<<back to New Archive   Whittier Challenge JBAD participated on one of five design teams named Competition Winners in the Whittier Challenge, a competition sponsored by the Columbus Neighborhood Design Assistance Center to stimulate ideas for development of the 160-acre peninsula that features a half mile of Scioto River frontage just south of downtown Columbus. Jonathan Barnes and Laurie Gunzelman of JBAD partnered with Karla Hedman Trott, Jane Amidon, Jay Martin and Charles Bennick to create the concept: Whittier Peninsula: Active Surface ½ Living System Éa reversal of traditional planning principles in which landscape is thought of as residual spaceÉ In their entry, the designers described their challenge: Jutting into the Scioto River just south of the downtown core, the Whittier Peninsula is an urban landscape long scarred by marginal activities. On terrain framed by rail and highway infrastructure, winged migration, homeless encampments and detritus from past and present industries overflow from areas of development. Like the river itself, these cling to the successional margin of the city. This condition provides grounds for change. Traces of actions pushed to the liminal edge are formal forces that organize an extended urban center into a corridor of retail, commerce and residence. Mixed-use/mixed income programming brackets the central canal, slipping, floating and overlapping in narrow bars across the site. Retail activity intensifies at the southern tip of the site. Five high rise towers integrate residential and service opportunities for special populations such as elderly and co-housing families. This micro city, a self-sufficient community,echoes a sense of movement derived from the river, the site's canal and rail history, and transience. Woven across the north-south thresholds, an infrastructure of bio-swales collect roof runoff from the micro city and the Brewery District and remediate excavated site soils. Water filters through the beds set into east-west plinths of public circulation, terminating in grey water cisterns at lower elevations. Stored water provides an overtly engineered feature that heightens the covert naturalism of the nearby MetroParks wetland chain. Recycled grey water services the Urban Wetlands Research Center located in the renovated Lazarus warehouse. The Whittier Challenge sought to assemble and disseminate a broad range of perspectives and speculations about the Whittier peninsula's redevelopment within the parameters that the intended programming affords. In addition, it was organized to augment the City of ColumbusÕs effort to identify a planning, design and development team to undertake the project. In February, the City of Columbus is set to award the right to develop the peninsula to one of two development concerns who submitted proposals. The sponsors and participants in the competition are eager to present their ideas to the winning development team and expect to influence the approach used in developing the site as well as the built results. It is hoped that this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to guide the ground-up development of 160 acres abutting a major urban center is executed with great care, forethought and innovation. Link:     153 EAST MAIN STREET SUITE 300 COLUMBUS, OH 43215 TEL: 614.228.7311 FAX: 614.228.7552