2012: Transforming the Bridge | 12292

Firm: Buro-bc

Team: Romain Leal, Eric de Broche des Combes, Nicolas Gagnon

Location: Paris, France

Overview: A CITY IS NOT A PARKING

It seem that the Cuyahoga river has ever been seen, until now, as a utilitarian communication road, and its banks as tools or storage areas.
Bur since the periclitation of the industries that were at the birth of the Cleveland and made its richness, the river is no longer usefull. And so it disapears from the city landscape.

THE IMPORTANT IS NOT THE BRIDGE. IT’S THE GROUND.

Who cares about a 3,122 feet long tunnel? A bridge is a tool indeed, on the contrary of a river valley. The bridge is a link, a corridor to get from one point to another. Usually it’s a very fonctionnal space. That can be beautiful too. It’s the case here with the Superior Bridge. But it spent more than half of its life without any use. Maybe its conception was not very appropriated. Until now, it was not a problem. It’s not a building, it’s a link between two points.
If we fill it with programs, whatever they are, it will still remain a passage. For the best, it could be a street. But it’s a covered street. Just another one, and furthermore disconnected from the neighborhood at its two sides.

THE EMERGENCY IS TO TAKE CARE OF THE RIVER BANKS.

We believe that before thinking to give the bridge another function, the reconversion of the industrial Flats should be thought in its entirety.

THE CUYAHOGA VALLEY PROJECT

The Downtown city is full of voids. Parkings are the most prevalents uses around. If you add the forsaken spaces and ruins, you obtain all but a city. The Flats were made for working. Big works, industrial. But now it’s almost over, only a week percentage of the industrial cathedrals are still ongoing. More than 100 000 m2 of aerial parking lots are found in the neighborhood, along the Flats and the river. Only on the main peninsula, under and around the Detroit superior bridge, there are a thousand places.
We decided to erased from the surface of the land a part of them, to fill the lower level of the bridge with cars. In order to give back the ground floor to nobler uses, like leisure parks or equipments.
WATER + PARK + LEISURE

GIVE ME BACK THE FLOOR

330 PARKING PLACES AND A HUGE PARKING
Urbanism of the mark.
Maintain and / or rest on the remaining marks as much as possible. But on the other side, when it’s too tenuous, we allow us to build an up-to-date architecture, in the voids, the forsaken places.

A CITY IS MADE OF DENSITY

The the bridge, with its tentacles, become a real link, a “passage obligé” to get into the River Banks Park. One can park his car on the lower level of the bridge and reach the park whereever he wants, by using the big ramps.

THE VETERANS TENTACLES

There is no more efficient way to use the bridge, at least its lower deck, than a parking. This bridge was made for cars. It’s not exclusive: bikes of course could ride onto it. And there could host big events occasionnaly.
We know perfectly well that people in Cleveland will be disapointed. The expectatives are huge. People are are hungry to re-appropriate the bridge. But maybe it comes first by connecting it to wider space: the magnificient valley below.