Infra-lines
Syracuse University | ARC408
Course: Architectural Design VII
Professor: Jing Liu of SO-IL
Plans to tear down the I-81 highway in Syracuse of New York have been confirmed in 2017. However, the identity of the I-81 highway has become a symbolic separation between the downtown and the Syracuse University campus. The lack of connection was the problem, and our design strategies start to reconnect and redirect the people through the urban fabric. It is the manipulation of using the existing infrastructure to create new ones.
Infrastructure and Architecture are currently being used as a separate entity. Our initial concept was to create infrastructure that works to the vicinity, while programs stimulate adjacent programs within the Syracuse area. As the architecture begin to blend within the context, the transition space between the East and West will become less of a burden. First, the vehicular street under the I-81 has been removed, and created a light well in the center of the highway, which brings light under the large infrastructural slab.
The project hopes to reconnect the fragmented Van Buren Street to allow vehicular traffic flow, keep the current infrastructures, and provide an underground Supermarket, with terraces that lead down to it. The railway will stay intact, but with lighter structure that allows a pedestrian arcade underneath from Syracuse University campus to the downtown. Also underneath the arcade structure, an Interstate-81 entrance will run parallel to the railway, ramping up to join the highway.
