DANIEL POWER

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGANSCHOOL OF NATURAL RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENT

MASTER OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE, 2012SELECTED WORK SAMPLES

DANIEL POWERUNIVERSITY OF MICHIGANSCHOOL OF NATURAL RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENTMASTER OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE, 2012SELECTED WORK SAMPLES

Planning a Durable and Dynamic Place

Redeveloping Industrial Saginaw

Cues to Care in High-Vacancy Communities

Sustainable Neighborhood Development for Legacy Cities (SND-LC)

Saline Athletic Complex and Wetland Trail

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PLANNING A DURABLE AND DYNAMIC PLACE

+ Client Vision: What is needed and desired by the community?

+ Policy: What regulations, codes, and ordinances define our opportunities and constraints?

+ Analysis: What environmental conditions compose our physical pallet?

+ Engagement: How do community innovation, input, and historical context illuminate our vision?

+ Conceptual Design: What picture is painted by policy, economic, ecological and cultural components?

+ Detail Design: How do we forge a vision of community, urban and regional planning into a realistic, durable and dynamic place?1

2Source: Michigan Geographic Data Library Source: Michigan Geographic Data Library

+ Client Vision + Policy + Analysis + Engagement + Conceptual Design

CLIENT 1. Saginaw Future: An alliance of private, governmental, and foundational stakeholders intent on generating business and job growth in Saginaw County, Michigan.

CLIENT 2. RACER Trust: An organization with the mission of positioning General Motors-owned land for redevelopment and a nationwide industrial property owner.

VISION. From fortunate proximities to the Great Lakes and America’s automotive heartland arose a source of automotive-based industrial processing during much of the 20th century. Now largely vacated, the site invites challenges and opportunities for a 21st century economy. This project produced a vision for adaptive reuse of a former nodular iron plant site as a low-density commercial and industrial development as well as a community asset.

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REDEVELOPING INDUSTRIAL SAGINAW

The long-term vision for the site requires a renewal of its potential through the process of thorough site remediation. First, it is important to recognize the site’s existing amenities and structures, as well as its legacy of industrial uses and contamination. As mandated by the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), a Phase I Environmental Assessment was performed on the site to test for the presence of contaminants. Moving ahead with any development requires feasible and adequate remediation processes. City of Saginaw and Buena Vista Township 2005 zoning maps have indicated the site to be industrial, though a new Master Plan for the City of Saginaw may invite opportunities for a broader-reaching community asset. The presence of the site within the Saginaw River’s 100-year flood plain restricts fill-based development.

+ Client Vision + Policy + Analysis + Engagement + Conceptual Design 3

A northward view of a settling pond near the former nodular iron plant.

Remediation measures were informed by a vision for the site’s future. In the site’s east end, a concrete cap and soil excavation would serve the greatest and most cost-effective benefit for future use. In the western portion of the site, grading goals and emerging open spaces call for more technical solutions, including soil vapor extraction, excavation and replacement with clean fill. The topography of the remediated site promotes a viewshed that follows a stepped landscape along the Saginaw River. Buildings will be constructed in high, concrete-capped areas, while a mound in the southwest promotes a viewshed of natural amenities and industrial features. Low points serve as spaces for stormwater infiltration and are complimentary to the historic floodplain.

Client feedback was an important representation of technical and policy concerns as well as a mouthpiece for community input. It was important to our clients that the site serves as a valuable aesthetic amenity for drivers-by while remaining accessible to nearby residents seeking open space and exploration.

+ Client Vision + Policy + Analysis + Engagement + Conceptual Design4

REDEVELOPING INDUSTRIAL SAGINAW

+ illustrative phase II plan - AutoCAD and Photoshop

This proposal results in a low-density business park which displays the ecological form and function of the Saginaw River as well as the industrial history of the landscape. The park is meant to serve as a template for adaptive use, by employees and residents of the nearby neighborhoods, with three 20-acre parcels containing buildings, parking, and private and public open space.

Tree plantings and strategically planned wetlands promote stormwater remediation, carbon sequestration, and habitat for important bird species. Visitors can enjoy these natural areas moving along pathway formed by remnants of a water conveyance trestle meant to remind people of the site’s industrial past.

+ Client Vision + Policy + Analysis + Engagement + Conceptual Design 5

+ Client Vision + Policy + Analysis + Engagement

CLIENT 1. Community Development Advocates of Detroit: An organization designed to advance the work of entities engaged in physical development, land use planning, and community organizing in the City of Detroit.

CLIENT 2. Community Legal Resources: An organization designed to provide the legal, policy, education, outreach, planning and technical skills and resources for community-based organizations and low-income communities throughout Michigan.

VISION. This project is intended to thoroughly analyze and illuminate landscape care in highly vacant communities as a source of social capital and a potential hub of stabilization processes in these communities.

