Reverse Engineering: Reconfiguring the Creek-Campus Interface

HONOR AWARD

STUDENT COLLABORATION

Chicago, IL | Pongsakorn Suppakittpaisarn, Student ASLA; John Whalen, Student ASLA; Qiran Zhang, Student ASLA; Fernanda Maciel, Tianyu He; Mari Mensa; Sarah Grajdura | Graduate | Faculty Advisor: Tawab Hlimi | University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign

PROJECT STATEMENT

Reverse Engineering is a collaborative design project between the students of Landscape Architecture, Architecture, Civil & Environmental Engineering, and Agricultural & Consumer Economics. The title Reverse Engineering is multifaceted, making reference to not only the highly engineered drainage and flood control conduit that is the Boneyard Creek flowing through the Engineering Campus of the University, but to a greater paradigm shift in design practice that is beginning to embrace the necessity of interdisciplinary collaboration, over the once domineering field of civil engineering, in addressing complex landscape systems. Lined with steel sheet piling, the ecology and morphology of the Boneyard Creek is a product of its urban watershed. Through a systemic understanding of the reciprocal relationships between watershed flows and creek form, a strategy is devised in recovering the Boneyard Creek ecologically and culturally through green infrastructure.

PROJECT NARRATIVE

Reverse Engineering is a collaborative design project between the students of Landscape Architecture, Architecture, Civil & Environmental Engineering, and Agricultural & Consumer Economics from the University. The title Reverse Engineering is multifaceted, making reference to not only the highly engineered drainage and flood control conduit that is the Boneyard Creek flowing through the Engineering Campus of the University, but to a greater paradigm shift in design practice that is beginning to embrace the necessity of interdisciplinary collaboration, over the once domineering field of civil engineering, in addressing complex landscape systems.

The project was initiated through the EPA’s Campus RainWorks Challenge, a design competition that promotes innovative applications of green infrastructure on campus landscapes as a tool for sustainability education. Through initial analysis of the UIUC campus landscape, we learned of an aging network of subsurface drainage infrastructure, areas of frequent flooding through sewer surcharge on the main quad, the necessity to renovate an aging network of stormwater infrastructure, a growing movement to reestablish native plant communities on the campus landscape as pollinator infrastructure, and a channelized creek flowing through the Engineering Campus that receives all stormwater runoff, and is listed on the EPA’s 303d list of impaired waters. Given the complexity of landscape conditions encompassing several disciplinary fields, we assembled a team of students in Landscape Architecture, Architecture, Civil & Environmental Engineering, and Agricultural & Consumer Economics, to take on the challenge.

Through systemic thinking, we conceived of an opportunity in synchronization. Our proposal presents a scenario where native prairie plant communities are hybridized with existing subsurface engineered infrastructures through the medium of green infrastructure, reducing the load on an aging stormwater network, while providing eco‐system services, imbuing the landscape with regional identity, and ultimately, transforming the morphology and ecology of the Boneyard Creek, from a conduit lined with steel sheet piling to a linear green infrastructural park mediating between urban stormwater systems and riparian eco-systems, rendering symbiotic and productive these once contested relationships.

"A nice engagement of the technical with the poetic."

- 2015 Awards Jury

PROJECT CREDITS

Additional Illustrators:
Samantha Meng Shui
Min Kang
Xinnan Jiang
Shurui Zhang

Assistant Site History Research:
Elizabeth Barr

Design Critics:
Eliana Brown
Mary Pat Mattson, ASLA