Federal Hill Neighborhood, Baltimore A Historical and Urban Friendly District

By Hanan Rawashdeh

Federal hill Neighborhood Lies in the south of Baltimore city’s central business district, Maryland, being the highest point in the district from its manmade hill. The neighborhood itself is multi diverse in its urban context with the old fashioned brick row houses that date from the mid-to-late-19th century and historical Cross street market place, historical churches, Public entertainment spaces like the Maryland Science center, American Visionary Art Museum and its diversely authentic restaurants.

            The hill was historically used for pigment mining operation which overlooks the city’s famous inner harbor making it an attraction and an ideal place to enjoy the Baltimore’s skyline. It was named in 1789 after serving as the location for the end of a parade and a following civic celebration of the ratification of the new "Federal" constitution of the United States of America. The manmade hill with several underground tunnels was also known as a signal hill as it was used commercially; to serve as an observatory for shipments and merchant and signal any arrivals to the businessmen of Baltimore. Today the hill serves as a public park which is the oldest in Baltimore.

            The 70 acre neighborhood is easily accessible from every direction. Located conveniently East the Baltimore Light Rail Track and Interstate 395. The highway 2, Light street also crosses the neighborhood’s district. The neighborhood also accommodates many parking spaces for any visitor and is served by two of the four routes the Charm City Circulator, which is a free bus system offers. The Purple Route which runs from Penn Station to Federal Hill, and the Banner Route which runs from the Inner Harbor to Fort McHenry, service Federal Hill.

            The mix of historical, residential, business retailing and public entertainment with very good transportation makes the neighborhood an ideal study for small town urban designing. The Architectural style of the neighborhood is categorized as the federal-style architecture, which is the classification of North American architecture that go back between the year 1780 to 1815. The Federal style, also known as the Adam style, after the Adam brothers, British architects who developed this style in England is evident in Federal hill neighborhood’s brick row houses which correspond to the European architecture; the Biedermeier style in the German-speaking lands and the Regency style in Britain. The row houses are of two or three stories in height, and approximately 15 feet in width. With clear symmetry, classical details and a side gabled roof of the row houses the elevation details are delicate, slender and finely drawn. Also, more formal elements were introduced in the Federal style, such as the front door fanlight window, sometimes with flanking sidelights, and more elaborate door surrounds and porticos.

            Federal Hill neighborhood today has spurred considerable public and private investment taking part in the growth with the surrounding areas with over $51 million in public investments, and over $430 million in private investments, including residential, retail and office space projects, creating a pedestrian friendly neighborhood full with easily reachable retail stores and public entertainment for all users.

PARAMETRIC DESIGN

BY FAEZEH ENSAFI

Architectural creation is embedded within a larger field of accumulated contextual aspects. The agency of architecture can only happen within the particulars of its situation and in relation to the larger field (Meredith, pg2). Birth of digital parametric design was the beginning of a new era of power and control with technological potentials to employ limitless number of parameters. Adding parameters responding to contextual disputes reassures an utterly responsive architecture and a future brighter than ever.

Context becomes prominent when we look at the current skin-deep formalist architecture with its over-emphasized formality and lack of contextual considerations. Functionalists, on the other side, construct use as the total performance of architecture. ‘Form vs. function’ has been the subject of debate throughout the history of architecture and resulted postmodernism’s conceptual formal shells, or modernism’s boxes filled only with functional aspects. In both cases, architecture becomes a fragment, a distorted concept, which falls short for its environmental socio-political correlation as the means to escape the emptiness of object.

In the late 20^th century, following modernist and postmodernist paradigms, architectural design process was getting tougher in which an extensive number of aspects needed to be considered and analyzed. Pragmatic contextual consideration was played short as functional and formal-conceptual issues were escalating. There was an intense need for a system whereby the subject matter, concept, function, form and context collaborate to solve the problems derived from these fields and to lean towards creation of a fully responsive architecture. Without a broader system, the drive for form has been listless, lost in self-referential exercises, meaningless outside of the field of architecture itself (Meredith, Never Enough, pg2).

