North Coast Design Competition winners offer dredging solutions for the Toledo, Ohio waterfront

Winners were announced for the 2014 edition of the North Coast Design Competition: Designing Dredge. The competition was set up to encourage designers and urban planners to send their ideas on how to maximize the potential of public space for the riverfront in the historic city of Toledo, Ohio.

The competition resulted in one first prize winner, two runners-up, and two honorable mentions:

• First prize winner (US$2,000) : Re-Frame Toledo by Garrett Rock
• Runner-Up (US$500): Metabolizing Dredge by RDA Office (Nicholas Bonard + Christina Milos) and Claire Eddleman
• Runner-Up (US$500): Catching-Scape by Hansol Kang, Taekyung, Kim, Sungjin Na
• Honorable Mention: Landscape as Lure by Michael Ezban
• Honorable Mention: Terra Incognita by Daniel Arseneau, Sara Bonacquist, Jin Huang, and Kristine Pedersen

Check out the winning entries below.

First prize winner: Re-Frame Toledo
By Garrett Rock

Project statement: "Re-Frame Toledo is a proposal to reimagine how a deindustrialized cityscape can become a highly active and engaging series of public spaces, mixed-use neighborhoods, and Nature Reserves that help benefit the local ecology. Harnessing the large scale of local dredging, Re-Frame Toledo proposes to incorporate phytoremediation with the dredge cycle as an active means of cleaning sediment. Countering industrial pollution and phosphorus contamination from fertilizers, a series of cleaning sites including the Great Lakes Center for Dredge Research are established."

"The Center additionally functions as a public forum and gathering space, a multimedia exhibition center, and a research facility.Once dominated by infrastructural and industrial landscapes, the vacated riverfront has the potential to embody the public face of a renewed Toledo. Dredge material is incorporated into a series of new articulated topographies that engage the public with the water. A continuous riverwalk on the north shore links downtown with the Center for Dredge Research in a sequence of public attractions and connections to existing neighborhoods. The south shore is dominated by the new Marina District, a vibrant mixed-use neighborhood that benefits from its central location and interrelationship with the riverfront."

"Former CDF sites are transformed into Nature Reserves that recreate native landscape typologies—Lowland Deciduous Forests and Freshwater Wetlands—of the Great Lakes Region. To further improve the local water ecology and supplement lost habitat, a riparian zone is constructed along the riverfront to mitigate stormwater runoff and filter the Maumee River as it flows into Lake Erie.

Re-Frame Toledo ultimately provides a comprehensive framework for the city where the riverfront can be reassembled with dredge material to delineate relevant urban and landscape processes in context with the Maumee River."

Runner-Up: Metabolizing Dredge
By RDA Office (Nicholas Bonard + Christina Milos) and Claire Eddleman

Project statement: "The majority of the 1 Million CY of sediment dredged each year is disposed of by open-water placement.  Recently, both the Ohio EPA and governor have called for a more sustainable solution to handling Toledo’s dredge. With political will shifting against use of this technique, and dwindling space remaining in existing CDFs, Toledo desperately needs a long range plan that can handle the harbor’s dredge requirements without the need for open-lake placement."

"Our proposal views dredge as a renewable resource – unique to Toledo – that forms the basis of a transformed urban structure and vibrant lake economy.  Dredge from the harbor will be placed into cells, forming a regional network that grows each year.  Every cell (one of nine cell types) is strategically placed to address a regional issue or aid in the expansion of the public realm and waterfront access.  Shoreline protection cells, for example, are placed on the lake to protect frequently flooded areas.  The revetments that are part of these cells also double as a recreational causeway that connects to the Maumee River Trail and provides access to the 2,000 acres of new habitat created by the various wetland cells." 

Urban forest cells replace impervious surface parking lots in Toledo’s downtown allowing for better stormwater drainage and access to public space.  The dimensions and properties of each cell type is based on preliminary construction drawings in the THSMUP. Metabolizing Dredge redesigns the engineered dredge cell as the building block of Toledo’s vibrant urban future."

Runner-Up: Catching-Scape
By Hansol Kang, Taekyung, Kim, Sungjin Na

Project description:

"STRATEGY - CATCHING WHAT?

1. Sediments: Minimizing sedimentation along shipping channel. We propose a machinery landscape that captures sediments. Undulating platforms and redefined underwater topography manipulate the river flow and pattern for sediment’s deposition.
2. Stormwater: Regulating stormwater: Gentle slope and vegetated platforms manages stormwater from inland before it goes into river. Platforms with various types slow down, filter grey-water and release purified water into river.
3. Program: Intertwining waterfront with surrounding context: Each site has distinct characteristics in terms of adjacent city fabric. New waterfront   landscape will be closely connected to surrounding context and function with various programs accordingly."

"Annual dredging amount is guideline for undulating shape of new waterfront. Stormwater overflow frequency and future waterway plan of Toledo city provide clue for hydrologic feature of this project. Existing context is index for organizing program arrangement over the sites.

DREDGED MATERIAL USAGE: As first step, dredged soil from shipping channel and riverfront will be used for construction of riverfront landscape. Then, it will be applied for generating green strips and channel system in city. After completion of those steps, dredged soil will provide source material for regional development projects."

"CATCHING EFFECT 

1. Dredge - With redefined riverfront, sediments of Maumee river will be naturally captured along the river-shore rather than to be piled up on main shipping channel. Dredging operation will be effective and we can reduce huge effort to maintain shipping channel.
2. Stormwater - Strip of green-space with channel system penetrates into city for stormwater’s first treatment. Then platforms along riverfront will hold, filter and release it into river. Also expanded water capacity of open-space prevents issue of mixing between stormwater and sewage.
3. Program - According to existing city fabric, new landscape along riverfront will be enriched with various programs and be connected to Toledo city tightly."

Competition jury:

• Andrew Moddrell, Principle PORT Architecture | Urbanism Chicago, Illinois
• Kathy Velikov, Director | Assistant Professor RVTR | University of Michigan Ann Arbor, Michigan
• John Hull, PE. Chairman Hull and Associates Toledo, Ohio
• Joe Cappel, Director Cargo Development Toledo Port Authority
• Dennis Garvin, Commissioner Parks, Recreation + Forestry City of Toledo

Images via northcoastdesigncompetition.com

See the Honorable Mention entries below. You can see each of their project statements here and here.