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CUES TO CARE IN HIGH-VACANCY COMMUNITIES

+ Client Vision + Policy + Analysis + Engagement

This project involved the use of a 95-question, Excel-based survey with nested categories designed to analyze a near-exhaustive list of landscape variables in highly vacant communities. Data was first collected remotely through the use of available 2009 Google Street View imagery captured for over 9,000 parcels in the Brightmoor and Lower Eastside neighborhoods of Detroit. Residential characteristics were then re-evaluated through street surveys in the summer of 2011. The data collected in an Excel-based platform was joined to a GIS shapefile for spatial analysis.

Over 1 million points of data were collected during the course of project implementation. This data is being used to explore opportunities for design interventions and economically feasible land use solutions for stabilization in highly vacant areas of Detroit as well as throughout the United States.

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+ Client Vision + Policy + Analysis + Engagement + Conceptual Design

CLIENT 1. Lower Eastside Action Plan: A community-driven project which transforms vacant land into uses that improve the quality of life.

CLIENT 2. United States Green Building Council: An organization formed to create a built environment which complements the environment and enhances communities.

VISION. This project is a component of a larger collaboration of urban planning and landscape architecture. It provides a regional analysis and site designs which are widely applicable to conditions in legacy cities. The project aims to provide a regional ecological context for neighborhood development and land use decisions in legacy cities, while complimenting existing community solutions for innovative land use.

This process begins with an audit of existing ecological amenities including land cover, slope, and major road density. These features are given weight for their ecological value based on a GIS-based spatial analysis process. Values are then assigned to land along a gradient of sensitivity based on the prominence of the identified ecological amenities.

Zones defined by proximity to lakes, straits, or oceans, major rivers, and upland watershed position are set as major ecological regions.

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SUSTAINABLE NEIGHBORHOOD DEVELOPMENT FOR LEGACY CITIES (SND-LC)

+ Client Vision + Policy + Analysis + Engagement + Conceptual Design

Once values have been assigned to cells of land based on their ecological sensitivities, these values can be used in raster-based GIS calculations. These calculations can illuminate the suitability of the urban landscape for features such as green infrastructure and green street development, maintenance of the urban development matrix, and open space. These features are overlaid onto major ecological regions in order to produce a comprehensive map of urban ecozones.

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+ Client Vision + Policy + Analysis + Engagement + Conceptual Design

The urban ecozone map serves as a picture of zonal suitability for land use decisions.

In legacy cities with emerging open space and fluctuating settlement patterns, such a map provides a context for land use and site design solutions that respond to the conditions of regional ecology.

As seen on the next page, site design solutions can incorporate simple, inexpensive, and community-driven practices for more durable urban environs.

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Major urban ecozones of Detroit

SUSTAINABLE NEIGHBORHOOD DEVELOPMENT FOR LEGACY CITIES (SND-LC)

+ Client Vision + Policy + Analysis + Engagement + Conceptual Design 11

UPLAND GREEN ZONE

RIPARIAN GREEN ZONE

Source: Michigan Geographic Data Library

+ Client Vision + Policy + Analysis + Engagement + Conceptual Design + Detail Design

VISION. Particularly in an academic setting, a site must serve as a doorway to a deeper understanding of the process that made the land a place to learn and recreate. Saline’s current geography was formed through glacial recession, which left an abundance of freshwater resources to be protected. Potawatomi native peoples then preceded the current small community, using the land for their own unique recreational activities. These cultural and ecological influences inform the function and form of a project to be used as a laboratory and a playfield for a growing Michigan community. The site also celebrates universal accessibility in accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

CLIENT. Saline High School. The esteemed primary high school of the rural town of Saline located 10 miles south of Ann Arbor, Michigan.

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SALINE ATHLETIC COMPLEX AND WETLAND TRAIL

The baseball fields of my youth were shaped by cookie cutters, and this project seeks to reinvent these recreational spaces.

An open field adjacent to a large public high school in semi-rural Saline, Michigan allowed for the conceptual proposal of an athletic complex with multiple functions that educate and intrigue while giving room to roam.

A small apple orchard and a trail system are integrated with four fields suitable for little league baseball.

+ illustrative site plan - colored pencil and prismacolor marker

+ Client Vision + Policy + Analysis + Engagement + Conceptual Design + Detail Design 13

C. A crushed gravel walkway circulates users throughout the various vistas of the site. Beyond the fields, a sculptural cistern serves as a starting point for a wetland trail.

B. A brick plaza and steel gateway welcome visitors. In the park’s interior, formal space gives way to flexible surfaces. Visitors can relax on wood-topped gabion benches lined by prairie plantings.

+ perspectives - Sketchup, colored pencil and prismacolor markers

B

CA. An apple orchard provides a backdrop for hardscape forms lining the hillside. These mimic sculptural snow banks created by the Potawatomi people for a game called “snow snake”.

A

+ Client Vision + Policy + Analysis + Engagement + Conceptual Design + Detail Design14

SALINE ATHLETIC COMPLEX AND WETLAND TRAIL

+ grading plan - Autocad

+ Client Vision + Policy + Analysis + Engagement + Conceptual Design + Detail Design

The landscape takes form through detail design and construction.

Grading forces a deeper understanding of the ecological process of stormwater management and serves as a design tool.

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