this week to also get some input on his thoughts on my findings and assesments of the masterplans. The culmination of the research will be a short paper addressing the content found within the documents.
First Image: Outline of Columbus in 1950:

Columbus in 1990:

Columbus Neighborhoods:

Neighborhood Prototypes:

Columbus Recreation Areas:

Discussion with Michael Wilkos

So after speaking with Denise this evening, we both agreed that I should outline the discussion I had with Michael Wilkos (recently worked at Capitol South - worked on the master plan from 1992) - who is serving as an advisor for the urban planning portion of the project. The main parts of the discussion will be broken down to bullet points - items that I will be looking at in the coming weeks:

History of Masterplanning in Columbus:
-57 master plans have been done for Columbus
-The first masterplan was done in 1908 - focused on the beautification of Columbus
-Ponte Plans (1970's): done by the French architect/urbn planner - composed of a series of four plans focusing on different aspects of the C-bus
-1987 Strategic Plan
-1992 Comprehensive Plan: serves as the most recent and comprehensive plan city has commissioned.
Transportation:
-Vohn Roll (spelling??): Swiss company interested in transportation - monorail system (i.e. Simpsons episode where Homer is the conductor of the monorail that is above the street)
-Streetcar: streetcar proposal for High St.
-Central transportation terminal - for train, Cota, Greyhound, taxi, etc.
Cultural Center:
-Museum of Art: future expansion or moving, by moving Columbus College of Art and Design could take over the site
-Columbus State: future expansion, dorms (non currently)?, green space can be connected to CCAD
CCAD: expansion connect with Columbus State?,
Franklin and Capital schools: no dorms, where do students eat, sleep, spend money and work?
OSU: students without cars dont have access downtown
Riverfront:
-right now, the Scioto River has no important connection with the city - except for the Santa Maria...
-need to address teh river - San Antonio riverwalk?
Case Study:
-look at Indianapolis - city has a major monument, a canal and urban spaces for recreation
Random Thoughts:
-people spend most of there money close to where they live, not where they work, therefore, if people lived in downtown, they would spend more money downtown
-the college population of downtown C-bus is approx. 35,000 students (part and full time) offering places for even a small percentage of these students to live downtown will bring added money and vitality to the city.
-read William Whyte, he studies C-bus and rates it on a scale
-quote: "in modern american cities, you only need 4 continous square blocks to make a good city"
-context of historical villages: german village is good because of the continuity not necessarily the architecture

Case Study 2: Rome