When the first parametric design software was released by PTC in 1988, Digital Parametricism was invented and with it, new possibilities were brought into the field of design, serving as the awakening of postmodernism’s drunkenness and a solution to the discussed growing issues of the time. The new-born parametric style was developing to be more pervasive with its full access to the newly invented computational programs (e.g. Grasshopper) which performed to associate and manipulate various parameters of design deliberately and accurately. In such computational programs parameters are inserted and forms are emerged accordingly.

Since parametric design provided architects with such power, some began using parametric computational programs to solve functional, structural and constructional issues through processes of optimization and gradually fabrication. Through this medium unimaginable structures were emerged with maximum efficiency. When one created a new programmed structure, they could save the system and apply it to several projects. The new generation of complex structure could be constructed using the same parametric systems in an affordable way.

The image of an architect was becoming more powerful to the extent that he/she produced authenticity while employing the computer as their design assistant to co-create and correct profound disputes through analyzing and optimization. Absorbing computational techniques expanded the range of access and control to the extent of extracting more than just one result, thus offering the designer(s) a choice between the most efficient results. Creation of complexity as Venturi had required became effortless, hence adding new parameters to the existing functional, conceptual and formal parameters of the process was proved possible. Form, when created in the parametric process, is distorted according to the assigned parameters.

Contributing to the process by technological time-effective solutions, parametric designing is now flexible to accept parameters which could respond to every aspect of design. These parameters at this point can, and should, retain contextual relevance in order to experience further productivity and efficiency. Powerful potentials of Parametricism have been discovered, allowing the designer(s) to step back and take a look at the big picture –the larger framework of context –and react to it properly. After all, a building is inevitably reacting to its context constantly as long as it lives.

The pervasive, interdisciplinary parametric practice engages new media and provides each and every project with a high level of precision and control. However, it cannot perform without human interference. The architect needs to see the problematic contextual relationships in each project and associate suitable parameters to the process. The image of the architect is now a cyborg; half human, half robot. The future is parametric, whereby the possibility of incorporating an unlimited number of parameters is at our disposal. With the cooperation of computer, architect efforts towards the utopian ideology of an architectural creation that fits into the structure of our lives.

New semester

By Daniel Roman

                My name is Daniel Roman, I was born in Mexico, but at a very young age I was brought to the United States where I have been ever since. Somewhere along the way during high school I had a feeling that architecture was the way to go for me. I completed three years of community college and transferred into SIUC in the fall of 2013. In the summer of 2014 I had an internship with PCI (Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute) in Chicago. I graduated in May 2015 and began Graduate school in the summer of 2015. I am projected to be done with graduate school at the end of summer 2016.

                Currently, I am working on various projects from different classes. In the sense of studio, it is very interesting taking a different approach on doing a project in a more professional and office setting, having to research every aspect of a problem. Luckily we have been able to break up into group and at times work individually to be able to research and come together and discuss our findings. On our first assignment we had to research in a group manner different types of buildings and programs, my group in particular was assigned High-rise Residential in Baltimore, MD. Baltimore will be our site for this semester master plans. We found precedence of current and older style of high residential buildings in the area. We were able to find the type of construction that is being used. Seeing that precast concrete being more dominant due to its quick erection and ability to be used in an environmental safe manner.

               

Each student individually conducted a case study on a housing building; the options vary from multi-family to single, from rural place to an urban location. After given the list, without images, the first name that caught my eye was Morphosis Architects, I had seen their work while working for PCI and I knew they were a high profile firm, so I went with them. I was not disappointed, for their building was in Madrid, Spain and was a multifamily complex.  Located in a town from which an architecture foundation had been set, and many villas and little public places had been set as precedence. This new building was set in a way from which you still have private outdoor space such as green space, but also had multiple gathering areas, where neighbors could inter mingle. There are about 6 different floor plans to choose from, going from a single, to a four bedroom apartment, and from a single floor to a double floor. The white façade clearly stands out surrounded by the masonry and stucco all around.

