Site Selection: 1318-24 Warren Street
Concept & Team Summary:
STL alley lovers are engaged in the community through design – as architects and educators; through production – as upcyclers and fabricators; and recreationally – as backyard gardeners, art conservationists, entrepreneurs, and foodies.
The conceptual premise of our proposal is to infill vacancy along/over alleys through an armature for public space and amenity. The adjacency to an alley serves to maximize growth potential and cohesion within a block.
It is fundamentally sustainable because it readily accepts changing program with little to no retrofitting, requires minimum resources, and maximizes the amount of services, functions, and other amenities a single, constructed space can house.
The design will be capable of accommodating neighborhood amenities on an as-needed basis (as defined by the local constituents) rather than a singular prescribed program. Having several uses layered into a single flexible intervention will reduce the void of activity in the block by creating active scenarios at multiple times of the day and year.
This concept is well suited to the goals of Land Lab and the issues of North St. Louis because it is scalable and replicable, and because it utilizes the alley- a consistent feature that identifies every neighborhood of the city – as an asset.