Firm: dlandstudio, architecture + landscape architecture, pllc & Trollback + Company
Project Director: Forbes Lipschitz
Client: International Competition
Status: Winning Entry
Description:
As North American Transit infrastructure begins reach the end of its design life a new opportunity exists to create a system of infra-sutures that stitch together the urban landscape. Infra-sutures generate sustainable urbanism, support productive economies, enable alternative energies, restore natural hydrology and reconnect habitats.
Operations that shift, span, submerge, and stilt transportation systems are the sutures. As pilings for new transport corridors are constructed they can go deep and become geothermal conduits that provide energy for new development and vertical agriculture. Stacked, higher density industry and specialized design manufacturing expands along the newly defined rail/habitat zones. Parks and linear green infrastructure systems stitch together neighborhoods, remediate pollutants, sequester carbon and provide continuous habitat. New open space, coupled with the expansion of the Lachine Canal waterfront, provide a platform for high density development. Green streets, blue roofs and constructed wetlands absorb water and prevent runoff, while buildings in low lying areas have freeboard to work with variable water levels. Infra-sutures change not only the productive capacity of transportation infrastructure, they create a new paradigm of experience for the city of the future.