               

As the semester moves along a very important topic keeps coming up and will continue to, the idea of having the topic of a thesis. A quick brief paper has already been turned in from which we had to state what our thesis was going to be about. I can honestly say, I do not know, architecture in my eyes is really big, and it’s really had to just pick a building style and go with it. I see architecture as a tool that can be used to help others, in a way positively manipulate people to do something, feel some time of way, or simple activate someone to have a reaction. Architecture has those qualities to be able to do that to people. That being said, I would like to design something from which can impact people in a positive way. And even though that is really wide still I will like to narrow it down using current events, and see what people need in the present moment. I feel like designing in the current moment would allow for research to be done in a very quick and productive way. Being able to find current information and possibly have new information coming out as you go. 

                As to other classes, they are pretty much being tied back into the studio class. The professional practice class has gone into ethics code and how to behave and do’s and don’ts in the industry. Thad has taken his class to a more of a technical aspect, we are dealing with code and quite simply what you can and cannot do on a site. He has set that he wants buildable structures and not make believe structures. I find that as a positive thing because we are growing to be able to understand that theses crazy buildings are mostly not getting built. On top of that, you will not be doing that right out of college.

                From all and all, it seems like this semester will be an interesting one and I am sure I will be meeting and making new friends while working in the lab. 

Transition

By Casey Bucher

Coming into Southern Illinois’ Masters of Architecture program as a “transfer” has been quite the experience. Many, many things have differed from where I pursued my undergraduate degree; from the town itself, to the classes, to the way of life. Though my transition has not been as drastic as many of my classmates, it is still an interesting one.

I completed my undergraduate degree at Murray State University, where I obtained an engineering degree. This is the first major transition. To come into Southern Illinois, which is a design based program, and having no previous design courses...especially ones that are 4 to 5 hours long...it was quite the eye-opener. I was used to working with math problems everyday to figure out the solutions to architecture’s everyday problems. Now, I had to get in the mindset that the only problems I would have in this program was to create a brand new, unique, transformative piece of architecture every semester. No biggie, right? Wrong. Though I had worked in a few offices, I was used to the design process but never just stopping at the Design Development stage. I’m used to just the Construction Documents and where the project goes from there. As I always tell my friends and family, I feel like I’m getting the best of both worlds. I’ve had that logical, engineering past with some architectural drafting work history. Now I’m getting to experience the front end of a project, the fun parts. Another big transition? Adjusting to SIU’s campus and Carbondale in general. Compared to Murray State, Southern Illinois University is a HUGE campus. Many students will laugh when I say this, but its true. At Murray, it only took 10 minutes to walk from one end of campus to the other...and it was flat the entire way. Walking through SIU’s campus, it is a complete opposite experience. Need a snack at the Student Center? Better plan on it being at least a 30-45 minute round trip from Quigley.
One a positive note, I’ve now found a good use for the bike collecting dust in my parent’s garage. I’ve also come to the realization that Carbondale is in fact a party school. I know many don’t like associating SIU with the party scene, but coming from a school where alcohol wasn’t even allowed in the city limits, this was one huge transition. Just the way of life for a student here, I’ve realized, is so SO much different than the way of life for a MSU student. Going out Tuesday- Saturday? Unheard of in Kentucky, however, my roommates now are pros at it! Like I mentioned before, maybe I’m once again experiencing the best of both worlds? I’ll let ya know on that one.

Signing off until next time. Casey B 

Site Visit to Baltimore

By Andy Cunningham

Hey Everyone! My name is Andy Cunningham I am a Graduate student here at SIU. I also completed my undergraduate studies here after transferring from College of DuPage.

