Welcome
Welcome to the second annual Cleveland Design Competition - Project 2008: interPLAY. The annual Cleveland Design Competition is an open, anonymous, single-stage, ideas competition founded as a tool for generating ideas around under-utilized sites and showcasing the talent of emerging designers on Cleveland's built and unbuilt environment. Through the generous and sustained support from competition partners and sponsors, the 2008 Cleveland Design Competition hopes to build on the excitement generated from last year’s challenge; becoming an increasingly useful tool for implementing ideas for these sites and others like them.
Competition Mailing Address:
ATTN: Cleveland Design Competition
c/o Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative
820 Prospect Avenue, 2nd Floor
Cleveland, Ohio 44115
Competition Email Address:
Introduction
"…cities today have many problems. Recreation is, simultaneously, one of those problems and a way to alleviate many of the other problems…" (Friedberg Play and Interplay)
Cleveland, Ohio’s Detroit Shoreway neighborhood is changing. In the last decade, the neighborhood has seen significant investment in arts and culture, renovation of aging housing, and the replacement of lakefront industrial areas with housing and public spaces. As urban neighborhoods like Detroit Shoreway become more economically and generationally diverse, it becomes increasingly important to provide viable, active community play environments that bring together residents of different ages, classes and backgrounds. Too often, play environments are poorly planned and generically programmed. This presents an incredible opportunity for designers to invent truly imaginative play spaces that bring diverse communities together.
Project 2008: interPLAY challenges entrants to propose active and passive recreation along an existing multipurpose path that connects Cleveland's west side neighborhoods to Edgewater Park and Lake Erie. Entrants must design an intergenerational playscape that activates the residual space around the pathway; enhancing one of Cleveland’s few pedestrian connections to the lakefront.
Site
The Project 2008 : interPLAY competition site, located a few minutes west of downtown Cleveland in the Detroit Shoreway neighborhood, is situated at the northern terminus of West 65th Street at Father Caruso Drive. Owned by the City of Cleveland, the site at the West 65th street bike tunnel currently sees a great deal of use as a connection from the neighborhood to the lakefront. At approximately one acre, the portion of the site south of the Norfolk Southern rail lines is bound by West 65th Street, the rail lines to the north, and the industrial property to the East. The approximately one acre portion of the site north of the rail lines is bound by the significant grade change and vegetation buffer to the east, the rail lines to the south, and an eastbound on-ramp to West Shoreway (State Route 2).
In 2002, the City of Cleveland updated the City’s Master Plan in an effort to create a more accessible lakefront. “Connecting Cleveland: The Lakefront Plan,” identified the conversion of West Shoreway to a 35 mile per hour boulevard as a priority project for the Ohio Department of Transportation and the City of Cleveland. Among the details include at-grade intersections, bicycle paths and sidewalks, and new park space. While the current West Shoreway conversion does not physically alter the competition site, entrants are encouraged to anticipate future plans for the lakefront.
In July of 2003, $850,000 in improvements to the West 65th Street bicycle tunnel were completed; demonstrating a commitment to the Lakefront Plan and desire to connect the City’s bike and pedestrian pathways.
Challenge
Project 2008: interPLAY entrants must illustrate a vision for intergenerational recreation along the multipurpose pathway at West 65th Street. While the pathway at the competition site is already used by residents and visitors of all generations and backgrounds, its sole function as a passageway to the lakefront precludes interaction and sustained activity. Designs will create a destination for adults, teenagers and children with inventive play landscapes, pavilions, architecture, and/or artistic interventions for fun and leisure, activity and amusement. Questionable assumptions about how activities and users must be segregated leave many neighborhood parks and plazas underutilized - only occupied for limited times of day (or seasons of the year), used by a single age group, or serving singular skills and interests. Designers should go beyond existing convention to propose inclusive and creative solutions that elevate community play design. Designs must:
- Engage the existing path while maintaining its use as a pedestrian and bicycle connection and enhancing the experience without re-engineering the meandering pathway or affecting the impact of the beloved mosaics.
- Address complex infrastructure adjacencies without compromising their current function. Where possible, solutions should safely embrace this existing infrastructure and explore the opportunities its proximity presents.
- Ensure maximum accessibility for users with a variety of disabilities. While it is suggested by the Access Board that assistive devices be used to accommodate users with disabilities, we encourage entrants to develop designs integral to programmed uses to minimize the need for additive devices.
- Extend use of the site through multiple seasons and times of day; simply because it is rainy, cold, dark, or hot, doesn't mean the site is not usable.
- Employ the sustainable use of resources and materials for construction and ensure efficient maintenance and operation of the playscape.
Download the Competition Brief to read more (409KB PDF)