Site Selection: Lot 3. 2613 N. 14th Street
Concept & Team Summary:
The simple binomial operation of subtraction– further voiding existing voids can poetically alleviate vacancy. We propose the creation a reflecting pool on the site that passively but self-sufficiently, eases stormwater runoff , while acting as a generator of environmental, communal, aesthetic, micro-economic, and narrative value.
This concise idea is scalable and transferable, and feeds into a larger questions that we aim to test — can vacant sites play a part to ease the discharge of stormwater into the Mississippi? How can we make vacancy become generative with minimal moves, in a city that has had a long-standing unsettled relationship to water– with a river that is rendered ungenial, but with local man-made water features dotting the city that draws a constant patronage.
Our team is passionate about curating stories in these pools that reflect the capacity that resides in vacancy. We believe strongly in the potency of collaborative work across disciplines. We each bring various levels of individual and team experience via competitions and commissions, with using design to improve the environments that shape our cities. Team VoidedBy looks forward to opportunities to synthesize history, desuetude, potential, and design to contain stories of this neighborhood, and the city at large.