Explore Irish Town Bend

Objectives

We challenge entrants to present nationally prominent, architecturally significant design solutions for an under-utilized riverbed hillside and bluff along the western edge of Cleveland’s Industrial Flats. Successful solutions will provide the city with a connection to the natural and cultural histories of the industrial valley and provide an unprecedented vantage point from which to observe the next generation to the city’s evolution. The Project 2007 - Irishtown Bend competition site is roughly bound east-west by the Cuyahoga River and West 25th Street and north-south by the Detroit-Superior Bridge and the Cuyahoga Viaduct. Innovative and thoughtful solutions to the site’s challenges may include, but are not limited to, landscape design, building design, master planning, environmental design and artistic interventions. Entrants are encouraged to resolve important practical issues such as pedestrian and vehicular access, soils stabilization, view corridors and programming while exploring the site’s relevance within the greater Cuyahoga River Valley and as a national example of the natural cycle of regeneration of abandoned urban landscapes.

 

Among several challenges presented by the site, a few that participants are encouraged to address include:

- Identify design solutions or methods to address a rapidly shifting hillside at the edge of a navigable freight channel. The current instability of the soils could prompt designers to propose particularly invasive solutions as well as adaptive responses.

- Connect historic Ohio City and neighboring communities to the river’s edge. Consider modes and means to connect individuals to and through the site as well as important visual associations from several different perspectives.

- Explore the memory of the site’s vantage that witnessed Cleveland’s growth and decline, and offer an informed perspective to observe the next chapter of Cleveland’s urban story.

- Consider the natural regeneration of abandoned urban landscapes and what role it might play in defining the Cuyahoga Valley’s future.