Place Making - City Light Towers

CITY TOWERS The Towers are skeletal steel structures wrapped in layers of stainless steel mesh and perforated metal. LED lights inside allow for a variety of dramatic lighting effects. Each Gateway has a color scheme that is expressed by painted elements by day and through artificial lighting at night. The Towers are capable of conveying information such as weather conditions, road warnings and the time of day, and of marking important occasions and celebrations. One to three Towers are arranged at each Gateway site in unique configurations specific to the site.

COLOR FIELDS Colored elements and color-coded environmental lighting dot the landscape around each Gateway area. The color theme is expressed during the day by colored signage, light poles, banners and other colored elements. By night, the freeway underpasses and other locations around the Gateway become bathed in immersive colored light. Light poles and roadside ground lighting accent the major onramps and connector roads.

NORTHWEST GATEWAY

CITY TOWERS A system of color-coded celebratory “City Towers” and environmental colorfields encircle the city to make a powerful statement about the periphery of the urban center and its connection to the network of freeways.

CITY TOWERS IN INDIANAPOLIS

Western Gateway

MONUMENT CIRCLE

Indianapolis Indiana 2006

TWIN ROUND-A-BOUTS

SKY LIGHT & EVENING GLOW

NORTH STAR

CITY TOWERS

Approaching the District from all directions the confused tangle of procession across, into and out of the City becomes more clear and smooth with the construction of two monumental round-a-bouts, Sky Light and Attucks Circle. Successfully applied in other Midwestern locations, this approach corrects JURZLQJ HQJLQHHULQJ FRQFHUQV DERXW WUDI¿F ÀRZ VSHHG DQG VDIHW\ DW WKLV FRQMXQFWLRQ of roads while also applying a more context sensitive solution to an out-dated design conceived and brutally erected in the 1970’s in what was then an economically depressed neighborhood.

CANAL PROMENADE NORTH STAR

SKY LIGHT/EVENING GLOW

The North Star has guided explorers, wanderers and seekers throughout history. ,W JDYH FRQ¿GHQFH WR WKRVH ZKR WRRN ULVNV across the unknown to seek a future in a new place. Just as the North Star anchored the Dipping Gourd that guided escaping slaves along the Underground Railroad, the North Star anchors the Canal Promenade. Providing a neighborhood landmark that orients and connects you to this place. This large sculptural cone, clad in woven stainless steel mesh and studded with thousands of small LED lights, symbolically speaks about people coming together from distant places to focus their energy in a collaboration to build a new future for themselves and this community.

PORTAL ENTRY Imagine passing through a series of great public spaces, green places that greet you with people, water, active at all times of the day, marked by sculptural landmarks and at night imbued with subtle glowing layers of designed light. This PORTAL ENTRY begins with reworking the entry/exit ramps of Interstate 65 in a dramatic fashion using twin URXQGDERXWV D SURYHQ WUDI¿F HQJLQHHULQJ WHFKQLTXH WR VORZ WUDI¿F DQG WR IHHG LW smoothly through high volume intersections. What emerges from this monumental shift is a major new public space, Attucks Circle, which promotes new Life Science Center development; connects neighborhoods; creates pedestrian links between Crispus Attucks High School, Life Sciences Center, and the Stutz artistic community; and, re-unites the severed Canal. Attucks Circle anchors the BOULEVARD, marking the juncture of West Street and Dr. King Boulevard above which the woven sculptural landmark, North Star rises. Attucks Circle paired with Sky Light is the pivot point that provides setting and context for the monumental forms of CITY TOWERS and its coordinated evening color ¿HOG RI OLJKW DORQJ WKH ,QWHUVWDWH  Attucks Circle creates a civic front door for Crispus Attucks High School providing an outdoor gathering place for students and faculty. Additionally, in a small gesture, toward the past, we suggest re-naming Eleventh Street in honor of United States Senator Charles Sumner, who advocated in Congress for the abolition of slavery and for securing equal education for blacks, and whose name once graced an IPS elementary school that stood nearby.

NORTH STAR

DESIGN STATEMENT

MONORAIL CHARLES SUMNER STREET

From the earliest time we have looked to the night sky for inspiration and for a way to guide us home. We envision navigating the city through a series of layered multiple landmarks, boulevards, and light. Entrance and passage are DFFHQWXDWHGWRUHGH¿QHWKHSURPLVHRIDQXUEDQ landscape that has become cluttered and unwelcoming. That passage begins at the perimeter RIGRZQWRZQZKHUHZHDUH¿UVWLQWURGXFHGWR the City along the inner loop of the freeway and river, punctuated by portals that are linked to the heart of downtown, Monument Circle. Each portal shares three essential components. First, a system of color-coded CITY TOWERS and HQYLURQPHQWDO FRORU ¿HOGV HQFLUFOHV WKH LQQHU loop of the freeway, announcing each portal destination, making a powerful statement about arrival. Second, the transition from freeway to city street marks the PORTAL ENTRY, where the WUDQVLWLRQWRSHGHVWULDQ¿OOHGVWUHHWVLVEDODQFHG ZLWK WUDI¿F PRGL¿HG E\ HQJLQHHUHG FDOPLQJ PHDVXUHV)LQDOO\HDFKVLJQL¿FDQWURDGHQJDJHG with the PORTAL becomes a grand driving experience, a BOULEVARD, introducing us to the diverse neighborhood Districts that compose Indianapolis. In this broad, layered manner we provide a template for a comprehensive approach WKDWFODUL¿HVWKHH[LVWLQJFLW\VWUXFWXUHDQGRIIHUV a cohesive, collective identity of place.