For this first blog I am going to write about our site visit to Baltimore that happened last week. For our fall project in the grad studio we have two different sites for our projects. Some of the studio has an urban site along the water near downtown Baltimore, and the rest of us have a rural site about 40min west of Baltimore. On the site we are responsible for creating a master plan that includes office space, businesses, and residential areas, and then we are going to individually design either an apartment building, hotel, community center, or a senior living complex.

The rural site was a lot different than I thought it would be from looking at it on a map. Since it is farmland I was expecting a mainly flat site to work with, but in reality there are quite a bit of hills. These hills present a challenge, but it is going to make the design a lot more interesting than it would have been if it were a flat site. There was also a pretty cool house at the end of the road that went through the site, and I am pretty sure we spent more time looking at this house then we did the site. From the rural site we went to dinner in Columbia, MD on our way back to Baltimore. The cool thing about dinner was the restaurant was right next to one of Frank Gehry’s first buildings, which has since been turned into a Whole Foods.  

On Monday we took a trip to Annapolis. Annapolis was a pretty interesting place, because it is a lot different than a lot of the big cities. The whole town was easily walkable and the streets were pretty small. Annapolis has a lot of history to its name, from being where George Washington resigned from commander in chief to being the country’s first capital. We got to walk around inside the capital building, which is still in use today, and see the old meeting rooms, including the room where Washington handed in his resignation.

Over the next couple of days, we toured the city. We got to see the different neighborhoods of Baltimore which was interesting because walking around some of them unless you looked back at downtown and saw some of the bigger buildings, you would not believe you were still in Baltimore. We also got tours of two architecture firms, RTKL and Ayers Saint Gross, both of these firms were pretty impressive. RTKL was cool because of the wide variety of specialties they had on staff, including architects, interior design, and a few different engineers.

This trip wasn’t just all about school. We had some free time to explore on our own and see what the city had two offer. The two places that really stood out to me were the Inner Harbor, and a place called Power Plant Live. The Inner Harbor was cool because it had a bunch of restaurants and places to shop. The restaurants were cool because a lot of them had the normal indoor dining room, but a lot of them also had an outdoor section with a full kitchen over the water. The Inner Harbor also had the aquarium which was cool it was two buildings, and I wish we would’ve been able to get in but the lines were long and we wanted to do other things. Friday was probably my favorite day of the entire trip because that night while those who drove to Baltimore left, some of us that were leaving the next day went to the Orioles vs Royals Game. The game was cool because the orioles had a pretty impressive comeback by hitting two grand slams in an inning which has only been done a few times prior. The game was also fun because we got to see Camden Yards which is interesting because just off the stadium there is a large rectangular building the B&O Warehouse which now houses offices and some private clubs.

This trip to Baltimore overall was a lot of fun, apart from seeing our sites, we got to see a lot of cool architecture and historic sites throughout the city. That’s it for this entry, and I hope everybody has a good semester.

Baltimore Field Trip

By Alicia Luthy

Hello everyone! I am Alicia Luthy and am currently attending Southern Illinois University for a Masters of Architecture.  In May, I received my Bachelor’s degree from here as well. Architecture is interesting to me because it is always exciting and changing. There are so many different styles and different ways that it can be improved and manipulated. Ultimately, architecture is something I am very passionate about. I chose to study architecture at SIUC for a few different reasons. One reason is Carbondale is close to home and all of my family. Also, the program is thesis based allowing me to choose the topic of my design. The third reason was financials; SIUC offers a great education for an unbeatable price and the program is only 15 months.  We are currently in our second semester of the Master’s program.

 Last week, our design studio traveled to Baltimore, Maryland for the week. For my first post I decided to write about some of the architecture we experienced. As we return this week back from Baltimore, many have asked how the trip was. Baltimore was a unique experience filled with a lot of adventures to say the least. The trip included a lot of unique architecture that was divided into different neighborhoods. While in Baltimore we toured two firms, RTKL and Ayers Saint Gross. While visiting these firms, it was exciting to see how life in a firm will be. The Ayers Saint Gross firm was located in the old Procter and Gamble Plant inside the Joy building in which they designed their office. Ayers Saint Gross is a firm that is best known for designing educational buildings for different universities. While in Baltimore, we got to experience some of the great architecture by Ayers Saint Gross. We visited their LEED Platinum building, John and Frances Angelos Law center for the University of Baltimore.

