This was a student project by Ashlee Zibert and Juliana Pollock for Halina Steiner, Parker Sutton, and Jesse Hartman's course LARCH 3940 in Autumn 2018. We propose Oxbow Bend becomes Trespass Park. Oxbow Bend is currently situated near Cleveland's industrial valley and used to function as a steel mill. As the industrial valley continues to develop into a metropolitan area, we want to preserve its industrial history. Part of the current experience of being in the industrial valley or in oxbow bend is feeling like you are trespassing. We want to preserve this feeling during the initial access into Trespass Park. We utilized different screening techniques along the site boundary to create a sense of enclosure from the surrounding development and to invoke a sense of uncertainty. We also want to preserve the essence of the site by reusing as much of the existing material as possible. Excess materials from the site are used to make stone piles that screen views from Carter road. We reuse material such as rail ties for defining path... Stairs into the site are lined with existing graffiti retaining walls on site. After descending the north stairs you come upon the reused bulkhead walls. These provide another layer of uncertainty before one reaches the stream and series of boardwalks. Our primary design goal is to provide a protected fish habitat for the Longnose Gar, Walleye, and Lake Sturgeon. Each fish currently struggles to reach their spawning grounds within the Cuyahoga, our site will provide them this space. The geometric pringle, because of it simple form, can serve a multitude of different uses. For example, it is used in the adult fish habitat as walls organized at 90 degree angles. Since the Longnose Gar struggles to make abrupt 90 degree turns, the walls prevent them from eating other fish in the area. The pringle is also seen in the spawning grounds. Because all three fish prefer to lay their eggs on rocky surfaces, we reduced the scale of the pringle to create a rocky surface that is ideal for collecting dirt and rocks. The current bulkhead condition is not conducive to fish. In order to create a suitable habitat, we replaced the bulkhead on our site with our geometric pringle walls. The bulkhead that we took out is reused as screening and acts as a maze above ground. The design of Trespass Park is organized along a grid. Creating the grid allows us to make connections through the site. For instance the fish wall maze and the boardwalk interact on the same grid, allowing the wall to become part of the boardwalk handrail. The grid in the cracked maze garden provides an organizational way to disrupt the concrete and define pathways. The garden mimics the existing rudimental vegetation growing on site. While visiting the site, we had the chance to climb the stairs of the old rail bridge. We wanted to create instances throughout our site to give visitors a chance to experience the cuyahoga in a similar way. Our boardwalks not only give visitors access to the crack garden but they allow visitors to experience the river from above and give a closer look at the fish below. Trespass Park is a safe spawning ground for fish and allows them to escape the danger of boat traffic and unfavorable bulkhead conditions. It is a place for visitors to interact with the Cuyahoga River, and embrace a small piece of Cleveland's industrial history.
