Dredgescaping Toledo
The Open Workshop Competition 2013
Team: Neeraj Bhati, Anesta Iwan, Jeremy Jacinth and Cesar Lopez
Our proposal incites the systemic confluence of the watershed, dredge-shed, and civic-shed into an overall soft shed — a malleable, resilient, transcalar, and productive system that leverages opportunistic relationships to make each shed more robust. This occurs through a series of tactics — tributaries, islands, and lakes.
Tributaries
A proposed series of connectors, or tributaries that provide an access easement through the terrain vague onto the water / ice directly also serve as storm water retention basins, to reduce the pressure on CSOs. In Riverside Park, Pen 7, and Pen 8, the tributaries hold and remediate the dredge material, while also forming a platform of public program.
Islands
Over the course of several years, the pontoons act as a distributed system to administer this solution around the Lake and restore it to its original state. Riverside Park is conceived as a remediation dredge research site as well as dock for a Dredge Research Vessel — a mobile island that allows the general public to take tours through the Maumee River and directly witness the process of dredging, remediation, and disposal.
Lakes
Currently there are over 979 foreclosed sites in Toledo, several of which are vacant. We propose that these waiting lands are operationalized by creating a perimeter curb of dredge-filled bags around the house and property line to allow stormwater to fill these sites and reduce pressure on the sewer system. In total this distributed lake consists of 84 acres of land, equivalent to Riverside Park, Edison and International Park. The public platforms could be inserted into these lots, resting on the curb foundations, to enable local neighborhood public program when not in use on the river. Riverside Park, Pen 7, and Pen 8 are further organized as a three-step phytoremediation wetland for stormwater and dredge remediation.
