reviving the dialogue between the urban & its post industrial riverfront | scranton peninsula, cleveland, oh. | 2015-2016

The rivers that ran through America’s nineteenth-century cities were hubs of waterborne commerce. The beating hearts that emerged and maintained the livelihood of developing cities. The turn towards an industrial collapse has left post-industrial landscapes and the riverfronts they reside on with a history of exploitation. The capitalization these urban edges have endured, combined with unclaimed spaces, has created a swath of voids that separate the city from the riverfront. In turn, these edges are left developmentally isolated from their surroundings. Gradients of density, variety in program, increased levels of accessibility, and organization to the complexity of elements at play within the framework of the city are necessary in order to revive a consistent dialogue between the riverfront edge and its existing urban context.  In order to correct the dialogue, the thesis proposal seeks to advance the city’s economy through active enhancement of its ecology and its urban infrastructure by modifying and managing the edge of the Scranton Peninsula in Cleveland, OH. This approach utilizes a strategy of productive re-colonization combining economic, ecological and social initiatives to transform the Cuyahoga River Valley into a new river landscape infrastructure that enhances and expands the ecological value of the river corridor, while simultaneously serving to reorient the economy and urban form of the city of Cleveland.