Pruitt Igoe Now
Carr Cultural Market
EDGAR MORELL-RIVERA
3/16/2012
Project Description:
The purpose of this project proposal is to suggest a short and long term solution for the community of St. louis with close attention to Carr Square Neighborhood.
The acceptance of the site, the city of St. Louis will start assimilating, will be closely related to the Jefferson Expansion National Memorial. By integrating the former Pruitt-Igoe site with Downtown St. Louis, along with the industrial/warehouse zone that separates one the site from downtown, will begin to gentrify the area, increase employment, upgrade life quality and of course, insert the site in the map, erasing it’s past.
After further context analysis, the hypothesis points to the use of architecture and urban planning as the translation of cohesion, flux and gentrification to a multifunctional space that must expose all of its contents rather than privatize, limit or constrain its proportions. Just as Peter Noeler explains in The End of Architecture? Documents and Manifestos, -”A new architecture must be formed that is simultaneously aligned with transcultural continuity and with the poetic expression of individual situations and communities [...] rather than conforming to technological or stylistic uniformity, this architecture would be open to the irrationalities of place. It would resist the homogenizing tendencies of standardization”. The location of the site and the complexities of the former use, Pruitt-Igoe, resumes the necessary characteristics that directs all ideas towards the creation of this program.
Furthermore, the project will consist of a Cultural Market, a multi-functional space for the congregation of students, athletes, artists, religious activists and all others in need of a space to commute, socialize or entertain. This will be complimented with commercial and residential towers, library and public space.
In order to suggest short and long term solutions for the community of Carr Square, the effects must be projected towards the City of St. Louis and closer surrounding areas that might generate movement, community relationship and exacerbate St. Louis’s Culture, fact that has been one of Pruitt-Igoe’s inconveniences as residential complex. But it is still an issue: racial distances and zoning differences still exist in St. Louis. According to 2010 census 95% of blacks is concentrated up north with 5% of whites, latin, hispanic and asian. By this, community engagement should be considered before initializing any complex intervention. The insertion of this Cultural Market will act as an open link between various urban conditions, the immediate context such as Gateway High School, Murray park, churches, firefighters’ station, Carr Square neighborhood and the rest of the community.
Carr Cultural Market
EDGAR MORELL-RIVERA
3/16/2012
Project Description:
The purpose of this project proposal is to suggest a short and long term solution for the community of St. louis with close attention to Carr Square Neighborhood.
The acceptance of the site, the city of St. Louis will start assimilating, will be closely related to the Jefferson Expansion National Memorial. By integrating the former Pruitt-Igoe site with Downtown St. Louis, along with the industrial/warehouse zone that separates one the site from downtown, will begin to gentrify the area, increase employment, upgrade life quality and of course, insert the site in the map, erasing it’s past.
After further context analysis, the hypothesis points to the use of architecture and urban planning as the translation of cohesion, flux and gentrification to a multifunctional space that must expose all of its contents rather than privatize, limit or constrain its proportions. Just as Peter Noeler explains in The End of Architecture? Documents and Manifestos, -”A new architecture must be formed that is simultaneously aligned with transcultural continuity and with the poetic expression of individual situations and communities [...] rather than conforming to technological or stylistic uniformity, this architecture would be open to the irrationalities of place. It would resist the homogenizing tendencies of standardization”. The location of the site and the complexities of the former use, Pruitt-Igoe, resumes the necessary characteristics that directs all ideas towards the creation of this program.
Furthermore, the project will consist of a Cultural Market, a multi-functional space for the congregation of students, athletes, artists, religious activists and all others in need of a space to commute, socialize or entertain. This will be complimented with commercial and residential towers, library and public space.
In order to suggest short and long term solutions for the community of Carr Square, the effects must be projected towards the City of St. Louis and closer surrounding areas that might generate movement, community relationship and exacerbate St. Louis’s Culture, fact that has been one of Pruitt-Igoe’s inconveniences as residential complex. But it is still an issue: racial distances and zoning differences still exist in St. Louis. According to 2010 census 95% of blacks is concentrated up north with 5% of whites, latin, hispanic and asian. By this, community engagement should be considered before initializing any complex intervention. The insertion of this Cultural Market will act as an open link between various urban conditions, the immediate context such as Gateway High School, Murray park, churches, firefighters’ station, Carr Square neighborhood and the rest of the community.