Western Gateway

ATTUCKS CIRCLE

BOULEVARD

Indianapolis Indiana 2006

BOULEVARD/MARKER

NORTH STAR

CITY TOWERS

RELINK CANAL Take the next step in Canal restoration by reconstructing the length between Sixteenth Street and Crispus Attucks. Maintain the water level at its historic elevation, near street level, enhancing the experience of the BOULEVARD and offering inviting views from the Interstate. Physically link the water coming from Broad Ripple with the existing Canal Walk through a series of channels and basins marked with generous views and dramatic features. Recapture portions of land currently devoted to the interstate and extend the pedestrian experience by the creation of a series of dynamic passages between the Canal Walk and the new Canal.

MONORAIL

BOULEVARD MARKERS Create a large, serial, Public Art work to mark the new BOULEVARD. Using affordable billboard construction technology erect these Markers within the median, commissioning sculptors, visual and conceptual artists from our region or the world, to create unique DQG ÀH[LEOH ZRUNV WR FHOHEUDWH WKH FXOWXUDO heritage of the District, the exploration of Life Sciences, and the evolving notions of Art’s leading edge.

ATTUCKS CIRCLE BOULEVARD

STORMWATER PLANTERS

CANAL

Embrace and apply innovative urban stormwater management techniques being tested across the Nation that use vegetated VZDOHV DQG LQ¿OWUDWLRQ SODQWHUV WR FDSWXUH percolate, clean and dramatically reduce the amount of runoff draining into the City’s storm sewers. Apply these principles to all newly constructed aspects of the BOULEVARD, including the round-a-bouts, and the medians.

CITY TOWERS

SKY LIGHT DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING BLVD.

ATTUCKS CIRCLE

LIFE SCIENCES CENTER CITY TOWERS

BOULEVARD When West Street was hijacked by Interstate 65 and turned into a giant entry/exit ramp, resulting in a wasteland of pavement, congested intersections, and a discouraging place for pedestrians to venture, the City was in a different era. We offer a new vision that reunites West Street and Dr. Martin Luther King Street to create a Grand DRIVING experience reminiscent to the parks and boulevard system ¿UVW FRQVWUXFWHG LQ ,QGLDQDSROLV LQ WKH HDUO\ 20th Century. The BOULEVARD we envision creates a seamless connection between the cultural/governmental/educational core and the twin Life Sciences Corridors of Senate Avenue/Canal and Sixteenth Street that offers DVORZHUDQGPRUHÀXLGGLIIXVLRQRIWUDI¿FLQWR the surrounding neighborhoods. To achieve this we must think at the same monumental scale that conceived the freeways. Alter the way Interstate 65, West Street and Dr. King Street connect to liberate the city street as an appendage of the Interstate and create a major corridor that builds on the Indiana Avenue Blueprint and provides a desirable pedestrian promenade of beauty and safety. In this Grand Plan, street furniture would go beyond the generic catalog items, seeking links to the remembered visual and oral heritage of the District and the future opportunities of the PHGLFDO DQG VFLHQWL¿F H[SORUDWLRQV RIIHUHG by Life Sciences.

NORTH STAR CAN

I-65 NORTH

AL

ATTUCKS CIRCLE

REET

WEST ST

CANAL

EMERGING FROM SKY LIGHT

SKY WALK NORTH STAR

SKY LIGHT

BUDGET/PHASING For this place to truly become the WESTERN GATEWAY it must be radically altered. The vision offered will require a more extensive initiative than the construction of a single object or landmark and a budget greater than proposed, but the resultant GATEWAY will be worth the larger effort. Our proposal suggest a close collaboration between the Rotary Club, the City of Indianapolis and Indiana State Highways, in which the following steps be taken: 1. City of Indianapolis: Immediate acquisition of the land necessary for re-linking the Canal along Dr. King Street.

DR. MARTIN LUTHER BOULEVARD

2. City of Indianapolis: Initiate discussions with the Indiana State Highways about the conceptual engineering/design of the twin round-a-bouts, Attucks Circle and Sky Light.

CANAL PROMENADE

3. Rotary Club and its Partners: Design, engineer and build an initial vertical landmark from those proposed with the monies raised from current fund raising efforts. 4. City of Indianapolis and Life Sciences Partnership: Initiate discussions about design and construction of the new Canal north of Crispus Attucks.

BOULEVARD & CANAL

Western Gateway

16 FT

STREET STORMWATER PLANTER

BOULEVARD

VARIABLE WIDTH MEDIAN

BOULEVARD

BOULEVARD MARKER

STORMWATER PLANTER

SCULPTURE/BENCH

BOULEVARD LIGHT COLUMN

Indianapolis Indiana 2006