We need green

In the 3rd unit of Urban Planning, which is called Flow, the class was able to learn about the history of cities. Where did they come from? How have they evolved? Where are they going? What makes a city a “good” one or “bad” one? The purpose of learning about those topics is so they can help us when we have to redesign our own perfect block for the action project. I had a hard time when it came to picking a spot to redesign. I was first thinking about other cities in the world, but then I stopped and realized that my own block needs some improvement. I’m proud of how I took the time to look at the flaws my block has. I even discovered some new ones along the way.


The area I decided to focus on is the intersection of Montrose and Lockwood ave. I live in this area, so I consider it to be mainly residential. It’s surrounded by tall apartment buildings and trees which block the sun. There’s only one business there, which is a haircut shop. The problem with my block is that a lot of children cross there when they get back from school, yet there isn’t a crossing guard, or a stop sign for cars or a light. Lockwood street, which is a smaller one, is very narrow, which causes a lot of cars to lose their mirrors. I also would want to see more green and color to that block because it looks very sad. There also aren’t any bike lanes, so people who ride, ride very close to parked cars, which is very dangerous.


The shape of the area that needs to be redesigned is a rectangle. When it came to trying to find the area I had to find the length and width of the block. I got 483 and 42. When multiplied I got 20286 square feet. I have a picture below of the space that I want to redesign.

To be more specific about the changes I want to make, I’ll explain them more. There is only one business on my block and I want that to change. It’s a small hair salon that has apartment buildings above it. I would take those apartments out and expand it to other businesses. I would want to add circular benches outside of that business building. I would also add a green roof to that building. We need some color as well as having something environmentally friendly because all that surrounds it is car pollution. I also added a small little pond in between the green roof business building and the small garden. I want to add a bench where the bus stop is. A lot of people wait for the Montrose bus in the morning, so I think it would be convenient for those passengers. I really want to push this block being as environmentally friendly as it can be, so I’m adding a garden, along with many trees. The biggest concern I have is safety. Montrose is a very busy street and it’s very close to a elementary school. The problem is that it does not have any stop signs or light. I would for sure add a stop sign to better control this busy street as well as making the kids feel safer. I added a blueprint below.

RD. Blueprint. 2016

My design was inspired by a city in Oregon called Eugene. It’s naturally surrounded by green scenery and that’s what I envision with my redesign. I want to not only add the beauty of natural greenery, but I also want to bring on the environmental benefits to my community. It doesn’t have much, and I think it deserves some environmental love.


My design incorporates THIS. THIS stands for transportation, housing, infrastructure and services. For the transportation part, I still kept the main huge street Montrose because many people use it. I also still decided to keep my block residential because I live there. Infrastructure would consist of me building in some more roads, and water and electricity pumps, which would also tie into services.


I decided to add some cylinder benches/chairs so people can rest after doing some walking around and shopping. In order to find the volume of those cylinders, I had to apply the formula which is, pi x r^2 h. The volume of the cylinders came out to be pi x 22^2 x 54=67858.4mm cubed. I also added a small little pond in between the green roof business building and the small garden. The shape is a sphere and in order to find the volume of that, I had to use the formula, 4/3 pi r ^2. My calculation looked like this: 4/3 pi 20^2, which came out to be 33510.32 meters cubed.




Citations:
Chief. "Top 10 Green U.S. Cities." MNN. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 May 2016.