The John and Frances Angelos Law Center costed $84 million and was completed in 2012. It is 189,700 GSF consisting of classrooms, labs, study rooms, a library, law clinic, lounges, and meeting rooms. Being LEED Platinum, the building is very sustainable. The project efficiency is 58% energy use reduction and 56% water use reduction. The building uses natural ventilation through the center of the building allowing for a decrease in energy for HVAC. The high efficiency building envelope also contributes to the energy efficiency. Other sustainable features include green roofs, active slab heating and cooling, daylighting, and storm water management. While visiting the building, we were able to go onto the green roof. The building offered some great views that over looked Penn Station and the surrounding area.  The John and Frances Angelos Law Center has received many awards including two USGBC Maryland Wintergreen Awards. One of the awards was for the excellence in sustainable design, and the second is the President’s award for acknowledging UB’s leadership in creating an iconic design for Downtown Baltimore.  The building was a very thought out design and I recommend everyone to look it up.

http://asg-architects.com/portfolio/ubl-john-and-frances-angelos-law-center/#

Improving The Existing Site

By Aaron Neal

Hello, my name is Aaron Neal, and I am currently an Architectural Graduate student here at Southern Illinois University Carbondale.  I went through the undergraduate program here after getting my associate degree from Lincoln Land Community College.  While I have been here at SIUC for the past three years, I have worked on a number of projects.  Some local here in Carbondale, and others as far as Helsinki.  These projects have been off all types, ranging from schools, churches, houses, transit centers, museums, and master plans.   While working on every project, I was instructed to not only think about my project but how my project affects the environment it is placed in.   In site planning class, for instance, I was told the whole point of site planning is to improve the already existing land.  With this in mind, I made sure that each project I worked on would not only be a great piece of Architecture, but also an improvement to its environment.  For instance, I was instructed to design a transit hub for Santa Cruz.  To help give back to the city, I included retail and housing along with the center to give more jobs and residents to that district, all while at the same time using the original property given to me.  Most of the projects I have done worked fairly well with fitting into their proposed site.   The question that has come up to me on my most recent project is how to design something to help a city district while being brand new and stimulating growth for the city.

                The project in question is a masterplan design for a new city district in Baltimore, MD.  The flat land is on the bay with a long waterfront edge which sounds like a designers dream.  The issue coming up though is the neighborhood surrounding the proposed site.   It is on a lower income level than the new city would be, so how do you build or design something - that is meant to attract higher income traffic – right next to something old and run down.   If you just build up a five-star hotel next to a district that is in decline, then you will only have a split in the district.  This split will only grow and cause more division within the cities citizens.  So what do you do?  Do you build the new district with plans to demolish the existing homes and run out its residents?  Do you just find a new site to build your district and leave the existing neighborhood to decline in peace?  I think neither are an appropriate solution.  The first solution only masks the issues of the declining neighborhood.  You just run people out only to try and forget about them when you have the higher class of people move in.  The second solution just ignores the declining issue altogether.  In both situations, the original neighborhood gets the short end of the stick.  I think with a problem like this, you have an opportunity to somehow design a new district that improves upon the existing neighborhood while also allowing for new city growth to move in.  Having the new district come in as phases would help also by allowing the existing neighborhood to adapt and adjust for the coming changes.  You could start off with park-like features for the neighborhood to use while plans are made to bring in the new shops, offices, and hotel.  This could allow for the existing neighborhood to make the new district their home as well.  

                Even this kind of solution would be tough, though.  It is a very complex problem with no one right solution.  As the designer, I could just design a new district without considering the consequences and get my reward, but how does that help improve what is already there?  I believe as a student and one day as an Architect it is my duty to do no harm to society and to improve the existing site with my design.