A distinguished jury selected 11 projects for the 2005 AIA Honor Awards for Regional and Urban Design. Among the chosen plans, several themes stand out: creating viable, livable towns; preserving and enhancing creeks and waterfronts; and managing growth, with all plans emphasizing the need for sustainable development. The projects cover a range of geography, from China to California to Arkansas, with two each in Minnesota, Boston, New York City, and Washington, D.C.

Anacostia Waterfront Initiative Framework Plan, Washington, D.C.
Chan Krieger & Associates, Inc., with Beyer Blinder Belle; Ehrenkrantz, Eckstut and Kuhn Architects; Simon Martin-Vegue Winkelstein & Morris; Greenberg Consultants Ltd.; and landscape architect Wallace, Roberts & Todd, for the District of Columbia Office of Planning
Although it sits in the center of a prosperous urban region, D.C.’s Anacostia River over the years has come to symbolize a social and physical divide between the haves and have-nots. The ambitious goals of the Anacostia Waterfront Initiative are to heal and rejuvenate the river, promoting sustainable development within the watershed; open waterfront access and improve infrastructure; construct a riverwalk to connect waterfront parks; create a cultural bridge connecting Anacostia to D.C.’s historic treasures; and enhance the tax base by building more than 20,000 new units of housing within walking distance of the river. The jury enthused, “The Anacostia Waterfront Initiative Framework Plan is in the great tradition of ‘making no little plans.’ It establishes a vision for 20 miles of the Anacostia Waterfront by addressing the potential of both sides of the river. The river becomes a regional asset through the variety of connections and public spaces . . . We also applaud the positive impact to the neighborhoods, be it the ready access to the proposed public spaces or the potential for future development.”

Battery Park City Streetscapes, New York City
Rogers Marvel Architects PLLC, for Hugh L. Carey Battery Park City Authority
Begun in 2002, this project improves the streetscape, connections, and perimeter security of the World Financial Center. Realizing that additional security measures would dramatically alter traffic patterns and pedestrian and public spaces, the design team worked with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to study and test vehicle immobilization techniques. Insights gleaned from military barriers and defensive measures were re-scaled to the urban streetscape, and new techniques were developed using collapsible-fill and other strategies. Besides security concerns, neighborhood improvements will include installing a dog run and plant nursery and improving pedestrian crossings, cross-street connections between parks and recreation areas, and queuing and screening of delivery trucks. “This design resolves two seemingly contradictory goals,” noted the jury. “First, to provide security in our public spaces, and second, in doing so, to allow for public spaces that are still open and inviting—not dependent upon the more typical barrier response. The analysis of the problem was well-defined and the solution advances this project typology.”

Cady’s Alley, Washington, D.C.
Sorg & Associates PC, with Frank Schlesinger Associates Architects; McInturff Architects; Martinez & Johnson Architecture PC; Shalom Baranes Associates Architects; and landscape architect The Fitch Studio, for Eastbanc, Inc.
Located next to the historic C&O Canal in Georgetown, this formerly rundown collection of 19th- and early-20th-century warehouses, workshops, stables, and small commercial row structures languished as the community’s other corridors thrived. The long disused alley structures remained from an era when the Port of Georgetown was a transshipment, storage, and processing base for southern agricultural goods on their way to western markets. Purchased by the owner-developer with the intent of creating an urban design center that would be an alternative to suburban big-box retail outlets, the revitalized thoroughfare contains 121,000 square feet of retail (mainly home furnishings), office space, and six apartment units. “Beautiful reclamation and infill,” enthused the jury. “This is a sensitive intervention which breathes new life into a historically significant urban fabric. It successfully achieves a delicate balance between contemporary architectural responses and the historic fabric of the existing structures.”

City of Santa Cruz Accessory Dwelling Unit Program, Santa Cruz, Calif.
RACESTUDIOS, with Mark Primack Architect; David Baker Partners Architects; CCS Architecture; SixEight Design; Boone/Low Architects and Planners; Peterson Architects; and Eve Reynolds Architects, for the City of Santa Cruz
With little remaining land for development and enormous growth pressures, Santa Cruz has turned to its primary asset for help—single-family neighborhoods. To maintain the character of its neighborhoods, the city introduced an innovative development program for Accessory Dwelling Units (ADU). An ADU, commonly known as a “granny flat,” is an additional rental unit on a single-family lot. The benefits are extensive: affordable rental housing is built at no cost to the city, renters have more options, and homeowners earn extra income. To encourage homeowners to develop ADUs, the city has relaxed zoning restrictions, introduced a development fee waiver and loan program, and offers community education workshops and a “how-to” guide. The jury called this “an innovative way to increase density while maintaining the scale of the neighborhood. This contemporary ‘pattern book’ is a valuable and user-friendly resource [that] will yield a more cohesive, properly scaled built environment and bring the benefits of good design to this city’s residents.”

Chongming Island Master Plan, Shanghai, China
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP, with associate architect W. Cecil Steward, FAIA, for Shanghai Planning Bureau
One of the largest alluvial islands in the world, Chongming Island, the least developed of Shanghai’s five administrative districts, has been identified as key to the region’s continued growth. To plan for long-term development and create a showcase environmental community, the Shanghai Planning Bureau selected this master plan that uses six sustainable concepts: maintaining wilderness and ecosystems, transitioning to organic farming, incorporating green systems, improving eco-transportation, building green villages, and developing sustainable coastal cities. The plan illustrates how disparate concepts and visions can be complementary and strengthened by association. Although this comprehensive and collaborative process is new to China, it is already guiding the planning efforts of the Shanghai region, other municipalities, and the Chinese government. “This master plan is remarkable on multiple levels,” stated the jury. “At the scale of the island, care is taken to preserve the natural attributes and connections to the water, which attracts one to this special place. The spacing between and the scale of the villages and cities are appropriate with their boundaries and edges well defined.”

