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Teri Nagel, College of Architecture
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Chattanooga Studio Project Wins Planning Award
Students lend ideas for urban redevelopment.
Atlanta (October 21, 2009) — The Georgia Tech Urban Design Studio led by architecture professor Richard Dagenhart and city and regional planning professor Perry Yang recently won the 2009 Outstanding Student Project Award from the Tennessee Planning Association for its research and proposals for Chattanooga’s Downtown Westside.
With financial backing from the Benwood Foundation in Chattanooga and the City of Chattanooga, RiverCity Company engaged Georgia Tech to explore the inherent potential and opportunity to be found in the Westside of Chattanooga—the area between Highway 27 and the Tennessee River.
A historic trajectory has lead to the decline of the site over many decades. Once a vibrant part of the manufacturing base of the city, Westside is a down and out space.
With the success of the Riverwalk, the Aquarium, and numerous other efforts on the part of RiverCity among others in Chattanooga, downtown Chattanooga has become a vibrant place with new housing and other amenities coming on line. The success has even followed to the North Shore with the opening of the bridge and Renaissance and Coolidge parks. How could Chattanooga continue to connect the city to the river? How does that success spread to Westside as an opportunity for a continuation of Chattanooga’s success? Specifically, how would Chattanooga knit the pieces of the city to create a whole?
Georgia Tech faculty and students met on several occasions with groups in Chattanooga, including the Mayor, council members, city department heads, officials from RiverCity Company, and interested local citizens.
The studio prepare alternative urban design proposals for the redevelopment of Chattanooga’s Downtown Westside. Four critical issues framed the project analysis and design proposals:
- Highway 27’s and its role in dividing Downtown from the Westside;
- Isolated and concentrated public housing and subsidized housing on the Westside;
- The role and design of the Tennessee Riverpark as it expands along the Westside; and
- Stormwater management design of public space to address the combined sanitary and storm sewer problem on the Westside.
Students involved in the studio included Cassie Branum; Aria Ritz Finkelstein; Heather Hussey-Coker; Claire Thompson; Robert Thorn; Maria Kovacheva; David Caimbeul; Binh Duong; Jeremy Wilhelm; Alexis Faraci; and Joseph Winters.
The Georgia Institute of Technology is one of the nation's premier research universities. Ranked seventh among U.S. News & World Report's top public universities, Georgia Tech's more than 19,000 students are enrolled in its Colleges of Architecture, Computing, Engineering, Liberal Arts, Management and Sciences. Tech is among the nation's top producers of women and African-American engineers. The Institute offers research opportunities to both undergraduate and graduate students and is home to more than 100 interdisciplinary units plus the Georgia Tech Research Institute.
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