Jackson Meadow, Marine on St. Croix, St. Croix, Minn.
Salmela Architect & Coen + Partners, for Jackson Meadow Company
Located within the oldest settlement in Minnesota, this new residential development is adjacent to 191 acres of permanently protected open land. Sited on 145 acres of meadows and wooded hills overlooking the St. Croix River, the goal of this project was to create a residential development that complements the existing town and preserves the site’s rural character and open space. The architecture responds to the town’s cultural history by interpreting vernacular form, materials, detailing, and spatial organization. The clustering of lots and houses highlights the traditional village form and connects the community to a rich landscape infrastructure. By adapting familiar community forms to the site, the design team avoided a literal copying of the town, thus adding new and unexpected layers to the project. The jury appreciated the “sensitive and respectful” approach taken. “We were impressed with the elegance and balance of the solution. The architecture is at once both familiar, as it relates to the vernacular of the region, and yet beautifully and elegantly modern in its detailing and restrained use of color.”

North Allston Strategic Framework for Planning, Boston
Goody, Clancy & Associates, for Boston Redevelopment Authority
In early 2000, Harvard University announced its intention to concentrate future growth on 100 acres of commercial and industrial land in Boston’s North Allston neighborhood. Wary of how the university’s plans would affect the community, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino launched a planning study to ensure the results of this would benefit both city and university. The resulting plan embodies community-building principles to guide growth in the North Allston neighborhood and ensures that the collective will, interests, and goals of all major stakeholders are reflected. By emphasizing walkability, livability, and permeability, the framework enriches the traditional character of the community while providing new opportunities for economic growth. The jury called the community’s collaborative process “democracy at its best. There was a tenacity of all parties over time (four years) to reach a comprehensive plan . . . Edges and connections between ‘town and gown’ are made with great skill.”

Northeastern University West Campus Master Plan, Boston
William Rawn Associates, Architects, Inc., for Northeastern University
Urban universities across the U.S. are leading renewal efforts in their surrounds as they come to understand that the health and vitality of their cities is critical to their own future. Northeastern University is tied inextricably to the city of Boston, and being open to the city is deep in the university’s tradition. The paramount goal of this master plan is to achieve the ideal balance between open public access, civic presence, and a threshold for learning. Guiding Northeastern University over a 10-year period, the plan provides for development of a new West Campus that ties together existing elements and adds more than 1,200,000 square feet in campus buildings for health sciences and information sciences classrooms, an African-American Institute, residence halls, and a public market. “Through the skillful, strategic placement and shaping of a handful of new buildings, powerful, memorable spaces are created for this urban campus that relate to and engage the surrounding urban context,” commented the jury.

Ramsey Town Center, Ramsey, Minn.
Elness Swenson Graham Architects Inc., with Close Landscape Architects, for Ramsey Town Center, LLC
A genuine downtown with a mix of goods and services that meet residents’ needs, Ramsey Town Center will provide a strong job and tax base and maintain the character of this community of 20,000. The result of numerous hours of community input and respect for the essential qualities of the natural landscape, this master plan creates a unique heart to the community. The master plan will add more than 2,500 units of mid-density housing, 600,000 square feet of retail, 460,000 square feet of office space, a medical center, civic buildings, and a K-12 charter school. Pedestrian-oriented streets and an integrated park and trail system will link areas from Lake Itasca Park to the north to Mississippi River Regional Park to the south, with focused public realm connections at the new center. “A beautiful dynamic is set up between the residential neighborhoods to one side and the city center and transit station to the other,” the jury stated. “This imminently livable plan is in the best tradition of town planning where home and work and civic spaces are more closely related and a sense of place is created.”

Riparian Meadows, Mounds & Rooms: Urban Greenway, Warren, Ark.
University of Arkansas Community Design Center, for Warren Townscape Committee
This plan proposes a public greenway along a creek in the city of Warren that combines innovations in stream design with community development. Flooding and stormwater inflow into the city’s sewer system have been two major issues for this creek. Stream restoration will provide corrective measures to address existing infrastructural problems and emphasize dampening the stream’s flow through the reclamation of lost floodplains in the urban area and formation of the “riffle-pool-glide algorithm” present in healthy stream organization. These corrective measures are supplemented with a vegetated riparian edge, return of stream sinuosity, and strategic bank armoring to prevent excessive erosion and sediment transport. “This project celebrates the potential of a stream to be viewed as an asset to the community,” noted the jury. “Various architectural events are strategically placed along its course, further serving the community and reinforcing its connection to the stream.”

West Harlem Waterfront Park, New York City
W Architecture & Landscape Architecture LLC, for New York City Economic Development Corporation
Created by a neighborhood coalition of 40 groups, this master plan will make Harlem’s waterfront a destination by creating a park with piers that extend into the Hudson River. Phase One will transform a city-owned parking lot into an accessible waterfront that will attract the community and private investment. Phase Two improves regional transportation connections and enhances the streetscape using generous plantings of ginkgo trees, whose leaf suggests the neighborhood’s signature viaducts. Phase Three will bring needed community and economic development back to the area. At present, the substantial workforce commutes outside the community; Phase Three also will promote area revitalization and diversification, community involvement, job opportunities, and local entrepreneurship. The jury called this plan “a very sustainable design . . . This very elegant response makes a direct connection between the Harlem community and its riverfront by incorporating and celebrating its existing infrastructure. It establishes elements of connectivity to the riverfront and creates a minimal yet vibrant waterfront infrastructure that encourages activities related to the water.”

—Heather Livingston

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